Watch Cisco VP Marie Hattar as she discusses the 2012 Summer Olympics and its ability to connect humans across the globe. Cisco, an official 2012 Games sponsor, has implemented its Borderless Networks infrastructure, which allows us all to share and create new Olympic experiences.

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Tags: Borderless Networks, connectivity, infrastructure, London 2012, mobile, multiple devices, Olympic Network, olympics

There is a new generation of college students out there, I would know as I recently was one of them.  Information being at your fingertips is no longer a luxury, it is a necessity.  Professors’ expectations of their students have increased dramatically due to the wealth of information on mobile devices.  Every class I attended leveraged some form of wireless access to the web.  Instant message in response to real-time questions and online submissions are just two of many examples of how network access has been integrated into the education system.  Professors would consistently use online tools such as online drop boxes for projects and web conferencing tools.  According to MarketWire 92% of college students feel a laptop is a necessity, this indicates that the requirement of mobile access at a university is a given and the college experience is defined by the ease of that access. 

Professors are on tight schedules and are generally available only at certain times of the day.  Imagine- wanting to contact a professor during open hours only to fall short because your laptop had difficulty getting any kind of connection.  I remember the frustrations of wanting to revisit PowerPoint presentations on a class website in the library, only to realize that I was sitting by the one window notorious for being a wireless dead zone.  Dorms were infamous for spotty coverage.  Having the dorm room located closest to the access point for best access was purely by luck of the draw.  I was not so lucky.  In my dorm, you would not get any wireless access unless you were sitting right next to the hallway.  That’s why I am especially envious of the students of Colorado University, whose alma mater upgraded to enterprise-class coverage. 

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Tags: 802.11n, Borderless Networks, Bring your Own Device (BYOD), byod, cellphone, Cisco, Cisco Catalyst 6500, Cisco CleanAir, cleanair, college, colorado, controller, education, laptop, mobility, preparing students for the future, professor, scale as you grow model, security, student, system, tablet, Tablets, teacher, university, wireless, wireless access point, WiSM2

By Howard Baldwin, Contributing Columnist

If you look at a digest of broadband news — as I frequently do in search of story ideas — it’s clear that broadband adoption is taking off. Google search a country name and “broadband,” and you’re more than likely to get an article proclaiming that its government, grasping the economic value of high-speed connectivity, is funding, or considering funding deployment to serve both its urban and rural citizens.

With more countries making that commitment, the world is truly creating what Cisco calls the borderless network.

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Tags: Borderless Networks, broadband, democracy, education, employment, talent

Rebecca Jacoby, Cisco Senior Vice President and Chief Information Officer, discusses Cisco’s journey to the cloud. Cisco is running a private cloud as a utility and is moving toward an inter-cloud approach. This capability will give Cisco the business process opportunity to source services from multiple places and deliver them seamlessly to employees in a flexible, cost-effective manner.

To view the complete interactive, please visit http://www.cisco.com/go/ciscoit

For more information on Cisco IT’s journey to the cloud:
Cloudy With a Chance of Data Center Savings
Parting Clouds and Being Real About Virtualization
ITIaaS Clouds Over ITIL

Tags: aaron chiles, Borderless Networks, CIO, cisco on cisco, cloud, coc-business-of-it, coc-data-center, data center, inside cisco it, private cloud, Public Cloud, Rebecca Jacoby, virtualization

Cisco WAAS Wins Best of Interop: Performance Optimization

I’m thrilled to announce Cisco AppNav for Cisco WAAS won the Best of Interop: Performance Optimization award. Cisco AppNav is a virtualization technology that enables customers to deliver high performance applications at scale from the cloud or enterprise data center. IT can use AppNav to address performance challenges created by bring-your-own-device (BYOD), Cloud, and Virtual Desktops. In the next several weeks, we’ll be announcing more details of this and a host of other Cloud Connectors. you can register for the big reveal here

This win is exciting as validation of our continuing commitment to innovation in WAN optimization.  This caps off what has been an exciting year for Cisco WAAS and hints at some of the innovative technologies we’re launching in June. Read More »

Tags: best of interop, Borderless Networks, Cisco, integrated services router, interop, virtualization, waas, WAN Optimization