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Cloud platforms are an increasingly viable option for a growing set of enterprise and service provider workloads. A recent IDC report estimated that private cloud software, including hosted private cloud, represented 62% of IT spending in 2012.

Cisco is a unique cloud provider because it delivers solutions for the two critical management bookends for your journey to the cloud. The first bookend, Cisco UCS Director, automates converged and multi-vendor infrastructure, and I’ve written a lot about that. Today I’m focusing on the second bookend that completes the journey, Cisco Intelligent Automation for Cloud (IAC).

Cisco IAC delivers all the critical elements required to deliver speed, flexibility and the competitive innovation promised by cloud-based deployments. These include:
• A self-service portal and standardized menu of services
• Service delivery automation
• Operational process automation
• Resource management automation
• Service life cycle automation

There are a lot of value statements about cloud but they all center on these basic propositions:

1) Cloud delivers simple, abstracted environments that are presented to end users for consumption on-demand. The business experiences faster and easier development and deployment of new applications or services.
2) Cloud allows organizations to focus on what makes them different and effective rather than on mundane tasks that do not add value to the business.

So, does cloud do this? Here are two customer stories that answer this question with real evidence.

ASE-IT is a service provider that was founded in 2001 and has used cloud automation to gain a competitive advantage and grow to one of the top 10 service providers in Australia.

Aurecon provides engineering, management and specialist technical services for both the private and public sector. Faced with a rapidly expanding business and a data center that had reached the end of its life, Aurecon utilized cloud automation to get closer to their stakeholders and develop new innovative services.

By deploying Cisco IAC, both companies reported the ability to:
• Accommodate rapid business growth without adding additional IT staff
• Standardize their IT environments providing the ability to grow the size, scope and
scale of services delivered to their customers
• Increase their customer base and global presence as a result of the nimbleness and agility of their IT environments
• Increase collaboration among development and IT teams resulting in new automation use cases to drive even greater innovation

In order to have visibility into your cloud and manage it properly to achieve your business goals, you need a bookend solution like Cisco IAC. Otherwise, cloud control can and will drift, and your organization will feel the impact as goals become harder to reach.

To learn more about Cisco IAC, you can watch this video or visit the Cisco IAC website.



Authors

Joann Starke

No Longer with Cisco

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The Payment Card Industry (PCI) Security Standards Council (SSC) is an open global forum for the ongoing development, enhancement, storage, dissemination, and implementation of security standards for account data protection. The 2013 meeting will focus on the updates to core PCI standards: PCI DSS, PTS PA-DSS.

Getting the latest information about the PCI Data Security Standard (DSS) is vital as products and technologies continue to change at a rapid pace. Being part of the conversations, networking with like-minded professionals, and interacting directly with payment card brands are just a few of the benefits of attending the seventh annual PCI SSC North American Community Meeting. The meeting runs September 24–26, 2013, at the Mandalay Bay Convention Center in Las Vegas, Nevada.

Continue reading “Attend the 2013 PCI Community Meeting for the Latest Core PCI Standards”



Authors

Carol Ferrara-Zarb

Compliance Solutions Manager

Security Technology Business Unit

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Over the last several years, the role of an enterprise workforce has evolved from a select few mobile-enabled employees to a robust, global network equipped with advanced capabilities at their fingertips. As this workforce grows and evolves, how can enterprises, specifically their IT departments capitalize on opportunities available through mobility while meeting their ever-increasing workforce expectations?

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Click to see the First Step in action

Today we are launching a blog series featuring Vine-format videos that will highlight key insights from a recent Cisco whitepaper, “Six Essential Steps for Unleashing the Power of Enterprise Mobility.” In the coming weeks, we will be examining each step enterprises can take to enable new and more efficient ways of working in today’s mobile world. Today’s post highlights the first phase – How enterprises can build a mobile structure. Just as any building project should begin with efficient planning, here is a quick checklist to guide your own mobile strategy development:

1.       Clearly articulate roles around the what, how, where, which, who and when.

For many enterprises, planning can take a back seat as increased mobility keeps IT departments reacting to the influx of requests for mobile devices to receive wireless access. Too often, enterprises can find themselves focusing on only one aspect of mobility. For a system-wide approach that keeps application performance, security and rich experiences top-of-mind, enterprises must develop a comprehensive mobile strategy. Continue reading “First Step to Enterprise Mobility: Build the Mobile Structure”



Authors

Prashanth Shenoy

Vice President of Marketing

Enterprise Networking and Mobility

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On the heels of the Let’s Chat! #Ciscosmt Series: Social Media for Events USTREAM panel discussion a couple of weeks ago, I wanted to share my recent experience with Cisco LIVE.  I remember the late 90s when I started working in the tech sector.  Customer events and conferences were primarily in-person and we were just beginning to explore ways of extending content virtually.  Fast forward 15 years and things have really changed.  Even if you can’t attend an event, chances are you can still experience some, if not much of the content virtually and feel part of the event.  A good example of this is, this year’s Cisco LIVE US in Orlando, FL.  20,000 people attended in-person and 250,000 people participated virtually. 

Continue reading “Let the Cisco LIVE virtual fun continue”



Authors

Joe Zakir

Market Manager, Enterprise & Global Financial Services

Americas Marketing & Communications

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Cisco Manufacturing: Transformation TuesdayIt’s interesting to think back to the times when a manufacturing job meant hard labor, a lack of automation and crowded plant floors. Flash forward to the manufacturers of today and the differences in productivity and efficiency are incredible. In a previous post, I mentioned that the misperception of the manufacturing industry is a dirty, assembly-line-type of work, too blue-collar to be both a dream job and provide a level of success that is ‘expected’ in today’s society. In reality, the manufacturing industry has experienced incredible transformation and is one of the most advanced industries today.

The U.S. manufacturing sector generates $1.7 trillion in value each year, but oddly enough in this time of high unemployment, it has more than 600,000 unfilled jobs. The push to innovate and change minds about the manufacturing industry should be at an all-time high.  We need to encourage students at all education levels – elementary, intermediate, high school and college— to seize these opportunities and educate them on what a manufacturing job and career really looks like today. It’s not what it used to be. Continue reading “Then and Now: Why Manufacturing isn’t what it used to be”



Authors

Dan Kern

Lead Marketing Manager

Manufacturing & Energy Industry Sector

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I gotta be honest here. I not a big fan of many of our marketing programs here at Cisco. Well, really it’s the launch vehicles that I think are too flowery and silly to be honest. I’m sure analyst clap their hands with glee.  

I like that aggressive attack style of marketing that challenges competitors and makes huge claims that we have to back up. Stuff like; “Yeah, we invented routing. Ours is the best, suck it Juniper” or even; “Oh you built a switch out of off the shelf Broadcom chips HP?…cool story bro. When you’re ready for actual innovation call your Cisco rep and ask about the 6800-X” I love that stuff man…make the claims and let the engineers fight it out like a MMA match. Last one standing gets the RFP.

When we were approached about the next marketing launch; “Game Changer” I actually laughed out loud. What game are we changing here? Yet another type of ACL’s or adding another VPN technology? Yeah..ummm…Woot.  Look, I get the drill; we have to release new stuff to keep the product line fresh. It’s the story of manufacturing. That’s why some car years are meh and others are incredible. Like 1957, 1963, 1969, 1973, etc…those cars changed the game. The gap in time is due to engineering hours to development and prototyping. It takes a very very long time to build anything from CAD to green board product.

Continue reading “TechWiseTV Episode 131 Network Game Changer”



Authors

Jimmy Ray Purser

Former Co-Host of TechWiseTV

No Longer at Cisco

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AN13591As organizations transform to social business, encouraging employees to use social media on behalf of the brand is a key element in a successful social strategy. Teams can use social media to amplify brand messaging as well as provide key subject matter expertise and customer service where available.  As teams build community engagement, they learn and share insights with colleagues, partners and customers.

On August 20, 2013,  Cisco will host a live chat on Twitter (#CiscoSMT) focused around engaging teams in social media. During this chat, we will discuss the following topic areas:

•  Steps to develop a culture of sharing for employees

•  Content types that resonate for teams to engage in social sharing

•  Biggest challenges that employees face in social participation for the brand

•  Recognizing and rewarding teams for participation

•  Gamification aspects of sharing strategy

Do you have additional questions for this chat you would like to discuss? We’d love to hear from you!  Submit them in advance to @CiscoSocial or add your questions in the comments box below.

Moderator: @CiscoSocial

Date/Time: August 20, 2013,  10:00am – 11:00am Pacific Standard Time

Follow Hashtag: #CiscoSMT

Continue reading “Engaging Teams in Social Media: Twitter Chat – August 20, 2013 #CiscoSMT”



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Editor’s Note: This blog post was co-written by Dr. Brendan O’Brien, who is authoring the post, and Dr. James Little, technical lead for CMX Analytics in Cisco’s Wireless Networking Group.

This year’s CiscoLive! in Orlando with over 20000 visitors was  selected as an ideal opportunity to test and prove CMX Analytics over a large venue with high volume usage.

This year’s CiscoLive! was spread over two huge venues of the Orange County Convention Centre and the Peabody Hotel between June 23rd-27th. Over two and a half days, approximately 40,000 different devices were detected using CMX Analytics. (This figure is not uncommon any longer, assuming 50% of people had WiFi on and most of us had 2 or more devices)

The main purpose of the Wi-Fi network at CiscoLive! is to provide a high quality service to all  attendees, providing CMX Analytics with its toughest test yet. With a peak of around 15,000 connected devices on the opening day serviced by 750 access points and 1500 radios, the challenge was to see how well CMX could take the raw numbers and translate it into insights on the movements of the delegates.

Let me break down some of the reports for you:

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In the table above, CMX Analytics shows:



Authors

Brendan O'Brien

Director Global Product Marketing

Connected Mobile Experiences

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During the last three years, the security research community has been having a lot of fun with SSL/TLS uncovering a few nifty attacks. First, in 2011, Juliano Rizzo and Thai Duong released the details about the BEAST attack on Transport Layer Security (TLS) at the ekoparty Security Conference in Buenos Aires, Argentina. I wrote a brief overview of the attack at the following blog post:
http://blogs.cisco.com/security/beat-the-beast-with-tls

In 2012, again at the ekoparty Security Conference in Buenos Aires, Rizzo and Duong revealed a compression side-channel attack against HTTPS called CRIME. This year at Black Hat USA, Angelo Prado, Neal Harris, and Yoel Gluck uncovered a new attack and a tool they called BREACH, which is based on some of the previous research by the folks behind CRIME.

Continue reading “BREACH, CRIME and Black Hat”



Authors

Omar Santos

Distinguished Engineer

Cisco Product Security Incident Response Team (PSIRT) Security Research and Operations