You could say that I’m an early-adopter of new tech gadgets. That being said, I also continue to use older devices until I find a very good reason to upgrade to something more current.

Maybe that’s why I don’t own a mobile smartphone, because I’ve previously not had a compelling reason to retire my basic feature-phone. That is, until now.

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Tags: applications, Cisco GIST, Mobile Apps, usability, use case, video communication

Today, we ‘re featuring a guest post from Brian Blatnik, a senior manager within Cisco’s Collaboration Technology Group:

In the month since our CloudVerse announcement the notion of a world of many clouds – public, private, and hybrid – has resonated with our customers, partners, and industry analysts. I’d like to share some perspective on how those types of clouds address different customers in the collaboration cloud services market. Since last month’s announcement highlighted our private cloud model in that market, Hosted Collaboration Solution for Large Enterprises, I’ll focus on that model. As a reminder, the Cisco Hosted Collaboration Solution gives partners, including service providers and integrators, the ability to deploy multiple collaboration applications on one server in a virtualized environment and then host those applications for multiple client organizations. The solution is designed to be run from partner data centers.

I’m often asked, “Haven’t enterprise voice and other UC services always been delivered from what we now call a private cloud?” It’s true that IP PBXs and other UC servers, like their PBX predecessors, provide services to users from a remote room or facility via a network. But there are two ways in which today’s cloud service delivery differs. First, there is the efficiency of pooling computing, network, and storage resources across multiple locations and services. Second, the services can be delivered in an on-demand fashion with elastic scaling.

The financial and strategic benefits deriving from these two factors are leading many businesses to consider consuming collaboration services in a utility model from Cisco’s partners in the Hosted Collaboration Solution (HCS). But the same drivers can result in substantial benefits to businesses that aren’t looking for services from a third party’s public cloud. Read More »

Tags: Cisco Cloud Services, Cisco CloudVerse, Cisco collaboration, Cisco Hosted Collaboration Solution, Cisco Partners, Cisco Unified Communications., cloud, cloud collaboration, cloud services, cloudverse, cloud_computing, collaboration, data center, Enterprise, enterprise voice, Hosted Collaboration Solution, Hybrid Cloud, infrastructure, Mobile Apps, mobile devices, private cloud, Public Cloud, unified communications

For anyone reading this blog post today, I have no doubt that if I were to ask you what type of mobile phone you are using; it will likely be a certain brand of smartphone. With advances in technology and apps provided to users, the days of the traditional cell phone are behind us.  StarTac anyone?

Now what does this have to do with Linksys Home Networking?

As of today, Linksys is launching its first Mobile App, available on the App Store and Android Marketplace.  For quick and easy access to your network information, you can download the free Cisco Connect Express Wi-Fi mobile app to your iPhone, iPad, iPod touch or Android phone. This App is for Read More »

Tags: Cisco Connect, home networking, Linksys, Mobile Apps, wireless router

In honor of Apple co-founder and CEO Steve Jobs’ memory, the Cisco Channels team wanted to share our Top 21 iPhone apps. But with more than 500,000 apps available in the iTunes App Store, how does one even begin to narrow the list down to 21?

Well, we decided to focus on free iPhone apps that we use all the time. The perfect pairing – free and useful! And for the new iPhone converts who traded in their old devices for the new iPhone 4S, this list would be a great starting point for building your own library of useful iPhone apps.

So, without further ado, our Top 21 iPhone apps are: Read More »

Tags: Cisco, iphone, Mobile Apps, partner, social media spotlight

The demise of Apple’s Steve Jobs is a big loss to the tech industry. He was instrumental in changing the way we consume digital media and communicate. With the unveiling of the iPhone 4s, this week, I wonder if it would change my life any further than cell phones and mobile devices already have. Gone are the days when I called friends ahead of time to get directions to their house. Heck, I don’t even bother reconfirming directions to places I vaguely remember. All because I can count on my cell phone to call the friend in case I get lost (happened to me last week).

Will cell phones and other mobile devices change the way I work more than they already have? Will they change how data centers are managed? If the recent spate of news is any indication I think the answer is yes! What do you think?

According to a recent paper on biomedical-engineering-online.com titled How smartphones are changing the face of mobile and participatory healthcare, “Indeed, Georgetown Medical School in the USA, for example, is now requiring every medical student to have an iPhone, and surgeons are finding the device (and its apps) very useful in improving their diagnostic skills and education .” Closer to home, I found some iPhone applications written specifically for the Cisco Unified Computing System (UCS). One iPhone application , SiMU, monitors the UCS. A second application allows users to find the technical specification of UCS components. Another UCS Systems Management ecosystem partner, Cloupia even has an iPad app to manage the FlexPod -- an integrated server and storage data center offering that includes Cisco UCS.

Flexpod Management

I also found some android apps like the one shown in this video below. Another application named UCSand monitors UCS blade systems.

Android application

Remote management is not new, but these mobile devices provide new ways to handle data center management. Clearly these apps are a starting point of changes yet to come in the way we monitor and manage data centers. I would expect the number and variety of applications to only grow, and at times radically change the way we work. Do you agree?

Tags: Android, Mobile Apps, UCS