In early May we published our “Cisco-Social-Media-Policy-Guidelines-and-FAQs” for our employees to read, acknowledge and if applicable inculcate into their daily regime as employees of Cisco.  An internal Governance Board created this document to empower the employee’s engagement rather than harness as the employee traversed through the social media and social network landscape.  Does it answer all the questions imaginable, no, it does, however, provide the necessary guidance to allow any employee to navigate and escalate any questions which may arise during the many daily social media journeys.

Many ask, what’s inside a Cisco social media policy document and why do you have one?  As stated above, the guide is there to help employees navigate social networks, as the employee engages the many audiences present within these social networks.

At Cisco we are a community that embraces transparency, authenticity and openness.  We encourage our employees to be a part of social networks, both internal to Cisco, as well as, external to Cisco.  Our employees may use social networking sites while at work to conduct business.  Cisco does not block access to social networking sites – we believe in empowering the workforce and instilling trust in our employees to work responsibly.

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Tags: Governance, policy, social media, transparency

Tablets and mobile devices are driving massive change in the IT world. We are seeing a few key shifts that need to be addressed:

The user to device ratio has changed, while IT resources stay the same:

• Early 1990s: Each user has one device on a wired connection.
• Late 1990s: Users have gone mobile with laptops and other local devices.
• Today: Employees require anytime, anywhere access with multiple devices per person.

IT is struggling to secure, manage and support employee-owned devices in the workplace, bringing it’s own set of challenges:

• Classifying managed vs. unmanaged endpoints.
• Ensuring proper identification and authentication of devices.
• Associate each user with the proper host.

It all comes down to this: when your employee brings an iPad into work, how can you centralize access and policy management, without adding IT resources?

Join our session to learn how the Cisco Identity Services Engine and Cisco Prime Network Control System offer the solution. Timothy Abbott, Senior Network Engineer, CCNA, CCNP will be on-site to present a case study from his experience at the San Antonio Water System.

We hope to see you Wednesday May 11th, 11:15am -- 12:00pm in the Mandalay Bay L conference room. Learn more.

Tags: iPad, mobile devices, network, policy, security, tbalet, wi-fi, wifi, wireless

Mark Twain once wrote, “Everybody complains about the weather, but nobody ever does anything about it.” Security policy is a lot like that. Creating a security policy is at the top of the list for anyone looking to really secure their network. But the devil is in the details.

Among the things a security policy needs to cover are:

• All users
• All physical and virtual devices
• All access methods
• All resource classifications and locations
• All compliance requirements
• All of the OSI layers, from the physical layer up the stack to the application layer
• AND the policy needs to be applied uniformly across the entire distributed enterprise

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Tags: identity, Identity Services Engine, ISE, policy, risk, security

Furthering its leadership in networking, last week Cisco introduced new security,  management, and video solutions to its Borderless Networks portfolio to help information technology departments more efficiently manage the proliferation of mobile devices, ongoing changes in workforce habits, and the impact of video on the network.

The innovations include:

- Cisco Identity Services Engine (ISE) for policy management
- Cisco Prime for Enterprise to help organizations more effectively manage their network and network services
- Cisco Medianet and video conferencing to optimize video delivery.  Highlighting Cisco’s commitment to on-going innovation in its core technologies, this announcement included details of integrated video conferencing on the ISR G2.

To get an update on the full announcement, please watch this short video featuring Marie Hattar, VP of Borderless Networks Marketing and Ross Fowler, VP of Borderless Networks Sales here.

For the full press release, please click here.

Tags: Borderless Networks, ISE, ISR, ISR G2, management, policy, video

This week, a New York Times article focused on retailers and their efforts (or lack thereof) to develop mobile sites and apps to enable anytime-anywhere shopping. One statistic that caught my eye in the article: 85 percent of consumers expect to be able to shop using their smartphones and expect that experience to be at least as good as shopping on a computer. Yet, the article reports that: “By mid-2010, according to the Acquity Group, just 12 percent of the top 500 United States online retailers had sites compatible with mobile browsers, while just 7 percent had apps.”

Whether you’re an IT professional, a business decision maker, an employee, a consumer or customer, the topics of mobile productivity and the connected experience matter, regardless of which side of the fence you’re on.

And that’s why I’m excited to announce our latest launch. As headlines continue to tout the proliferation of smartphones and tablets, businesses need to ensure that they can allow secure access for anyone on any device and deliver rich applications (like video and voice) reliably—all while providing seamless integration across all elements.
In addition, when you factor in emerging cloud trends, the ability to deliver voice and video applications over any device becomes even more critical—not to mention complex from a management standpoint.

Today we’re adding more powerful capabilities to the Borderless Network Architecture to help IT administrators ensure success. Three new major solutions for Borderless Networks help make the network architecture work seamlessly, reliably, and securely to address growing trends and expectations.

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Tags: Borderless Networks, medianet, network management, policy, video, Voice