Kids might be building Hogwarts now instead of the Death Star when it comes to LEGOs, but pieces from their old sets still work with new structural elements. Even beauty salons are getting hip to the idea that when you can simplify a system of elements so that they easily work together, customers get more satisfaction. Happily, I see this as a technology industry trend, as well.

Many companies realize that today’s consumers share and store data across a variety of different electronic devices. So, now they’re making it easier to connect between them. For example, the smartphone market is moving to the convenience of universal USB chargers. If you change or upgrade your cell phone, you can just plug your new one into your existing charger.

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Tags: Cloud Intelligent Network, mobile, multiple devices

We are proud of our customers and their success in the marketplace. They are changing the way business is done by providing scalable, enterprise-grade, secure, and affordable cloud solutions. By tying together the Unified Data Center with the Cloud Intelligent Network and applying Applications and Services on top as end-to-end solutions, these cloud providers are delivering differentiated services with high-level SLAs necessary for end-users’ strategic applications. That’s what US Signal is doing for their customers.

But for some more background, last week at Structure, the conversations swirled around how to handle Big Data, the future of software-defined networking, data center compute technology, database and programming types, and open versus proprietary. Two of our CloudVerse customers, Terremark and SunGard both had strong booth presence and Terremark also had a packed presentation delivered by Jim Anthony, VP, Tier II Solution Architecture Team. Compared to last year, there was a stronger agreement that cloud providers are fully capable of providing public or virtual private cloud services with trust, scalability, and affordability, instead of companies taking on cloud internally by themselves. There are many needs for cloud services out there and that means there are opportunities to provide a differentiated service.

As such, with data usage increasing exponentially, it’s clear how important the network is for connecting the many clouds out there. Let me explain how US Signal is leveraging their expertise with an end-to-end delivery network to success in cloud. Read More »

Tags: 100GB, cloud, Cloud Intelligent Network, cloud provider, customer, customer stories, data center, DWDM, IaaS, infrastructure as a service, nexus, UCS, unified computing system, us signal

On my recent road trip from Vancouver to Whistler Village, I was stunned by the breathtaking beauty of British Columbia. Its lush green trees, majestic waterfront fjord, and picturesque hill tops could easily be mistaken as oil paintings by Claude Monet. Along the drive up the Sea-to-Sky Highway, I stopped at a fast food vendor for a quick budget meal only to be captivated by a million dollar view -- see my photo on the right.

As I gazed from the rigid mountain top and snowy peaks to the clusters of cumulus clouds floating serenely above, it reminded me of our upcoming launch in San Diego and solutions that Cisco will introduce to enable the world of many clouds.

Last November, Cisco Global Cloud Index forecasted “greater than 50% of all workloads will be processed in the cloud by 2014.” Over one-third of data center traffic, as highlighted in the report, will be cloud based. As a result, download and upload speeds as well as latencies are vital measures to assess network capabilities for cloud readiness.

In a recent Global Cloud Networking Survey conducted by Cisco with more than 1,300 IT professionals, 37% of the respondents cited “a cloud-ready network” as the biggest element in designing an infrastructure for cloud deployments. And from my previous post Journey to Cisco Live San Diego, we identified the key requirements a cloud delivery solution must address. Today, we’ll explore how the Cisco Wide Area Application Services (WAAS) portfolio can help achieve a scalable cloud-based model.

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Tags: AppNav, Cisco vWAAS, Cisco WAAS 5.0, cloud index, Cloud Intelligent Network, cloud survey, waas

Since announcing Cisco’s CloudVerse architecture in December, we’re excited to see that this set of solutions is indeed helping our partners and customers in their journey to offer cloud services. On January 30, Light Reading published the Cisco CloudVerse test results found by EANTC, an internationally-recognized, vendor-neutral test center. Among many findings, EANTC revealed that over 70 percent of leading cloud providers are using Cisco CloudVerse on their journey to the cloud

The tests were created by Light Reading and EANTC around real-world customer care abouts including Security, Agility, Economics, and Experience. They completed 25 test segments across the 3 Cisco CloudVerse themes: Unified Data Center, Cloud Intelligent Network, and Cloud Applications and Services.

The full test results can be found here, and for the full Cisco perspective on this test, please see Pat Adamiak’s blog.

Tags: Cloud Intelligent Network, cloud services, cloudverse, EANTC, Unified Data Center

Today we are announcing Cisco CloudVerse, an integrated set of capabilities that enables customers to deliver cloud applications and services by uniquely combining the unified data center and cloud intelligent network. CloudVerse is the culmination of Cisco’s data center and network innovation over the last few years and provides our customer with the platform for their journey to the cloud. CloudVerse enables our customers to deliver cloud applications and services with a cloud platform tailored to their needs – whether private, public, or hybrid – in an interconnected world of many clouds.

CloudVerse enables service providers, governments, and enterprises to offer their solutions as a service and deliver them with the full benefits of clouds. CloudVerse’s benefits are greater simplicity in deployment and management of cloud services, stronger security with a more comprehensive approach, faster service agility, improved economics, and an assured experience for cloud users.

CloudVerse integrates the three key elements of a business-class cloud:

1. Unified Data Center – Bringing together the compute, network, management, and storage elements to offer an integrated platform for applications and services
2. Cloud Intelligent Network – This is an enhancement of both the enterprise Borderless Networks and the SP next-generation network with cloud aware capabilities
3. Cloud Applications and Services – Cisco offers a set of pre-tested applications and services for those companies looking to build and provide cloud services to individuals, businesses, and their own organizations

Let’s dive a bit deeper into what these CloudVerse pillars are comprised of.

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Tags: Aspinall, asr, CIAC, Cisco, cloud, Cloud Intelligent Network, cloudverse, CRS, customer, ISR, nexus, SecureX, Service Provider, transition, UCS, Unified Data Center