By Biren Mehta, Senior Marketing Manager, SP Marketing in Routing and Switching, Cisco

Businesses and governments are bullish on the benefits that cloud computing promises to bring, but security concerns remain a key barrier to entry.  Carrier networks provide critical infrastructure and services that governments and businesses depend on to operate every day. Services provided by carriers today are articulated on the mobile endpoint, the customer premise, the network and data center edge, and the public, private, and hybrid clouds.  The sum of these is the “carrier cloud.”   With cloud enabled service infrastructure, enterprise data and applications must move easily and securely through many clouds.  That’s why the network that connects, protects, and moves data fiercely through cloud means more than ever. Read More »

Tags: carrier cloud, carrier network, cloud, DDoS, distributed denial of service, infrastructure, Service Provider

Almost every weekend, Cisco implements 25-30 projects upgrading our core network infrastructure, involving sites around the world. These network projects run from simple office moves and partner connections to complex technology upgrades and acquisition integrations. They also include all the changes that are part of the Cisco IT fleet management program, where we regularly review the network infrastructure at each of our 500+ sites for needed upgrades, and schedule the upgrade cycles. This upgrading work is distributed, detailed, and involves repeatable processes, which makes it ideal for outsourcing:  but there are tricks to handing off responsibility while maintaining extremely high standards.

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Tags: deployment, infrastructure, lifecycle, outsourcing, Provisioning

By Howard Baldwin, Contributing Columnist

Interesting news came out of Europe last month regarding upstart service providers’ potentially disruptive behavior, as well as the responses of established competitors. The news begs the question about telecommunications competition – when does more competition lead to lower prices, and when does it lead to overlapping investment that drives costs up?

In an area as cutting-edge as telecommunications, does increased competition drive R&D investment or decimate it?

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Tags: broadband, competition, infrastructure, investment, R&D, ROI, wireless network

What does the future hold for our cities?

Previous centuries saw industrial infrastructure (such as rail, highways, and telephone lines) paving the way for new cities – and for a host of new connections. Now, change is being driven by a global “network of networks” that is making it possible for everything to become connected to everything else. In 2001, about 300 million devices—computers, cell phones, PDAs—were connected. By 2010, this web of invisible connections had expanded to include everything from cars and lights to buildings and security cameras. Read More »

Tags: Cisco, Cities, collaboration, digital city, future, government, IBSG, ICT, infrastructure, internet, meeting of the minds, network, san francisco

By Howard Baldwin, Contributing Columnist

At a time in the United States when political opinions seem to fly to the extremes, with no middle ground, it’s no surprise that the FCC’s recent report on broadband deployment evokes a similarly polarized reaction.

Of the five commissioners who authored the report, three (including chairman Julius Genachowski) seem to believe that 95% penetration of fixed broadband by any technology (see graphic) is cause for alarm, citing the lack of broadband in rural areas and tribal lands. Two of the three commissioners filed dissents to the conclusions of the report.

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Tags: broadband, FCC, infrastructure, policy, social and economic development