Our neighbors in Palo Alto have been making a lot of noise about the difference in price between Hewlett-Packard and Cisco networking equipment. They’d like customers to believe they can offer similar capabilities to Cisco but at much lower prices—“Cisco for less,” if you will.
Most folks understand that the first part of that claim isn’t true. They’re not Cisco. To start with, when a company spends just 2% of revenues on R&D (as HP does), it isn’t capable of generating the type of innovation that a company spending 13% can (as Cisco does). We explained how Cisco innovation delivers differentiated capabilities when we debunked the myth of the ‘Good Enough’ network.
But some customers still ask me about the price difference—the “for less” part. After all, everyone is looking to cut costs, right?
Annalisa Giardina of the Cisco Marketing Team working the booth at RSA 2011
RSA 2011 was a big show for Cisco. We had a 30x30 booth with an in-booth theater, eight demo pods, speakers on several panels, and a keynote. Including speakers, the install and dismantle crew, and all of the booth staffers, we had a crew of around 100 people at the show. Demos included firewalls, virtualization, mobility, web, and security services. With the passing of Cisco Security Monitoring, Analysis, and Response System (MARS), a partner’s SIEM ecosystem display was of note, as were demonstrations of Cisco TrustSec, intrusion prevention, and Cisco Virtualization Experience Infrastructure (VXI). We also demonstrated Cisco AnyConnect running on an iPad, illustrating how Cisco can meet the needs of organizations grappling with the demands of the consumerization of IT and the security concerns that employee liable devices bring.
RSA—the annual security conference that draws IT professionals from around the world—has been taking place this week in downtown San Francisco. At this year’s event, Cisco had a booth that highlighted innovative security solutions spanning from the data center to cloud networks, showing how to protect the evolving network infrastructure.
Tom Gillis, Vice President and General Manager of Cisco’s Security Technology Business Unit, also addressed the conference during a keynote session, at which he introduced SecureX, Cisco’s security architecture, which makes security context-aware.
I made a trip down to RSA to geek out on some new products and to find out all the relevant security information that you, our partners, will want to know. I met with several Cisco managers at the Cisco booth who walked me though some demos of the products Cisco is showing.
Keep reading for links and more details on Cisco’s security solutions, and how they can benefit you, your customers, and your business
Today, Cisco introduced the Cisco® Catalyst® 3560-C and Catalyst® 2960-C Compact Series (C-Series) switches. With these switches, Cisco continues to deliver on its commitment to innovation in its core technologies.
These C-Series switches are aimed at helping customers deliver network services in locations that pose unique wiring, space or power challenges which would otherwise require disruption of business operations.
Another industry-first: Power over Ethernet (PoE) pass-through technology
With Cisco’s industry-first Power over Ethernet (PoE) pass-through capability, the C-Series Switches eliminate the need for power outlets and dramatically reduce cabling complexities and overall infrastructure requirements. PoE pass-through technology powers IP devices in locations without access to power outlets. Cisco C-Series Switches can draw power from an upstream (PoE+/PoE-capable) switch or a router in the wiring closet, to power itself and to drive power downstream to the IP devices connected to it.
Cisco EnergyWise gives the switches the capability to monitor, manage, and reduce energy consumption of the devices connected to the switch. Devices can be turned off and powered down when they are not needed, allowing businesses to generate additional cost savings.
Other key features of the C-Series Switches include: - Simple Setup and Unified Network Management > Including Cisco Catalyst Smart Operations for “zero touch” setup and quick troubleshooting and Cisco Auto SmartPorts for automatically configuring the switch based on type of devices that connect to it.
- Unparalleled Security with Cisco Trustsec > For more info on Cisco Trustsec, please click here.
- Dramatically reduced cabling costs and flexible device placement > The C-Series Switches do not require expensive individual cable drops and can be deployed up to 100m away from the wiring closet. The flexible device placement makes them particularly suited to non-traditional networking environments and their sleek, fanless design makes them a good fit for locations including check-out kiosks in retail stores.
For full details on today’s announcement, please click here. For more information on Borderless Networks, please visit the site here.
I welcome your feedback and comments on this announcement.
Today, while we have seen that there is plenty of meat in Borderless Networks in the office, Borderless Networks has plenty of meat on the road as well. Bob, our enterprise worker, travels a lot, doing tradeshows and customer visits and dispensing Kool-Aid of various types. When he knows he is going to have to do some heavy lifting with PowerPoint he is sure to take a laptop running AnyConnect, a secure VPN client that works with the Cisco ASA firewall back at HQ to give secure, encrypted remote access. Even if he is in a coffee shop using public Wi-Fi, he knows that his data is safe because everything is going back through that encrypted tunnel. But it is more than just connectivity that we are talking about here because traffic goes through a Cisco Ironport web security appliance, filtering spyware, trojans and the like. And, just like when he is in the office, TrustSec ensures that he has access to what he needs and can’t touch the things he doesn’t. Security is deeply integrated into the network itself, not just an afterthought or add-on appliance.
