This week is a big step forward for the OpenStack community as we come together at the Design Summit to share our ideas about building the Essex release, the current development release from OpenStack scheduled for final release in the spring of 2012. I’m at the OpenStack Summit, and the excitement and feeling of participation in the creation of this important new platform is everywhere.
So what am I doing there and what is Cisco doing with OpenStack? First off, OpenStack represents Cisco’s strategy in action, helping customers build and use clouds. Our partnering effort in OpenStack represents a big part of our progress this year. By our efforts, we are ensuring that OpenStack performs well with Cisco technologies, and hopefully will contribute to the advancement of the cloud computing through abstractions and APIs that enable rich use of networking technologies and services.
Here are a few highlights of Cisco’s involvement to date, all of which will play into the activity in Boston this week:
New York City always has lots going on, but if you’re heading there next week, don’t miss all the great activities we have going on at Interop 2011. We’ll be focusing on several timely IT trends and issues, but our top billing will be Bring Your Own Device.
In fact, if you saw my blog from the past week, Not Your Mother’s Connected World, you might remember one of the statistics I cited from our 2011 Cisco Connected World Technology Report: Two-thirds of students (66%) and more than half of employees (58%) cite a mobile device (laptop, smartphone, tablet) as “the most important technology in their lives.” This attitude, plus the overall proliferation of mobile devices up the ante for IT managers as they look to find new ways of managing the network.
To see what else we have in store in for you next week, watch the video below.
Thinking back to all the Cisco PR launches I’ve led in the past 11+ years, the launch of Cisco IPICS back in 2005 definitely ranks in my top five because the benefit to emergency responders is so compelling. Essentially what Cisco IP Interoperability and Collaboration System (IPICS) does is allow emergency dispatchers to within minutes create “virtual talk groups” so emergency responders (fire, police, ambulance and other public safety agencies) that come in from different states and countries to respond to an emergency or natural disaster can all communicate with each other. And the beauty of the solution is that the emergency responder can use their own communication device which they’re already familiar with as Cisco IPICS can connect all push-to-talk radios, mobiles, traditional and IP phones and laptop/PC clients together.
So of course I was particularly excited to hear that the New Zealand Police have rolled out Cisco IPICS and have already seen some impressive results.
Do you ever have those mornings when you are certain someone has a hidden camera pointed directly at you to catch all of the blunders and bloopers you make as you diligently try to get from point A to point B? I had one such morning recently as I was making my way into the office.
The first call from my colleague came as I was pulling out of my driveway. A series of calls followed as the issue at hand bubbled up. With safety of utmost concern, I pulled over on a delightful tree lined street in our neighborhood to continue the calls. It soon became clear that I was going to be in my new roadside office for awhile.
This is where I get excited about the possibility of mobile technology.
Here I was in my mini-van with a sleeping infant, snug as bug in the back (listening to lullabies delivered by Pandora’s mobile app)…and I was tackling an issue, effectively, because I had all the tools I needed at my fingertips.
I watched and reviewed a video, sent real-time feedback to the editor and shared an updated plan with the team using Webex’s mobile app. No time lost, no interruption to the workflow.
I breathed a sigh of relief as I pulled away from my roadside office and continued on my way to daycare and then the office, knowing the issue that arose an hour before was now resolved.
You never know when or where you might find yourself in your very own roadside office, and while it’s not the ideal place to conduct business, take comfort in knowing mobile technology will be sitting right there with you in the passenger’s seat…as you make those calls and close that deal.
Describe your roadside office. What technology makes it work for you?
Cisco is the first large ICT provider to publicly announce its support for Australia’s National Disability Insurance Scheme (NDIS) by joining the ‘EveryAustralianCounts’ campaign. Cisco’s alignment with the campaign is natural given that, as a large-scale company, it mirrors society and many of its employees across Australia and New Zealand either have a disability, know of, or are caring for a loved one with a disability.
Communication and collaboration technologies are well placed to make organisations and businesses disability confident, as it is these technologies that can transform how people with disabilities connect, communicate and collaborate at home and in the workplace. In today’s increasingly networked world, access to technology is a marker of social and workplace integration, so technology can greatly aid people with disabilities to get equal access opportunities for learning, employment and social inclusion so that they can fulfill their individual potential.
Did you know that two out of five college students say the Internet is more important than dating, hanging out with friends, partying and listening to music? This is just one of the many findings from the Cisco Connected World Technology Report. Discover the rest of the findings here.
Unfortunately, there’s no sure-fire formula for creating viral videos. But videos that offer useful information, not just entertainment, can spark the most interest among customers. What B2B videos have you found most useful?
Science fiction networks have traditionally menaced humanity. But when they fail, we realize our reliance on them and how they connect us both singly and together. What is your favorite “science fiction network”?
For more than 25 years, Cisco has systematically invested in customer relationships and developed a reputation for doing whatever it takes to deliver on its commitments. Learn more about how Cisco sets itself apart from the competition.
Take a look at what The Network will be highlighting next week!
The Future of the Social Web: Social Graphs Vs. Interest Graphs: Social networks seemed poised to take over the Web. In reality, they still have a ways to go in delivering targeted services to customers. Check out this new feature on Monday!
Now Playing on the Intranet: Video for Internal Communications. Internal communications professionals are always looking for ways to get time-strapped employees to pay attention to company news. Today, enterprise social media tools have turned internal communications into a two-way dialogue, allowing employees to participate in discussions, share ideas, and ask questions.
And, that’s a wrap! Have a great weekend everyone!
The 2011 Australian Reseller News (ARN) IT Industry Awards were held last night at the Hilton Hotel in Sydney. The stellar event was a great representation of the Australian IT community with over 630 people in attendance. This installment of the annual awards was especially important as it was also a celebration of ARN’s 20 years in publication.
We were very excited this year as Cisco had more finalists for the awards than any other vendor, with three Cisco employees listed as finalists for Personal Innovation categories. Cisco was also a finalist in the Best Emerging Technology Initiative for our Cloud Managed Services Channel Program. Whilst Saurabh Mehta – Cisco Technical Leader and Jessie Cu – Cisco Technical Expert missed out on awards for technical excellence and customer service respectively, they can be extremely proud to have been named as finalists in these prestigious personal innovation award categories.
Post by Gordon Feller, Director, Urban Innovations, Cisco Internet Business Solutions Group
Perhaps more than ever before, public sector leaders are concerned about their organizations’ ability to respond to new policy and service demands, budget reductions, and the need to engage new technology platforms for innovation and service delivery.
This scenario is further complicated by today’s uncertain and volatile socioeconomic environment, and by the growing imperative to make sense of the complex interplays that link natural ecosystems with the infrastructures that move our energy, people, goods, waste, and water.
Resilence has become priority No. 1 for the public sector—both in terms ofcoping with unexpected shocks (economic, natural, environmental), and in having the agility and capacity to anticipate and address the risks and opportunities that accompany big transitions and socioeconomic changes.
These challenges and opportunities are major themes at this week’s Meeting of the Minds 2011 conference in Boulder, CO (September 22-23). Presented by Toyota, with global co-sponsorship by Philips, Deutsche Bank, and Cisco, Meeting of the Minds allows participants from the public, NGO, and private sectors to engage in lively discussions on how to “connect the dots” across key sectors: mobility, building systems, energy and water resources, and finance.
More than 200 leaders from a dozen countries will explore a rich variety of smart design, planning, policy, and technology innovations that enable cities, regions, and nations to respond to increasingly difficult challenges.
As a global sponsor of Meeting of the Minds 2011, Cisco and its global consultancy, the Internet Business Solutions Group (IBSG), have helped shape the conference agenda and will present recent thought leadership on topics including “The Resilient Society,” Urban Innovation, Connected Vehicles, and Work-Life Innovation.
When I was entering college, fax machines were kind of a big deal. Mobile phones were something you might glimpse in a movie about spies or some super wealthy person. It was the nascent years for the world’s 1G network. But for me and my friends, compact discs were the thing—a whole new way to enjoy music. And if you took our wheels away, we were lost. Contrast this with today’s young adults for whom the internet has become deeply fundamental. More than half surveyed in a new Cisco Connected World Technology Report say the internet is more integral to their lives than cars, dating, and partying. Wow!
The 2011 Cisco Connected World Technology Report looks at the relationships between human behavior, the Internet, and networking’s pervasiveness. The objective: to determine how the next generation of workers will influence everything from business communications and mobile lifestyles to hiring, corporate security, and companies’ abilities to compete.
In 2005, The Anita Borg Institute for Women in Technology published a report entitled “Where are the Women in Information Technology?” Six years later, we’re still asking that same question—the focus of an article this week in Bloomberg/Business Week. Shockingly, the article reports that although women hold about half the jobs in the U.S. economy, they represent less than 25 percent of science, technology, engineering and math positions. Ultimately, we need to not only stem the flow of women leaving the industry, but also leaving the associated fields of study in college.
Sunday evening, at a fundraiser dinner, a friend of mine who works for another technology company raised this same question. Looking around the room, she pointed out several of the brightest minds in technology, who happen to be women, and questioned why they weren’t more visible within their organizations and within the industry. Clearly, there’s an opportunity for our industry to make a big shift, but what will it take?
I just arrived home from a couple of days visiting customers in Asia and I was a little surprised by all the attention around Cisco’s increased competitive posture. It seems some people are surprised Cisco is calling out its smaller networking competitor by name, although I’ve heard few mentions of their Wall Street Journal cartoon advertisements ridiculing Cisco a while back. I guess that didn’t count.
What matters most to customers is whether their networking partner is ready right now to help them adapt to, and benefit from, the massive network-centric changes that are transforming their businesses and their customers’ businesses.
My recent trip to Asia provided some great examples of exactly what I’m talking about:
First, Mobility is red hot. Tablet growth is exploding as the shift from the PC to new consumer based devices accelerates. With our service provider customers, the new Mobile Packet Core is THE number one conversation. The Cisco ASR 5000, combined with our CRS-1 and CRS-3, is the most innovative technology available to handle this explosion of mobile data and develop new services to help service providers monetize mobile content.
Twenty of the world’s top twenty five mobile operators are already deploying the Cisco ASR 5000 and this number is only going to increase. We also hear growing interest in Asia for SP Wi-Fi as an alternate method to address the escalating requirements for mobile bandwidth and data services. For sure, there’s a lot of competition for the mobile packet core and SP Wi-Fi, but our smaller competitor from Sunnyvale just doesn’t seem to be relevant in these conversations.
Cloud is on fire as enterprises accelerate their migration to private cloud to capture the economic, operational and agility benefits. In this area Cisco innovations have rocked the industry. Let’s check the facts. From a decade long position of undisputed leadership in data center switching based on our flagship Catalyst family of Ethernet switches, Cisco led the market with the first purpose built data center core switch and operating system, the Nexus 7000 with Cisco NX-OS software. Then we led the market with the introduction of Unified Fabric on the Nexus 5000, the first to consolidate data center networks over FCoE. We also introduced the first data center fabric extension on the Nexus 2000. And the Nexus 1000 was the industry’s first distributed virtual switch for VMware environments. The Nexus 3000 ultra low-latency switch has achieved immediate success in financial services customers and at massively scalable data centers.
For more than 25 years, Cisco has systematically invested in customer relationships and developed a reputation for doing whatever it takes to deliver on its commitments. Learn more about how Cisco sets itself apart from the competition. Networks matter more now than ever, and so does your choice of networking partner.
Just two months ago, we introduced the ASR 9000 System, a 96 Tbps system featuring our new Network Virtualization Technology that allows Service Providers to simplify operations while improving service delivery. The system, with its multi-dimensional scalability, increased service velocity and carrier-class reliability, has been a huge success with service providers.
As Cisco re-focused, reorganized and became stronger and leaner in the past two quarters, maintaining trust with our customers and partners was always front of mind for me.
For more than 25 years, Cisco has systematically and passionately invested in customer relationships and developed a reputation for doing whatever it takes to deliver on our commitments. We operate as our customers want us to: as business partners, not just as a vendor. We’re in it to win together and drive shared business success.
That philosophy is a big reason why Cisco consistently ranks No. 1 among technology vendors for overall performance and quality of products and services in studies of customer satisfaction.
It’s also a big reason why our customers have stood by us as we faced challenges in the past year. I have been consistently impressed -- and humbled -- by how many customers have told me they want Cisco to succeed; to continue to innovate and to be an even stronger business partner than before.
Recognizing the power of those trusted relationships also made us more resolute in the face of competitors who consistently broke their promises as if that were the norm in business today. I’ll say more about that in a moment.
Management guru Tom Peters once offered a simple formula for building trusted relationships in business: “Under promise and over deliver.” Sounds simple, but has a wiser piece of business advice ever been given?
This week the U.S. celebrated Labor Day, a holiday that, according to Wikipedia, celebrates the economic and social contributions of workers. To my mind, that translates to productivity. But interestingly, on the holiday that marks the end of summer, I came across this interesting piece: “Hey, America: Take a Vacation!”
The takeaway: compared to other countries around the globe, Americans not only get less vacation time from their employers, they don’t even use up all their allowances. And yet, as CNN Reporter Fareed Zakariah notes, “America’s growth historically has been fueled mostly by investment, education, productivity, innovation and immigration. The one thing that doesn’t seem to have anything to do with America’s new growth is a brutal work schedule.” It really makes you pause.
So this leads me to a series of What Ifs: What if, instead of logging the extreme hours that we do, we used that time to revitalize ourselves—to become more productive in our family relationships; to explore hobbies or creative interests that train our brains to work in new ways; to pursue volunteer opportunities that can contribute to the betterment of others. What if we took time to do things that truly brought us together as fellow citizens to help build stronger communities?
