In the past I’ve written about the classic challenge within Enterprise IT, and specifically within the Data Center, that 70-80% of the resources are allocated to “legacy” activities. This obviously leaves very little time to work on new technology-centric innovations to drive the business. Or to put a different way, “IT only does innovation on Friday”.

The McKinsey Quarterly recently had an interesting article about reshaping IT management, where they introduce the concepts “Factory IT” and “Enabling IT”. The premise being that the focus of the Factory IT (70% of the activities) groups should be about cost-reduction, scale, standardization and simplification. The Enabling IT (30%, hopefully growing) should be focused on innovative ways to enable the business to grow. And the management of those groups doesn’t necessarily have to the same, since they’d have different objectives. Read More »

Tags: Cloud Computing, Consumerization of IT, Enabling IT, Enterprise IT, Factory IT, innovation, M&A, McKinsey Quarterly

In addition to our own R&D investment in the organic innovation of cloud technology, we’ve also been focusing on building industry collaboration and partnership in the cloud.  Most recently, Cisco announced it is a founding member of the Asia Cloud Computing Association.

Take a listen to Bernie Trudel, Cloud Chief Technology Officer for Cisco Asia Pacific and Vice Chair and Public Policy and Regulatory Working Group lead for ACCA on how Cisco will be extremely active in partnering with ACCA as well as other vendor partners, service providers, and standards bodies in creating cloud best practices with clear business value for customers.

Read More »

Tags: ACCA, Cloud Computing, collaboration

About a month ago, Cisco announced our Data Center Business Advantage architecture. Within the architecture, we highlighted several areas:

• Business Value which can be derived from IT investments in the Data Center
• The breadth of our Open Ecosystem that helps us deliver solutions to customers today
• Solution Architecture that brings together Unified Fabric, Unified Computing and Unified Network Services
• Cisco Technology Innovation across multiple Data Center domains
• A complete set of Data Center Services that can rapidly drive customer success

Now that the fall trade show season is complete and people are done watching headlines and back to running their businesses, we thought it would be useful to take a deeper dive into Data Center Business Advantage. Read More »

Tags: automation, Business Value, Cloud Computing, Consolidation, data center, Data Center Business Advantage, ROI, Solutions, unified computing, Unified Fabric, Unified Network Services, virtualization

[Part IV of our blog series on Cisco Data Center Business Advantage. Part I, II, III, V, VI]

With all the of the changes happening with the Data Center, the IT department is constantly faced with the challenge of balancing “the new coolness” (Virtualization, 10Gb Ethernet, Cloud Computing, Unified <insert_technology_here>) and still being able to manage the daily operations of the business. Adding to the challenge is the changing architectures that these new technologies bring to the Data Center. Read More »

Tags: Cloud Computing, Data Center Business Advantage, Nexus 1000v, Virtual Network Management Console, Virtual Security Gateway, vPath, vWAAS

[Part V of our blog series on Cisco Data Center Business Advantage. Part I, II, III, IV, VI]

In the past, when talking with customers there would be a level of consistency between the CIO and the IT staff about priorities and needs. They needed to improve internal operations by deploying a new ERP system. They needed to improve workforce productivity by rolling out wireless access within the office and smartphones to their sales force. Business needs led to technology implementation.

But over the past year, those conversations have been changing. More and more, the CIO is looking to the IT department to drive new innovation for the business. In parallel, they realize that existing IT organizations have been built in silos to address previous business demands and this will need to change if they are expected to have cycles to drive innovation. Quite often, the CIO is asking how their company can begin to offer IT as a Service to the business, exploring the simplicity that is apparent with public or consumer Cloud Computing services. Read More »

Tags: Cloud Computing, Data Center Business Advantage, Hybrid Cloud, IaaS, private cloud, Public Cloud