Year: 2013

September 27, 2013 Leave a Comment
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Cisco Partner Weekly Rewind – September 27, 2013

Partner-Weekly-Rewind-v2Every Friday, we’ll highlight the most important Cisco partner news and stories of the week, as well as point you to important, Cisco-related partner content you may have missed along the way. Here’s what you might have missed this week:

Off the Top

Cisco Collaboration is always an active topic on the Channels blog, and nothing is more important to you than growing your business. This week, Richard McLeod, senior director Worldwide Channel Sales, provided a great deal of insight on both.

Want to get your customers current, accelerate their activation and adoption? Be sure to join the conversation on Richard’s latest blog. You’ll have the opportunity to learn about the Cisco Drive to 9 initiative and learn about the latest collaboration product and program updates by registering for one of Cisco’s Global Collaboration Launch October Partner Webcasts.

Be sure to join the conversation today! Continue reading “Cisco Partner Weekly Rewind – September 27, 2013”

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David Durham

Content Strategist

Channels

September 26, 2013 Leave a Comment
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SDN: Cisco Domain Ten tells us it’s not (just) about the Network

In my first SDN blog, I asserted that “Services” – that is technical support, professional and consultancy services – are the missing “S” in the SDN debate.  I’d now like to apply our Cisco Domain TenSM framework “in anger” 🙂 to examine in more detail the impacts that SDN may have on your IT services and operations.  While come of our competitors will only talk about the network switches and new device protocols,  l’ll show how it’s not just the network switches that you should be concerned with: your SDN and Cisco ONE journey could involve impacts across multiple “domains”.

As I bogged about Cisco Domain Ten this past year, I’ve positioned it as a mechanism to help you on your data center journey.  Let me now extend that use – SDN after all is more than just a data center technology play.  My experience with Cisco Domain Ten over the past year has helped me realize that it is, in fact, an excellent framework for considering impacts to more general IT services, and not just to  the data center .  I’ll also illustrate my case with both service provider and enterprise/business/public sector examples.

The following diagram summarizes the areas impacted – let’s discuss each one.

SDN Impacts - via Cisco Domain Ten
SDN Impacts – via Cisco Domain Ten

Continue reading “SDN: Cisco Domain Ten tells us it’s not (just) about the Network”

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Stephen Speirs

No Longer at Cisco

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NLEAFCF Presents Cisco with Corporate Hero Award

First responders play a critical role every day in the communities where we live, work and play; and I am incredibly proud of Cisco’s commitment to thank, honor and support these heroes and their families. On Monday, Cisco was recognized by the National Law Enforcement & Firefighters Children’s Foundation (NLEAFCF), as our Chairman and CEO, John Chambers, had the honor of accepting the Corporate Hero Award during the first annual Hero Awards Gala in New York City.

Continue reading “NLEAFCF Presents Cisco with Corporate Hero Award”

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Patrick Finn

No Longer at Cisco

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Cisco Leads the Gartner Wired and Wireless LAN Infrastructure Magic Quadrant Again!

Gartner has released their 2013 Wired and Wireless LAN Infrastructure Magic Quadrant.  For the 2nd time in a row, Cisco is recognized as a leader in this highly anticipated publication.

Here is the 2013 Gartner Magic Quadrant for the Wired and Wireless LAN Access Infrastructure (Authors: Tim Zimmerman and Mark Fabbi; Published 3rd September 2013).

This graphic was published by Gartner, Inc. as part of a larger research document and should be evaluated in the context of the entire document. The Gartner document is available upon request from Cisco. Gartner does not endorse any vendor, product or service depicted in its research publications, and does not advise technology users to select only those vendors with the highest ratings. Gartner research publications consist of the opinions of Gartner’s research organization and should not be construed as statements of fact. Gartner disclaims all warranties, expressed or implied, with respect to this research, including any warranties of merchantability or fitness for a particular purpose.
This graphic was published by Gartner, Inc. as part of a larger research document and should be evaluated in the context of the entire document. The Gartner document is available upon request from Cisco.
Gartner does not endorse any vendor, product or service depicted in its research publications, and does not advise technology users to select only those vendors with the highest ratings. Gartner research publications consist of the opinions of Gartner’s research organization and should not be construed as statements of fact. Gartner disclaims all warranties, expressed or implied, with respect to this research, including any warranties of merchantability or fitness for a particular purpose.

There are two primary criteria for the Gartner MQ — (a) the Completeness of Vision (b) Ability to Execute.

From a vision perspective, Cisco unveiled its vision of Unified Access – One Policy, One Management, One Network — more than a year back (last June, to be precise). This vision was the first step in helping our customers drive business innovations and achieving IT simplicity while addressing the rapid growth of BYOD and Mobility in their organizations.

We were also ahead of the times by having a vision for the network to be a strategic asset (and not a cost center) for our customers. And the way to make this happen was to leverage the network intelligence to drive new customer experiences and revenue opportunities. That’s where our vision of Connected Mobile Experiences (CMX) came about. The idea behind CMX was to enable organizations to improve customer loyalty and increase revenue by delivering context-aware mobile information that matches their customers’ real-time needs and preferences. A retail store, for example, can use the CMX solution to enhance mobile shopping experience, increase loyalty app usage, create targeted personalized marketing and context-rich notifications, and use on-premise visibility to understand and adapt to customer behavior. Its no surprise that the majority of our customers have jointly embraced this Cisco vision and a lot of our competitors are now trying to follow suit.

But the proof is in the pudding.. Read the full blog to find out how Cisco has executed on this vision.

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Prashanth Shenoy

Vice President of Marketing

Enterprise Networking and Mobility

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Unified Access Momentum Launch Event – Interop in New York!

UAM Event Speakers 2Are you looking to transform your network to deliver new, more innovative customer experiences? Are you looking to BYOD and mobility to make technology more relevant to your lines of business? Cisco can help.

Cisco is expanding powerful business innovations to more places with Cisco Unified Access serving as the network foundation that drives better connected experiences and end-user engagement.

Next week at Interop New York, we will have a launch event where we will introduce our newest business-changing network innovations. We will unveil new products and solutions that enable you to expand business applications to more places with Cisco Connected Mobile Experiences.

This event will take place on October 3rd from 1:00 to 2:00 EDT at the Jarvits Center in Midtown Manhattan. If you are not going to the show, we will also be broadcasting it live.

Whether you are there in person or viewing via the web, you can:

  • Hear from Industry Leading Executives, Industry Analyst and Cisco Customers
  • Take part in a live panel discussion and Q&A
  • Learn how organizations can create better end-user experiences and engagements with new innovations based on Wi-Fi location services and analytics
  • Hear about Cisco’s latest, most innovative mobility solutions

Space is limited and registration is required.

We look forward to seeing you either in-person or on the web.

 

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Bill Rubino

Product Marketing Manager

Enterprise Networking and Cloud Marketing

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#ExecInsights: Global Millennials, Don’t Wait for Global Solutions

If you rely on government to solve your problems, you will wait a long time. That’s what I told 600 youth delegates from around the world (and some 4,000 more online) at the “Beyond 2015: Global Youth Summit” in San José, Costa Rica, a couple of weeks ago.

Howard onstage during a panel at BYND 2015 summit.
Howard onstage during a panel at BYND 2015 summit.

The ITU brought these young leaders together to hammer out recommendations that President Laura Chinchilla of Costa Rica will present to the United Nations General Assembly in New York by the end of September. The hope is to influence the priorities of global leaders and decision-makers as the U.N. sets the agenda for sustainable development.

The day I was there, the delegates talked about Internet access as a basic human right, getting a smart device to every child, making the Internet safer, and choking off Internet-enabled child pornography. They’re asking the U.N. for flexible, dynamic, and open government; broadly available information communication technology to support sustainable development goals; and education that equips students with “a practical mix of marketable, innovative and relevant skills needed to compete in the global, digital economy.”

Continue reading “#ExecInsights: Global Millennials, Don’t Wait for Global Solutions”

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Howard Charney

Senior Vice President, Office of the Chairman and CEO

September 25, 2013 1 Comment
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What the Heck is a Service Container?

Virtualizing services within the network

Picture1When we launched the new ISR 4451-X at Cisco Live a few months back, one of the Big New Things we talked about was the Service Container architecture.  Unless you were paying close attention to the 4451-X, you might have missed that whole thing.  So what the heck is a Service Container?

To put it simply, a Service Container is a virtual machine running within the network itself.  Instead of your typical server virtual machine, these VMs can be used to enhance the capabilities of the underlying network itself.  Service Containers can add additional services, such as WAN Optimization, to the network.  They can also enhance the capabilities of network devices by adding things like new programmable interfaces to the network.  In some cases they can even be used to add impressive capabilities to the network from trusted third party developers.

Continue reading “What the Heck is a Service Container?”

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Matt Bolick

ENGINEER.TECHNICAL MARKETING

SRTG Marketing - US

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LexisNexis Breach Highlights Identity Theft Risks

Who are you? Removing the obvious existential questions for a minute, your identity is often represented as a bundle of personally identifiable information (PII). In the United States PII begins at birth with a name, date of birth, and social security number (SSN). This morning’s KrebsOnSecurity post details the unauthorized access of computer systems (via malicious code) at Lexis Nexis and Dun & Bradstreeet. Both of these organizations aggregate and sell consumer and business PII.

When PII is misrepresented, the experience for the true PII owner can range from unsettling to pure exasperation due to the fact that the victim’s virtual identity must be reclaimed and a consistently proven remediation roadmap still does not fully exist. A recent survey estimated that in 2012 over 12 million Americans were the victims of identity theft.

Fortunately, in addition to the standard PII definition a majority of states –such as California’s Penal Code §530.55 – now include credit card numbers and even computer media access control (MAC) addresses. The comprehensive definition and accompanying legislation is giving law enforcement the ability to charge suspects with identity theft and aggravated identity theft, but individuals still need to be aware of the risks and respond accordingly.

Below are five realistic almost universal U.S.-centric identity theft risk factors followed by guidance on proactively saving you those precious resources – time and money.

1. You don’t control your PII. Continue reading “LexisNexis Breach Highlights Identity Theft Risks”

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Levi Gundert

Technical Lead

Cisco Threat Research, Analysis, and Communications (TRAC)

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A Global Standard for Narrowband Power Line Communications

Steep increase in global demand for Advanced Metering Infrastructure (AMI), Electric Vehicle charging, and Intelligent Street Lighting has spurred interest to implement communications for these Neighborhood Area Network (NAN) applications over currently installed assets.  Narrow Band Power Line Communication  (NB-PLC) addresses this need by providing a communication solution which operates over existing utility distribution networks.

IEEE 1901.2 Narrowband PLC: Final Steps to the Finish Line

ieee_mb_blue

Driving to the goal of a global NB-PLC standard, Cisco is vigorously engaged in the development of   IEEE 1901.2 NarrowBand PLC.  IEEE 1901.2 adopts the latest generation PLC techniques and  provides full adaptation to the latest IETF enabling technologies for IPv6 based NANs (6LoWPAN, RPL, MPL, etc.). IEEE 1901.2 is further aligned with other important Smart Utility Network technologies such as IEEE 802.15.4g/e.  Multi service IP based NANs are thus a reality, able to seamlessly support a mixture of PHY/MAC technologies appropriate for specific deployments

The IEEE 1901.2 standard is in its final stages of development, with publishing of the finished document expected by the end of 2013.

HomePlug Netricity for Conformance and Interoperability Certification

2924_logo_final-3

With the imminent arrival of the 1901.2 standard comes the need for a certification program to insure product conformance to the specification and interoperability between multiple vendor’s product offerings.  The HomePlug Powerline Alliance is rising to this challenge.  HomePlug’s Netricity program, with the full support of Cisco, is moving smartly ahead with development of a conformance and interoperability certification program for IEEE 1901.2 based devices.  Expect certification testing to begin 2014.

Cisco salutes the commitment and expertise of the entire 1901.2 and Netricity development teams. A global standard for interoperable NB-PLC will soon be a reality!

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Paul Duffy

Senior Technical Leader

Enterprise CTO Team / Industrial IoT