The so-called “data deluge” shows no signs of abating anytime soon. Facebook, for example, has more than 2.5 billion pieces of content and ingests more than 500 terabytes of new content daily.  Mobile devices are driving this growth of data.  The global proliferation of devices estimated to reach 10 billion by 2017—or 1.4 times the number of people on the planet. As a result mobile-data traffic is exploding. The recently released Cisco Visual Networking Index (VNI) predicts that global mobile-data traffic will increase 13-fold from 2012 to 2017, reaching 11.2 exabytes per month.

But along with the challenges inherent to this tsunami of data, opportunities abound for monetizing and optimizing information. All of those new mobile consumers—in developed and emerging markets alike—will demand enhanced Connected Life experiences that will be newer, better, and more personalized. Data is the “new oil” that will fuel this opportunity. Networks and the Internet have a critical role to play in the future of Big Data. First, they are the collectors and disseminators of data, gathering it from the millions of Internet-enabled devices, applications, and sensors, then storing it in the right place for analysis and further action. Second, they are creators of critical information on location, presence, device type, application, and more. Read More »

Tags: Big Data, Cisco, cloud, data in motion, mobile world congress, mobility, Personalization, service providers, targeted advertising, virtualization, visual networking index, wi-fi

Our hospitality team and MGM Resorts are collaborating again this week at the HTNG North American Conference to discuss key trends in the industry and how Wi-Fi is changing the guest experience.

Remember Bob’s Big Ideas Session at NRF? If you’re at HTNG, make sure you attend the Keynote, featuring our very own Bob Friday, CTO, Wireless Networking Group, Cisco and Cisco partner John Bollen, MGM resorts VP of IT.

Read more at http://www.htng.org/conferences/north-american/speakers#friday

Tags: hospitality, hotels, HTNG, mobility, next gen, next-generation

Cisco validates new performance benchmarks: linear scale-out to 250K transactions-per-second with 75M concurrent sessions

Earlier this week Cisco introduced a number of new mobile internet innovations to help service providers deliver new and more personalized connected experiences. The mobile Internet is predicted to grow 13-fold between 2012 and 2017 with the addition of billions of connections between people, devices and objects. It is essential that service providers monetize these connections more effectively. To that end, Cisco unveiled a closed-loop strategy to show operators how to leverage their network as a business model enabler.

The first step in the strategy is to help operators unlock the data in their network – their entire portfolio of network infrastructure holds valuable information, or “data in motion.” The second step is to take that data in motion, analyze it and correlate it to extract meaning and insight. Once you have all this insight, you’ve got to do something with it. The third step in the loop is to link that intelligence to policy and business rules which can program the network to do what operators want it to do: deliver value through personalized connected experiences.

An exciting part of this strategy is Cisco® Quantum™, the result of more than $1.5 billion in recent acquisitions and in-house innovation. Cisco Quantum delivers unparalleled mobile network intelligence and programmability to service providers through a suite of software solutions. One of these solutions, the Cisco® Quantum™ Policy Suite, is of particular note because it recently set new industry benchmarks for scale and performance as validated by independent test agency lab EANTC (European Advanced Networking Test Center). Read More »

Tags: cisco quantum, EANTC, mobile, mobility, Service Provider, software, Test results

As our team prepares to attend Hotel Technology Next Generation’s (HTNG) North American Conference next week in Atlanta, we are excited to have one of our very own as the keynote to really highlight Cisco’s leadership in the hospitality industry. Cisco’s Bob Friday, CTO, Wireless Networking Group, will be joined by our partner John Bollen, MGM resorts VP of IT to discuss key trends in the industry and specifically at MGM. They will discuss guest needs and demands, how to turn the mobile opportunity into revenue, and the vision of the industry and where it is going.

The keynote will hit on all the imperatives that Cisco Hospitality is driving citing Cisco’s recent Wi-Fi installation at MGM Resorts as a key example. Together, the pair will discuss how certain trends are impacting both Cisco and MGM solutions developments, investments and more. With Bob Friday’s experience in mobility, he will also address what he is seeing in other industries and how it can be applied to hospitality.

Read More »

Tags: Bob Friday, Cisco, cto, hospitality, hotel, hotel technology next generation, HTNG, HTNG North American, IT, John Bollen, location, location analytics, MGM, mobility, network, networking, platform, technology, wi-fi, wifi, wireless, wireless networking

As shown in the most recent Cisco Visual Networking Index, Japan is one of the fastest growing countries when it comes to mobile data traffic.

Like many service providers, SoftBank, one of Japan’s leading mobile operators, has wrestled with how to manage this vast amount of traffic in an efficient and effective manner.

To address the challenge, SoftBank recently Read More »

Tags: asr, backhaul, metrocell, mobile, mobility, Service Provider, small cell, Softbank