In a previous blog, I posted the first of three pitfalls of  hitching your wagon to the cloud . Today, let’s cover the second pitfall of force fitting cloud into your current security model.

Recently, I had an opportunity to listen to the CIO of a Fortune 100 company talk about top business care-abouts for IT. We have all heard about cloud and virtualization as technology care-abouts, but this CIO boiled it all  down to two things that matter for IT: Productivity and Risk. Read More »

Tags: ASR_1000, CIO, cloud, Hybrid Cloud, ISRG2, IT, risk, security, vpn, WAN

I have a confession: I’m a technology late-adopter. On Rogers’ Innovation Adoption bell curve, I probably fall somewhere in the ‘late majority’ —  I like the tried and true.

But with a few years and many advances, I’m back on Facebook (my short experience with it left me with privacy paranoia),  and if you can believe it, I’m now an iPhone user. I appreciate not lugging around my iPod, and having a camera ready whenever I need it, but it’s not only the extra bells on the integrated device that has impressed me -- it’s the realization that I don’t have to compromise functionality to have it all.

Another technology that has made a lot of strides since its entry into the market is integrated router security. Read More »

Tags: access control, asr 1000, Cisco ISR G2, firewall, security, TrustSec, vpn, VPN routing/forwarding, WAN

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

In the second installment of our Valley Sleep Center case study, we witness the importance of installing a robust, secure virtual private network (VPN). As a medical clinic, Valley Sleep Center needs to maintain HIPAA compliance and also allow employees to review confidential patient records. Overhauling its antiquated VPN technology, the company implemented a high-performance Cisco VPN solution. Now, employees have reliable connections and can efficiently transfer files among the business’s five locations. Perhaps the best benefit, however, is the peace of mind that comes from the security provided by the right network.

Part One of the Valley Sleep Center

Watch Part Two>>

Read More »

Tags: Cisco, Invision Technology Solutions, right network, savings, sleep clinic, UC, Valley Sleep Center, vpn

Today, we’re debuting a four-part customer case study on sleep disorder clinic Valley Sleep Center. Located in the metropolitan Phoenix area, the business was looking to expand from two to five locations within a year. Struggling with slow VPN connections and an outdated phone system, the company decided to upgrade its network. The result? A 50% reduction in costs. Watch the video below to see how upgrading to the right network benefited Valley Sleep Center’s bottom line.

Watch the video! Read More »

Tags: Cisco, Invision Technology Solutions, right network, savings, sleep clinic, UC, Valley Sleep Center, vpn