Increased innovation in virtualization, compute and networking technology is steadily increasing the growth and adoption of VDI. Many enterprises are extending VDI deployments to their remote offices and branches but many are also apprehensive of running VDI across the WAN link due to concerns that a single point of failure could disrupt the entire business at a remote location. Similarly, small and medium businesses (SMBs) are exploring VDI. For them to adopt VDI the offered solution needs to be simple, reliable, and able to incorporate other business needs like office communications, PCI compliance, business continuity, etc. They prefer solutions that provide a healthy TCO and can also be deployed and managed easily.
Cisco Office-in-a-Box – Cisco UCS-E Series with VMware View
Cisco WAAS: Setting the Record Straight
There has been recent speculation on Cisco’s WAAS business, but let’s set the record straight: to paraphrase Mark Twain, rumors of WAAS’ demise have been greatly exaggerated. Cisco is fully committed to the WAAS business. We have made some changes in our go-to-market approach, but our engineering teams remain fully engaged and working against our long term roadmap to drive application awareness into the network. To better leverage the capabilities of the teams, Cisco integrated the WAAS teams directly into our access router group, which now allows us to leverage a large set of developers and to focus on our Cloud Intelligent Network architecture, Cloud Connect Solutions and the L4-7 technologies which support the cloud transition.
Tags: Cloud Connect Solutions, Cloud Intelligent Network, ISR, ISR G2, waas
Utility centralized print and files services for 7,000 employees in 30 states with Cisco WAAS
In the human body, the network of blood vessels is 60,000-mile long or 97,000-kilometer, centralized and regulated by a sine qua non organ – the heart. That network reaches 100+ trillion cells and is responsible for delivering blood that carries oxygen and nutrients to nourish the body (Source: National Geographic). When that effortless flow is congested (either genetically or through our own doing as a result of diet and exercise) our ability to perform essential functions becomes less than ideal. In an extreme case, such as the stoppage of blood flow to the brain, it can cripple one’s bodily function permanently.
If the data center is the heart of an organization, then the wide area network (WAN) is its network of blood vessels that carries vital data to multiple systems. For American Water (NYSE: AWK), a publicly traded water utility in the United States, this network services 300+ locations: primary and backup data centers, 275 branch offices, various production facilities, treatment plants, two call centers with between 500 and 600 workers each, and other facilities. A number of remote sites have a few hundred users, while most average 50 users. The network also provides access to applications such as Lotus Notes, MS Office, ERP and CRM, and numerous other applications for data replication, critical operations risk management, access control, and surveillance. Read More »
Tags: american water, application acceleration, awk, Cisco ACE, cisco waas on SRE, cisco wae, ISR G2, waas, wan opt
Quintiles Embraced VDI for Next-Gen Work Space
Change. It’s part of how we work, live, and play. Change is inevitable and often feared rather than embraced. However, change could be a catalyst for innovation, a new way of doing things faster and more efficiently. It allows companies to capitalize on opportunities, creating strategic long-term value while also meeting immediate operational needs.
The market is changing and so is the IT landscape. By 2014, more than 70 million virtual desktops will be connected and 90% of organizations will allow work applications on personal devices (Gartner, 2010). Similarly, by 2015, 1.5 billion mobile devices will connect to the network (Gartner, 2011). These transitions add intense burden to the network, from manageability to security, availability, and scalability. IT leadership often turns to stopgap measures such as getting faster WAN links to handle increased traffic. But that doesn’t solve everything. Organizations that want to propel forward (i.e. be competitive) must change their focus – that is focus not only on bandwidth management, features, and bytes, but also on business agility – giving themselves room to grow. One pharmaceutical services company did that with Cisco Borderless Networks infrastructure. Read More »
Tags: byod, ISR G2, quintiles, vdi, waas, wan opt, xendesktop
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July 25, 2012 at 9:00 am PST
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Two of my favorite geeks are presenting a workshop today on Bringing the Cloud to your Remote Offices. Jimmy Ray is hosting his ‘brother from another mother’ (as we fondly refer to him) Matt Bolick. Matt first blew our doors off back in 2009 as we featured the then new ISR G2 in our ‘Routers are Dead…Long Live the Router show (now retired). Well, Matt was a featured guest recently on another big show we did, the Cisco Cloud Intelligent Network. You can see Matt’s segment on Application Visibility and Control from that show right now as a great pre-study for the workshop above. I also recommend our recent ‘Fundamentals of the Cloud Services Router’ as a secondary study resource. Matt was instrumental in our writing and creation of this tool as well and I think you will find it valuable.
Heres the thing -- The Cloud and the Network are very co-dependent. The network is poised for incredible leaps of intelligence now more than ever with this pressure from cloud implementations being quick to reveal weakness. I have even heard where the WAN has been re-defined as “Weak Area Network.” Why? Poor performance, inadequate security, lack of visibility and complex management, just to name a few An intelligent network endows the WAN with the efficiency of cloud and and the confidence of a private network.
Tags: AVC, cloud, ISR G2, TechWiseTV