The Platform Opinions and Insights from Cisco

FAQ on Virtual Computing Environment

Cisco’s recent announcement of the Virtual Computing Environment Coalition received quite a lot of buzz in the media and social web. So we got Gary Moore, Cisco’s SVP of Advanced Services, and Chuck Hollis, EMC’s Global Marketing CTO, to address some of our most frequently asked questions.

They answer the following:

1)      How does Virtual Computing Environment Coalition affect Cisco’s UCS offering? How does Vblock differ from UCS?
2)      How will the Coalition help to deliver benefits to smaller companies?
3)      What applications will be the best targets to move from private to the public cloud?
4)      How will the vBlock technology integrate with existing data centers such as backup, SAN infrastructures, etc.? How will vBlock management resources interact with existing in-house management tools?
5)      How will the Coalition offer a truly unified support service for Cisco/EMC/VMware infrastructure without putting another layer between the customer and the three vendors? How will the Coalition fit into the partner ecosystem?

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Posted by John Earnhardt at 01:57PM PST

Cisco Q1 FY2010 Earnings Results and Video Highlights

Watch Cisco EVP and CFO Frank Calderoni discuss the highlights of our Q1 FY2010

View our earnings press release here

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Posted by John Earnhardt at 01:30PM PST

VIDEOS: Virtual Computing Environment Coalition

What would an announcement from Cisco be without VIDEO? To tell you a bit more about our Virtual Computing Environment (VCE) coalition that we announced today with EMC and VMware, we went to Mark Fulghum, Cisco Vice President of Data Center Solutions and asked him to talk about how VCE addresses the challenges of pervasive virtualization and private cloud computing.  We also asked key thought leaders Savvis CTO Bryan Doerr and Purdue University CIO Gerry McCartney  to discuss VCE.

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Posted by John Earnhardt at 07:00PM PST

Cisco, EMC, VMware = Virtual Computing Environment Coalition

To say that it has been busy at Cisco these past several weeks would be an understatement.  We’ve announced some acquisitions recently, we announce Q1’10 earnings tomorrow, and, in the “WAIT, there’s more!!” category, today, we announce our Virtual Computing Environment Coalition with EMC and VMware.

Rather than giving you the tick-tock on today’s exciting announcement, I thought I’d let our CEOs quote in the press release sum it up for you.

“Today’s announcement addresses our customers’ greatest challenges and opportunities in the data center.” said John Chambers, chairman and CEO of Cisco. “This coalition is about more than technology and partnership. It is about an entirely new and unique approach to the data center that improves utilization, power consumption and security of information, all in a way that lowers the total cost to the customer, not via a box, but with a network-based architectural approach for optimizing virtual resources.”

Some resources on this announcement:

Video of CEOs of Cisco, EMC and VMware discussing VCE coalition

Virtual Computing Environment Coalition press release.

EMC Blog by Chuck Hollis, Global Marketing CTO.

Cisco Channels blog and video for partners with Edison Peres, SVP, Worldwide Channels Go-To-Market

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Posted by John Earnhardt at 09:00AM PST

Cisco Announces Agreement to Acquire DVN Set-Top Box Business

Cisco today announced a definitive agreement to acquire the set-top box business of DVN (Holdings) Limited.  Listed in Hong Kong with major operations in China, DVN is a market and technology leader in digital cable solutions in China and shares Cisco’s vision of a high-performance, scalable and services-rich cable interactive platform extending into every home. 

In addition to the acquisition, Cisco has entered into a go-to-market alliance with the remainder of the DVN organization in order to utilize the company’s middleware and advanced applications as well as integration and support services. 

Full release here.

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Posted by Kristin Carvell at 03:40PM PST

Cisco’s proposed TANDBERG acquisition

At the end of last week, there was some significant speculation and rumor in the media about our offer to acquire TANDBERG, a global leader in video communications.  As a result, I wanted to reiterate a few important points about the transaction and Cisco’s broader M&A principles.

We strongly believe our offer is a very good price for Tandberg shareholders.  We have commenced a cash tender offer, unanimously recommended by the Tandberg Board, to purchase all the outstanding shares of TANDBERG for 153.5 Norwegian Kroner per share for approximately $3.0 billion.  As Tandberg noted in its own communications to the Oslo Exchange, Cisco’s offer represents a 38.3% premium to the closing share price on July 15 - which is one day prior to major media reports of a possible transaction.  The price also represents a 102% 12 month return for Tandberg shareholders, far surpassing global market index returns.

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Posted by Ned Hooper at 10:00AM PST

Cisco Highlights Collaboration with Microsoft’s Latest Windows Products

Cisco completely supports the driving new types of efficiency in IT. Which is why, Cisco is a platinum sponsor and has been speaking at a series of Microsoft’s New Efficiency launch events that have been taking place in multiple cities around the US for the last couple of weeks.  Microsoft is demonstrating, with many their partners, the latest Microsoft IT solutions,  Windows 7, Windows 2008 R2 and Exchange 2010 that are helping drive new efficiency in business.

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Posted by Pamela Ferrill at 07:15AM PST

Flip Video: The NBA Tips Off with a Little Thing

“Little things make big things happen.” John Wooden, UCLA Basketball Coach Extraordinaire

Most would consider it little. It only measures 3.94” x 1.97” x 0.66” (H x W x D). However, in this global, flat world it can enable big changes: it is the Flip MinoHD^TM.  

In my June 9 blog entry, I noted that “in communications and collaboration, video, combined with voice and data, is a game changer.”  In an increasingly complex, dispersed world, overload is considered the new normal. People are looking for capabilities to build trust and enable global teams to collaborate confidently.

At Cisco, Flip cameras allow us to regularly record and distribute communications to both internal and external audiences. Recently, we have heard that Flip users are recording industry experts and sharing highlights. Stand-up comics report that they record their own rehearsals and use playback to hone their performance. For others, it has become the new productivity tool: a way to take away and study topics discussed in a meeting, replacing written notes.

Now, even the NBA is using Flip video cameras.

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Posted by Alan Cohen at 05:24AM PST

Guest Blog: “Technology Delivers Austar Customers to Destination”

Guest blog entry by Dean Walters, CIO, Austar

As Chief Information Officer for Austar United Communications for the last 10 years, I’ve been working hard to ensure that we evolve our systems to support future customer service   strategies and achieve the best return from our technology investments. AUSTAR is a leading subscription television provider in Australia, offering digital satellite services to customers in regional and rural areas. 740,000 customers, or 2.7 million Australians, receive our product and we serve around one-third of Australia’s total homes. Great customer service is very important to us and a key differentiator for our company, and collaboration from our suppliers is critical to achieving superior results.

AUSTAR recently had some great results using Cisco call centre telephony technology, including reduced costs, increased customer intimacy, improved call center agent productivity, and most importantly laying the technology foundations for next generation of customer service strategies, such as web chat, work from home, attribute routing, email & live video.

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Posted by Doron Aronson at 12:01AM PST

The Internet: Getting Better with Age

It was forty years ago today,
That the Internet began to play
It’s been going through a lot of styles
But there’s always stuff to raise a smile

I was born during the Gen-X era, before we had the ‘net, PCs, or cell phones. Despite that, my web-savvy quotient is still respectable. But it doesn’t come close to Gen Y, much less Gen Z—populations immersed in a world of Facebook parties and twittering from here to there at all hours around the globe. And maybe it’s because of the technological leaps I’ve seen in my lifetime that I appreciate what the Internet has brought us. Despite its faults and imperfections, it’s key to our everyday existence. The Internet is the new family hearth… the town square… the city forum… the global village. And this cultural pillar turns 40 this week on October 29.

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Posted by Marie Hattar at 03:16PM PST

Cisco Announces Intent to Acquire ScanSafe, Leading SaaS Web Security Provider

Cisco today announced its intent to acquire privately held ScanSafe, Inc.  Based in London and San Francisco, ScanSafe is a market leader of software-as- a-service (SaaS) Web security solutions for organizations ranging from global enterprises to small businesses. 

By acquiring ScanSafe, Cisco is building on its successful acquisition of leading on-premise content security provider IronPort.  The acquisition brings together the Cisco IronPort™ high-performance Web security appliance and ScanSafe’s leading SaaS Web security service.  This combination will expand Cisco’s security portfolio to offer superior on-premise, hosted, and hybrid-hosted Web security solutions. 

Read the full press release here.

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Posted by Kristin Carvell at 08:00AM PST

ASR 9000 Solidifies Position as Leading Edge Router Platform

Last week in Chicago at Supercomm, the Cisco VNI usage study highlighted the average broadband connection generates approximately 11.4 gigabytes of Internet traffic per month, 4.3 gigabytes of the traffic being visual networking applications (advanced services such as video, social networking and collaboration).  To manage this influx of  network traffic, it is critically important that edge networks far from the network core are able to handle this incredible spike in usage.

 The Cisco ASR 9000, with industry leading capacity of 6.4 terabits per second and 400 Gbps per slot, was designed to handle this growth in visual networking applications and deliver a non-stop video experience to end-users. The platform has been endorsed by Deutsche Telekom and, as we’ve previously announced, has been deployed by several major service providers, including Verizon Wireless, Softbank, Telstra and Cogent. 

Just recently, Cisco introduced a new single-slot 16 x 10 Gigabit Ethernet (10GE) line card, delivering up to 160 Gbps per slot, an industry first which helps enable the ASR 9000 platform to lead the industry in capacity, density and scalability.   Miercom independently verified that the platform delivers 160 Gbps performance, with the extensive Light Reading video mega test in particular showcasing the key role that the platform plays in handling video applications. 

Learn more about the power of the ASR 9000 from an August 2009 test conducted by Miercom comparing the ASR 9000 to the Juniper MX 960 Ethernet Services Router, and from Michael Howard of Infonetics and Cisco’s Brendan Gibbs. 

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Posted by Suraj Shetty at 06:23AM PST

US News: Cisco CEO John Chambers “One of America’s Best Leaders 2009”

We are very honored and humbled to have Cisco Chairman and CEO John Chambers on this year’s list of “America’s Best Leaders” as determined by US News and World Report and Harvard Center for Public Leadership.

He indeed is in great company with Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke, Kleiner Perkins Caufield and Byers venture capitalist John Doerr, Costco CEO Jim Sinegal, Senator Orrin Hatch, Senator Ted Kennedy, former Astronaut Sally Ride, MIT President Susan Hockfield and more.  Sincere congratulations to John and to all of these other fine leaders.  See the full list here.

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Posted by John Earnhardt at 11:00PM PST

Brazil: Broadband Transformation

Last week was the most important telecommunications tradeshow in Latin America –  Futurecom, held in Sao Paulo, Brazil on Oct. 13-16.  Broadband and the role new applications (mainly video) are playing in redefining the service provider market were hot topics.

Just to give a bit of perspective: in the next three to five years, Brazil will need five to seven times their current capacity – to not only accommodate additional broadband users, but also the greater use of new applications, mainly video and social media.

Accordingly to the latest results from the Cisco Visual Networking Index, the average global broadband connection (primarily residential subscribers and some business users) generates approximately 11.4 gigabytes of Internet traffic per month. What does that mean in everyday terms?  Per connection per day, it is roughly equivalent to downloading 3,000 text e-mails, 100 MP3 music files or 360 text-only e-books. Whoa!

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Posted by Felipe Lamus at 04:37PM PST

Cisco Borderless Network Revealed

With the increasing demands of video and mobility today, a new network architecture is needed—one that can provide seamless, secure, and reliable network experiences. That new architecture is called the Borderless Network.

Today, Cisco announced updates that will truly enable a Borderless Network. The next-generation ISR, the ISR G2, will allow organizations and individuals to communicate anytime, anywhere and in any way they wish.

Marie Hattar, vice president of Network Systems and Security Solutions at Cisco, highlights the Borderless Network in this video.

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Posted by Johanna Fry at 03:46PM PST

Johanna Fry