Successful IT managers today and in the future need to quickly adapt to changing business strategies. But how does IT increase efficiency, support more applications and provide additional services with flat or decreasing IT budgets?
In my previous blog, I discussed how Cisco, EMC, NetApp, and VCE introduced converged infrastructures to increase IT efficiency and significantly reduce data center costs. I also addressed the breakdown of IT time and resources between management and maintenance (75 percent) and value-add services (25 percent). So how does IT flip that ratio and spend more time on innovation and less on routine administration?
Watch our new video to learn how Cisco Cloupia—through automated, comprehensive management of converged infrastructure solutions based on Cisco UCS and Nexus—empowers IT to better align quickly with business strategy. By doing so, the software helps drive a positive shift in that 75:25 ratio, providing infrastructure administrators with greater agility and flexibility.
There are a number of converged infrastructure management solutions, but Cisco Cloupia is unique in the industry by delivering:
•Simplicity
In less than 4 hours, you can be experiencing the benefits of automated converged infrastructure management with Cisco Cloupia. The solution installs in less than 1 hour without any service engagement. (In one of our labs at Cisco, the solution was installed in 15 minutes.) Following installation and 2-3 hours of training, conducted by our partners, you can be experiencing all the benefits of the software.
•Comprehensive Management
Cisco Cloupia is the only solution on the market today that manages the leading converged infrastructures from Cisco, EMC, NetApp, and VCE from the same management console. Today’s data centers are heterogeneous, and management tools need to accommodate multiple vendor solutions. Cisco Cloupia enables you to choose the best converged infrastructure solution to meet your business requirements.
•Single pane of glass
Using one tool that manages both physical and virtual compute, network, storage, and virtualization reduces complexity and training time for your staff, helping drive that shift in the 75:25 ratio towards innovation.
•Model-based orchestration
Cisco Cloupia’s unique model-based orchestration enables IT teams to build and execute repeatable physical and virtual infrastructure workflows without complex custom scripts and expensive system integration engagements.
•Greater IT Management and Control
Cisco Cloupia can manage multi-tenant or secure multi-tenant environments, permitting virtualized and non-virtualized workloads to securely run side-by-side while their associated resources remain independent.
As data centers seek to innovate and meet changing business requirements, they need automation and management to ensure that they experience the full potential of their converged infrastructure. These are just some of the ways that Cisco Cloupia can help. To learn more, go here.
Another week of all the technology that’s fit to whiteboard, Engineers Unplugged features Chris Wahl (@chriswahl) and Steve Kaplan (@ROIDude) talking through cloud stack options, including Cisco Cloupia and Cisco Intelligent Automation for Cloud (IAC) as well as VMware’s vCloud Director (vCD) and vCloud Automation Center (vCAC). It’s ___aaS in the new cloud world. Great conversation from the partner perspective. Here we go:
Chris Wahl and Steve Kaplan with the very first UaaS (Unicorn as a Service). Is there anything the cloud can not do?
Welcome to Engineers Unplugged, where technologists talk to each other the way they know best, with a whiteboard. The rules are simple:
Episodes will publish weekly (or as close to it as we can manage)
This week, the third and final chapter of the most recent Cisco Connected World Technology Report was released. This global survey asked 1,800 IT professionals in 18 countries across a broad range of industries to share their views on the potential challenges of Big Data and beyond. In a previous post , I discussed the evolution of Big Data and the importance of extracting value out of Data in Motion to create new applications that matter here and now, in real-time. ( Beyond Big Data : Mastering Data in Motion for Positive Business Impact)
Just as the Internet of Everything is bringing together people, process, data, and things to make networked connections more relevant and valuable, the same is true of Big Data — the ability to turn information into actions will create key advantages for businesses, individuals, and countries. This latest CCWTR report provides crucial insight into how IT professionals view this sea change.
Two in three of the survey respondents indicated that Big Data will continue to be a strategic priority for their company in 2013 and for the next five years. Globally, IT professionals believe that Big Data will not only help improve decision making in their own companies but that it will also increase the global competitiveness of their countries. Countries such as China, Mexico, and India saw the strongest correlation between Big Data and national competitive advantages (over 80% of respondents agreed).
Data Security and Risks
Some of the most interesting findings are about the challenges that IT professionals associate with Big Data. More than one in four respondents globally said that data security and risk management are a major concern. Protecting Big Data is a big challenge. Data resides everywhere; it is in the cloud, in mobile devices, and in social networks. Data comes from disparate sources in different shapes and forms. Multi-perimeter protection is key but securing data and protecting users’ privacy goes beyond the traditional IT view. Big Data brokers buy data sets from stores where you shop and can sell it to anybody. Sensitive data is protected, but much of your information can be bought and sold without any input or permission from you. While making the data anonymous can protect an individual’s privacy,
re-identification examples show the risks of open data and crowdsourcing.
Better IT Policies
Another particularly interesting finding in the survey is the importance of better policies and improved security to help companies manage the increased traffic related to Big Data but also mobility and video. Only 41% surveyed reported that they were ready for the surge in network traffic. Over 27% say they will need better policies and security measures, and 20% said they will need more bandwidth. These results confirm that bigger pipes alone are not sufficient to handle the data deluge coming from a variety of sources at a high velocity. An intelligent information infrastructure provides a better way to collect, manage, and extract value from data. It is not about transporting the data as quickly as possible from the point of creation to a point of analysis but rather deciding “on the spot” , what to do with the data.
The Key “Takeaway”
Organizations need to expand their view of data beyond traditional storage and analysis in order to develop new systems of engagement that leverage “data in motion,” enabling them to gain real-time insights and create better experiences for their users.
Read more about the report and take a look at the results as they apply to your own country. As usual we welcome your comments!
Data in Motion -- A Definition
Data in Motion represents the continuous interactions between connected elements such as people, process, and things. Data from new devices, sensors, and cameras is at maximum value while still in motion. During these interactions, the intelligent network provides secure unique insights in real-time. Value can be extracted and acted upon as events occur to create advantage here and now or even to predict the future. Organizations can make better decisions, provide enhanced experiences, and achieve competitive advantage. A recent Cisco IBSG white paper details the actual value of these connections in some key industries covering a number of use cases.
While many wish to prevent illness and combat health issues, Healthways is proactively promoting well-being through their commitment to “making the world a healthier place—one individual at a time.” Based in Franklin, Tennessee, Healthways has been operating for over 30 years in delivering health expertise to organizations and reducing health-related costs.
Customers use a web-based technology platform from Healthways called Embrace to collaborate and manage personalized health support. Since beginning, the number of users accessing Embrace has increased significantly – which means that Healthways must keep up with the demand. Rather than attempt to continue supporting their legacy infrastructure, Healthways decided to use Cisco® Technology to reinforce their infrastructure and get four times the capacity -- therefore allowing access and providing services for all 10 million users.
In addition, by implementing the Cisco Unified Computing System™ (UCS), based on Intel® Xeon® processors, to increase capacity and strengthen the data center’s architecture, Embrace has realized an 18-20 percent reduction in power and cooling costs and a 20 percent decrease in hardware and licensing costs.
To learn more about their newly-found IT advantages, read Healthways’ story from Unleashing IT.
Just back from Varrow Madness 2013 (#VM13) in Durham, NC, a local event for me, and a great opportunity to connect with customers, partners, and cloud knowledge. Here are some highlights.
Rusty Buzhardt (Cisco), Jason Nash (Varrow), Elijah Stukenborg (Chiquita)
Really enjoyed an inspirational keynote by VCE President Frank Hauck and the opportunity to learn about some new technologies that are emerging in the Data Center space. Look for upcoming #EngineersUnplugged episodes for some discussions around NetScaler, Flash Virtualization, and more.
