Welcome to InfoComm 2011! Over the next few days, we’ll be looking forward to learning more about new industry announcements and developments, and hearing more from our customers and partners at the show. This year’s InfoComm highlights the transition that companies are seeing: video is not just changing the way we communicate, but it is changing the entire way we work.
In the video below, Cisco Director of Marketing Randy Harrell describes how enterprise organizations today are identifying new strategic uses for video. Video adoption is no longer led by productivity; instead, business functions are now looking for how video can provide value to their customers and employees.
This post is the first in a new series we’ll be featuring called Your Questions: Answered. In this series, we track down the answers to partners’ toughest technical questions. You can submit your questions here, post on the Cisco Channels Facebook page, or drop us a note on Twitter.
When Cisco recently introduced the Identity Services Engine (ISE), you likely started fielding questions, with many customers concerned about whether Cisco Network Admission Control (NAC) and Cisco Access Control System (ACS) will cease to be supported or become end-of-life. (Kind of like how I felt when the iPhone 4 came out and I was stuck with the iPhone 3G).
To help you address customer questions, I went out looking for answers on what’s up with ISE, NAC, and ACS. First up, a little about ISE: It has similar functionality to NAC and ACS, combining the functionality of those two existing products onto a new platform. Your customers can gather information from users, devices, infrastructure, and network services to enable organizations to enforce contextual-based business policies across the network, create and enforce consistent policy from the head office to the branch office, and combine authentication, authorization, and accounting (AAA), posture, profiling, and guest management with this single product. And that’s just the beginning--I’ll share details on how to find out more about ISE later in this blog.
Back to the issue at hand — I chatted with Brian Sak, Cisco’s Consulting Systems Engineer and expert on Borderless Networks Security products. He filled me in on the most frequently asked questions that he’s been getting from partners around ISE.
Are NAC and ACS being replaced by ISE?
No, both NAC and ACS have ongoing roadmaps, developments, and new releases planned. If ISE does not meet your customer’s current needs, your customers can still use NAC or ACS. Cisco will not stop innovations on NAC and ACS anytime in the near future.
Should I encourage my NAC and ACS customers to migrate to ISE now?
The answer varies based on your customers and their requirements. Check out this handy chart in the Partner Community Discussion Forum (log in required) to help you determine if ISE is the right fit, right now for your customers.
The countdown continues -- only a few more days until InfoComm begins in Orlando, Florida! We asked Cisco TelePresence VP/ GM Thomas Wyatt to take a few minutes and talk about a topic on every video customer’s mind: interoperability.
In the video below, Thomas describes the customer feedback he’s been hearing, including their biggest pain points when it comes to deploying and using video solutions, as well as his vision for interoperability in the future. Where do we see interoperability in the next 2-3 years?
Cisco’s approach to education is comprehensive and multi-faceted. We have groups across all of Cisco that are actively engaging with Education leaders to improve education everywhere. At the core of these engagements, is our fundamental belief that the network can serve as a platform for education innovation that can dramatically improve educational outcomes for students.
One of the ways we showcase innovative and practical solutions for today’s education challenges is the Cisco Virtual Forum for Education Leaders. This online Forum is filled with informative presentations and resources that demonstrate the success that dedicated educators are having meeting today’s education challenges.
With “virtual booths” for specific solutions and areas of IT concern, Cisco representatives available for live chats, both recorded and live presentations, and expert-led discussions--the forum provided and provides a good source of technology and solution information for Education customers. That’s right, provides. The Forum is more than a transient event: visitors are welcomed back as often as they like to get updated information about Cisco’s solutions and efforts in the Education space. A great example is this interview added last week:
Today, we are excited to launch our newest charity campaign, “Give a Click.”
From now until the end of July, Cisco will donate $1 to Teachers Without Borders and NetHope for every new person who subscribes to our YouTube channel (as well as current subscribers).
We believe people want to help change the world—and our Give a Click campaign makes it simple to do so. Just one click helps brings aid organizations online, gives teachers and children access to technology…and much more.
Making a Difference—One Person at a time
All of us reading this blog may take for granted that we can connect with people whether they are in a coffee shop in Shanghai, on a research mission in Antarctica, or even on a space shuttle. Even more important, we take our basic needs for granted, such as fresh running water and electricity, learning how to read and write—having access to teachers.
Yet so many people in this world lack all of these. One way to help is to bring tools, technology, and connectivity to people of need. That’s why we chose NetHope and Teachers Without Borders for this campaign—two charities that are using communication technologies to change the world.
