“The farther back you can look, the farther forward you are likely to see.”

 – Winston Churchill

It is nearly impossible – even foolish – to look ahead without looking back. Glimpses into the past can give us inspiration for new innovations and even teach us what not to do. Behind every great technological innovation is a solid legacy product or solution that inspired it or played an integral part in its development. Behind the printing press was paper and block printing. Behind the telephone was the telegraph. And behind the Internet of Everything (IoE)? Ethernet.

Today – May 22 – marks the 40^th anniversary of Ethernet. In 1973, technologist and 3Com founder Robert Metcalfe designed the Ethernet to allow computer devices to communicate with each other using radio-like signals over an antenna cable. Long used for reliable and efficient access to information, its implications on the networking world reach far past the local area network (LAN).

Over the course of 40 years, our quest for connecting the unconnected continues. Our connections have become increasingly complex since Metcalfe was tasked with connecting several Xerox computers to a single printer, and we need to understand the possibilities in both the number and value of our modern-day connections.

In a previous blog post, How the Internet of Everything Will Change the World…for the Better, I referenced Metcalfe’s law: the power of the network is greater than the sum of its parts. True. But the parts need to be recognized and optimized in order to maximize this power. The Internet of Everything is a large-scale metaphor for Metcalfe’s law. The combined connections of people, processes, data, and things don’t just amount to a list of things that are connected. The actionable insights that exist with the power of networked connectivity exponentially create the Internet of Everything.

Ethernet has helped further the progress that these connections – and the insights gleaned from them – will have on the Internet of Everything. So, today we celebrate not only the introduction of Ethernet, but also the technologies it made possible.

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Learn more about Cisco’s Ethernet solutions.

Tags: Cisco, connections, ethernet, Internet of Everything, internet of things, IoE, IoT, LAN, network

Improving School Safety with Your WLAN

See how your campus Wi-Fi can improve emergency response

Register Now    |        May 22, 2013    10AM-11AM PDT

Tony De La Rosa shared with us a teaser last week about the riveting webinar we have coming up this week on how Wi-Fi technology can be used in K-12 schools. If you missed it, here’s the original blog--it’s not too late to register for the webinar!

Join us on this Wednesday, May 22 at 10 a.m. Pacific Time/1 p.m. Eastern Time as our experts walk through several real-world scenarios of how Wi-Fi can be used in campus emergencies. They’ll also discuss the latest Cisco solutions and take your questions in a live Q&A. Read More »

Tags: 1:N, analytic, bring your own device, byod, children, Cisco, device, devices, email, K-12, K12, kid, kids, laptop, location, location-based, mobile, mobility, network, networking, police, public, responder, safety, solution, technologies, technology, webinar, wi-fi, wifi, wireless

Can you remember life without Wi-Fi? Mobility is an integrated part of our daily lives – from how we operate as a mobile user or consumer to how we conduct business. And as Cisco continues to focus on architectures and solutions that transform our customers’ businesses, our Wi-Fi business soars: in last week’s Q3 earnings, we reported a 27 percent increase in year-over-year revenue and a 200% increase in sales of Service Provider Wi-Fi. We’ve now seen 6 out of 7 quarters of Wi-Fi growth, and we continue to be the clear industry leader.

We’ve made exciting new announcements in wireless – the industry’s first edition of the 802.11ac module; extending our portfolio for a cloud-managed offering with the acquisition of Meraki; and unveiling several marquees customer deployments.

One of the truly differentiated ways Cisco is delivering business-relevant solutions is extending the Unified Access architecture through the Connected Mobile Experiences solution. This solution embodies Cisco’s commitment to deliver relevance to line of businesses by shifting the network to a revenue enabler that creates meaningful Wi-Fi user experiences and increases business efficiency.

The Connected Mobile Experiences solution uses Cisco Wi-Fi infrastructure– access points, controllers, Mobility Services Engine (MSE), and management – to detect, connect, and engage end users and to provide unique insight to venue owners through location analytics.

Read More »

Tags: analytics, aruba, business, Cisco, connected mobile experiences, End User, location, location-based, Meridian, mobile, mobility, network, operations, unified access, wireless

Innovate the education environment by deploying Cisco BYOD Solutions for K-12 to facilitate teaching innovation and emergency  safety . 

Small, medium, and large school districts across the country are utilizing Cisco technology to provide pervasive wireless coverage for their schools.  Wireless coverage can not only provide an enhanced teaching and learning resource, but it can also be utilized as a tool for public safety.

The K-12 Education (PT III): Using Wireless Technologies in Public Safety webcast will take place on May 22^nd, 2013 from 10:00 – 11:00 am (PST).  To register for the webcast please click here.

Here’s a sneak preview:

There is nothing more alarming then the event of a lockdown occurring during school for the protection of the students, public safety is a huge concern for parents and teachers alike.  Leveraging Cisco BYOD Solutions for K-12 Education  real-time location tracking in schools becomes a reality in order to determine the whereabouts of mobile device users throughout the campus.  Read More »

Tags: 1:N, analytic, bring your own device, byod, children, Cisco, device, devices, email, K-12, K12, kid, kids, laptop, location, location-based, mobile, mobility, network, networking, police, public, responder, safety, solution, technologies, technology, webinar, wi-fi, wifi, wireless

The next generation of Wi-Fi, 802.11ac couples the freedom of wireless with the speed of gigabit Ethernet. This also translates in additional load on the backbone of the network, which has to deliver at least 3 times the capacity of the current gold standard, the 802.11n based network.

Cisco launched the Unified Access architecture  to scale linearly with the increased load on the network with 60 Gbps Wi-Fi throughput on the Cisco 5760 Wireless LAN Controller and 40 Gbps Wi-Fi throughput on the Catalyst 3850 Series Switch with a built-in wireless controller.  Both these platforms are based on the Cisco Unified Access Data Plane (UADP) programmable ASIC, which provides high performance and scale, common open APIs, and enables consistent QoS policies for both wired and wireless networks.

Aruba recently launched the 7240 series controllers with a throughput of up to 40Gbps claimed, with the same goal of delivering 802.11ac capable performance across the network. This controller is based on a generic network processor and not a purpose built ASIC like the Cisco controller.

Miercom performed a third-party evaluation to benchmark these products  using  IMIX (Internet Mix) packet traffic and test QoS traffic for high priority application.  IMIX is traffic pattern consisting of a preset mixture of small, medium and large frame sizes used to emulate real-world traffic scenarios in a testing environment. We wanted to give you a sneak peek at some of the results.

Performance

Cisco 5760 is six times faster and Catalyst 3850 is 4 times faster as compared to Aruba 7240

The Cisco 5760, 3850 and the Aruba 7240 were tested for throughput using RFC 2544 and IMIX Traffic.  The Cisco 5760 and 3850 performed extremely well by achieving 50 Gbps and 37 Gbps, whereas Aruba 7240 fell short by just achieving 8 Gbps, which is 20% of its advertised throughput.

Read More »

Tags: 802.11ac, aruba, Cisco, controller, Miercom, network, performance, QoS, technology, wireless