As many of you know Cisco Live UK will soon be held at the end of this month – that’s from January 30th through Feb 3rd in London. Cisco Live is actually Cisco’s flagship event of the year for customers and partners and offers an unparalleled combination of education and training on the latest technologies and industry trends.
This year, we’re going to have a major presence with our very own Cisco Industrial Solutions Booth. Targeted at manufacturers in industries like Automotive, Food & Beverage and Consumer Packaged Goods, as well as organizations in Transportation, Oil and Gas, and utilities like Water and Waste Water Treatment, the booth will showcase our capabilities in industrial networking, wireless networks, collaboration and more.
While we can’t expect a medal-winning performance every day or to excel at everything we do, we can discover our natural talents, where our strengths lie and what we’re truly passionate about. Read More »
Interesting news for Data Center industry watchers: growth in Data Center energy usage has apparently slowed.
Researcher John Koomey recently studied the issue at the request of The New York Times and determined that from 2005 to 2010 Data Centers worldwide increased energy usage by a little more than half (56 percent) while those in the United States increased usage by about one third (36 percent).
As electrical outages plague the East Coast after Hurricane Irene, it’s interesting to think about how technology could transform our energy future. In one example, Cisco is collaborating with Harris Corporation, an international communications and IT company, on a five year contract to provide a Wide Area Network (WAN) for the Western Electric Coordinating Council (WECC), the North American Regional Entity. WECC is responsible for coordinating the bulk electric system reliability for the Western U.S., Canada and part of Mexico, as well as the largest and most diverse North American Electric Reliability Corporation Regional Entity. Read More »
Since 2009, when Cisco formally entered the “smart grid” market, we have made great progress in leveraging Internet Protocol (IP)-based technology to enable the transformation of the global energy industry. Through pilots, industry partnerships, acquisitions, and hiring key leaders from the energy industry, we’ve gained insights and are contributing innovative architectures and solutions to our customers.
As with every new business, we must be vigilant in applying lessons learned and willing to adapt our strategy to evolving conditions, be they economic, technological or policy-related. So after several customer pilots, we are refining our strategy so we can most effectively apply our experience and expertise in IP-based communications to the electric, gas and water networks globally.
Over the past two years the home and building energy management markets have evolved in such a way that we believe we can provide more value to our customers and the industry by enabling interoperability through our core networking products and solutions (for example, EnergyWise) as part of our integrated architecture within the broader smart grid effort.
For building energy management, this means we are actively pursuing several strategic options for Cisco’s Network Building Mediator and Mediator Manager product line, with an emphasis on minimizing the impact on current customers, partners and employees. For energy management in the home, we will transition our focus from creating premise energy management devices to using the network as the platform for supporting innovative applications and architectures that will improve our customers’ value proposition in the consumer energy management market.
By driving the network as the platform, leveraging our broader Cisco product portfolio and partner ecosystem, and by incorporating lessons learned into our Connected Grid Architecture, we can enable active customer participation in markets, grid operations, and service innovations. We can also drive open standards-based solutions and interoperability between existing products. This decision will enable Cisco to best serve its global customers by giving them the flexibility they need to be responsive to market transitions and consumer desires.
Enabling collaboration among public and private stakeholders within the industry is also vital to the success of our customers and partners. Cisco is hosting a Global Energy Summit on Tuesday, September 27th with John Chambers and thought leaders from the Energy industry including: former California Public Utilities Commissioner Dian Grueneich, former Commissioner with the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission Suedeen Kelly, President and CEO of Digital Energy for GE Bob Gilligan, Secretary General of Elia Group Pierre Bernard, President and COO Global Energy for Itron Philip Mezey, and many more distinguished guests.
Our commitment to the industry remains strong and our vision for energy management and Smart Grid has not changed -- to transform energy production, distribution, consumption and management using an end-to-end IP platform. By learning and adapting to changing market conditions, Cisco can better enable a 21st century model of energy management and the future global energy infrastructure.
Targeted at manufacturers in industries like Automotive, Food & Beverage and Consumer Packaged Goods, as well as organizations in Transportation, Oil and Gas, and utilities like Water and Waste Water Treatment, the booth will showcase our capabilities in industrial networking, wireless networks, collaboration and more.
