In my last post, I discussed the importance of a strong network foundation.  Let’s get a little deeper into this now. The strategies depicted in the diagram below have been developed over nearly two decades of Cisco Services experience in the field.  These outline what MUST be addressed in order to successfully and fully optimize your investment.  Omission of any one will induce risk into the project.  I will highlight this as we pass through the strategies.

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Tags: Cisco, design zone, five strategies for optimized network design, Hardware Optimization, Network design, NOS, services, strategy

Another year, another CiscoLive. This was the last year in the London venue, and since it was the third time we did it, we had a chance to incorporate learning from the previous two years. As a result, I would say the network was quite a success.

The key element of the design, led by Mark McKillop, was the balance between showcasing the latest technology and maintaining the simplicity of the network. This year we had a mixed L2 + L3 core design. This design helped decrease the impact of various parts on each other. The L2 core was in place for the “special-case” requests, which a routing-based infrastructure could not help with. Read More »

Tags: cisco live, Cisco Live NOC, Cisco Live Orlando, IPv6, l2, L3, Network design

Do you think hybrid clouds look like your granny’s network too? Well, that may be extreme, but there is no doubt that hybrid clouds are networked in ways we saw things connected a decade back. Consider a recent example I came across while discussing cloud adoption at a large global enterprise headquartered in the US. Their Asia office wanted to deploy a regional application for local use. It was impractical to deploy it at one of the two large data centers in the US since user experience would be sub-optimal due to latency issues. Hence they chose a local cloud provider to host the application. Sort of a hybrid cloud situation. So what? Read More »

Tags: asr 1000, cloud, cloud connect, cloud intelligent, hybrid clouds, ISR G2, Network design, routing, Virtual Private Clouds, vpn

I’ve been in the wireless industry a long time. Like a really long time, ie., twenty years or so. Hard for me to believe, but there it is. It’s been a heck of a great ride for me and my family. One of the most memorable experiences I had was to spend half of a day discussing the relationship between string theory and wireless propagation with a small group of physicists.

That discussion has continued on in one form or another for some years now. Though I don’t engineer many wireless systems these days, I still enjoy a hearty discussion on RF theory about as much as I ever did. One of the current threads in that discussion pertains to complex adaptive systems (CAS). The ultimate complex adaptive system is the human brain. Definitely recommend you read an incredible book called, “The Shallows” by Nicholas Carr which illuminates how our brains are affected by the time we spend online. Fascinating.

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Tags: Network design, SBA, Smart Business Architecture, wireless

There’s an old saying, “Good, Fast, or Cheap -- Pick Any Two” that I’ve liked for years. It still generally holds true for those of us who can work with our hands. When I’m not helping Cisco expand its wireless universe, I like to work with my hands.

I’m actually pretty good at it, I’ve installed hardwood, tile, and marble floors and showers in our house, recently remodeled one of our bathrooms after ripping the previous one out right down to the studs and concrete pad. I can build a pretty mean V8 engine, and most things you’d see in a house or small business by hand.

The problem is I’m slow. Really slow. Like, measure three times before I cut once kind of slow. I doubt I’d last even a week as a professional contractor because of this. So, the tag line “Good, Fast, or Cheap” applies pretty well to me.

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Tags: Borderless Networks, Cisco Smart Business Architecture, Network design, SBA