I don’t know about you , but I want to be well prepared for the March 30th Cisco announcement
Listening to Cisco SVP Bill Brownell’s invitation, we can definitely expect some very interesting product news, but more importantly a new round of conversations about the right fabric-infrastructure, especially in the context of cloud computing.
That’s why we will have special guests such as John McCool, Soni Jiandani and Tim Gillis in addition of Forrester Research and IDC (see my previous blog)
So as I was willing to be well prepared, I found this interesting blog from Ivan about data center fabric architecture , which obviously grabbed also the attention of some of our smart engineers
This story is a bit more technical that what I’ve previously shared. That said, I’ll link to some definitions for you non-technical readers — I promise, this one is going to be worth the extra effort. However, a bit of technology is required in the telling — so please bear with me.
Let’s step back in time. The first transoceanic cables used copper wire as the conductor that carried signals between continents. Unfortunately, the technology at the time was such that the cables were extremely bandwidth-limited and could therefore support a very small number of simultaneous conversations.
Furthermore, the physics of metallic transmission dictated that the transmitted signals would decay over distance, making it necessary to amplify and/or regenerate the transmitted signal periodically. This was costly, and required additional circuitry to filter electromagnetic interference and increase the signal level every few thousand feet.
Cisco continues to hold the top spot as “#1 Innovator in the Telecom & Communications industry” in The Patent Board scorecard released this week.
According to a release issued by The Patent Board, “Cisco holds a comfortable lead over the industry, and had a patent count increase of 10%, well above the 8.3% industry average increase.”
On their website, The Patent Board says the scorecard “ranks corporate innovation using a series of metrics to determine patent quality, technological strength and breadth of impact.”
Cisco’s Managing Director of Intellectual Property Dan Lang says:
“We’re very proud of Cisco’s reputation as an innovator. Cisco continues to invest heavily in research and development, and the new statistics from The Patent Board indicate the breadth and quality of our innovation.”
Maybe you’ve noticed our recent ad campaign, “Cloud with Confidence“, in which we talk about the explosion of companies enabling their business via Cloud Computing activities -- Public, Private and Hybrid Clouds. One of my favorite parts of the messaging is that it doesn’t try and confine the definition of “cloud” as a single thing but instead it highlights the power of connectivity between people, information, markets and ideas. The value to businesses is the interaction and availability of all of these services to help them move from a great idea to a great implementation as quickly as possible.
But that’s just marketing, right? We live in an environment where people are skeptical of large claims and want to see results. Increasingly, they often want to see other people take the risk before them. Not only do we hear this from CIOs that are managing long-term strategies and budgets, but we also hear it from IT organizations that don’t want to do a lot of extra work if the benefits aren’t going to be there.
Fair enough.
How about a couple of REALLY BIG examples? Read More »
It’s almost the weekend and you know what that means…it’s time for The News@Cisco Week in Review and Look Ahead! Check out what you might have missed this week and what to look out for.
Remote controls have been an indispensible, and frequently annoying, part of television watching since Zenith introduced the Space Commander, the first practical wireless remote, 55 years ago. But the days of the familiar clicker may finally be numbered as smartphones and tablets take over the duties of remotes. Learn more about these new devices!
