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Another successful ANGA COM for Cisco.

The event itself attracted 17,000 visitors and 1,700 participated in the Congress, listening to over 100 speakers – both areas attracting more people than last year – this is indeed a growing show!

Cisco was well represented in panels and speaking sessions throughout the event, with Alon Bernstein´s talk on virtual CMTS’, Yves Padrines’ panel on Connected & Smart Homes  – which was very well attended in spite of taking place on the last afternoon – we counted over 300 people!  And of course my own involvement on a panel to discuss how Cloud is key to keeping service provider’s competitive against new players such as the Over-The-Top (OTT) providers.

Above: Check out my presentation from ANGA – ‘Cloud or not to Cloud, that is the question!’

The main Continue reading “ANGA COM 2014 Closes on a Positive Note: Key Highlights from the Show Floor”



Authors

Nick Fielibert

CTO, Video Technology

SP EMEAR

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On May 22, Harford County, Maryland held a press conference to announce its high-speed fiber optic based network, which will connect government buildings, schools, and libraries while reducing costs. The fiber optic cable, known as HMAN, or Harford Metro Area Network will allow greater broadband access to residents. According to Ted Pilbil, director of the county’s ICT department, the HMAN will “upgrade the county’s computer network and serve as a communications backbone” for Harford.

Since its conceptualization five years ago, HMAN has grown both from the efforts of the Inter-County Broadband Network (ICBN) – a consortium of six Maryland counties – and a federal grant under the Broadband Technology Opportunities Program (BTOP).HMAN press conference

As part of the fiber optics solution, Cisco helped guide the County into a design that was within its budget and met all its technical needs. More than 100 miles of fiber optic has connected approximately 100 institutions around the county. The design included a Metro Ethernet solution based on the ASR9K platform, which has allowed the County to replace its expensive leased lines with a wholly owned fiber optic network managed by the county. The network has the ability to add Dense Wave Division Multiplexing (DMDW) optical technology to further expand the network capacity by a factor of 40x with additional equipment. Cisco’s flexible design allowed the County to reduce costs while providing high-speed connectivity to local schools, libraries, public safety offices, and economic development zones.

The HMAN has great potential to provide economic opportunities and bring business into Harford County. One such opportunity is the presence of “dark fiber.” In essence, dark fiber is when cables are not activated, which can allow a company to create its own private network. Furthermore, business that could not previously access broadband service from traditional carriers – whether due to location or cost – can now buy into a cost-effective, high-speed network. The data will move faster and with greater reliability and flexibility.

Alongside businesses, city and county government will also be linked on the broadband highway, offering endless possibilities for teleconferencing, data sharing, and video communications. Furthermore, HMAN will open opportunities for additional infrastructure for primary, secondary, and higher education.

By providing high-speed access to video, voice, and data for county organizations and residents, the HMAN will catapult Harford County into a technology center of the future.



Authors

Tony Morelli

Vice President, SLED East

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If you want to get more leads for your business, you need to increase the traffic to your website. We live in an age where anyone who fails to take full advantage of the Internet’s massive potential is missing out on a crucial number of customers. Utilize these seven techniques to increase the amount of traffic to your site and to convert casual visitors into lifelong customers.

Create Content with Real Value

Blogging and content marketing are effective strategies for almost any niche. Offering valuable content that’ll help your target market will attract visitors and can lead to social sharing that’ll attract even more customers. The key with blogging is to avoid creating the same run-of-the-mill content that most businesses do. Instead, create truly valuable articles and guides that’ll help your readers. They’ll return in the future, and every great post will increase the amount of trust your customers have in your business.

Make Your Site Shareable

Unless you like paying loads for advertising, you should start trying to attract more organic ‘shares’ and ‘likes’ via various social platforms. Focus on the biggest ones at first like Facebook, Twitter, and Pinterest. Include prominent sharing buttons on your website and interact with your audience using whichever platforms that will yield the highest ROI. Include content on your blog that fits with the typical type of content that’s usually appreciated. For example, high-quality pictures are necessary to attract attention on Pinterest.

Have a Giveaway

There are several benefits of a good giveaway. Don’t just offer up cash as a prize. Instead, use it as a chance to get your products in the hands of potential future customers who could also leave reviews and share their experience. A big giveaway will help boost the attention you’re getting on social media and online forums, attracting new customers while rewarding existing ones too.

Take Advantage of Holidays

Holidays provide you with easy content ideas for your website and potential product lines. Plan an event around a major upcoming holiday like a sale, giveaway, or comprehensive guide on how your product could enhance their holiday. Creative ideas are sure to attract attention from all over the web. Finally, get involved with major online events in your industry to increase your exposure. Fundraising activities and Twitter chats are great places to start.

Optimize Your Site for Search Engines

Organic search engine traffic converts measurably and it’s free, so what’s not to love? You don’t need to have extensive search engine optimization (SEO) experience to make a few simple improvements to your site. While you can hire someone to make the improvements for you, it’s fairly simple to learn.

Optimize your site for speed to improve your rankings in search engines and user experience. Use one of the numerous free keyword tools available on the Web to find highly searched keywords related to your product or service. Include these keywords naturally in your website content and over time you’ll attract more free visitors. Take advantage of free SEO resources to learn about all the changes you should make.

Modernize Your Website

In order to attract new visitors without spending a ton of money, you’re going to need to convince other people or sites to link to yours. If your site looks like it’s from the 90s, no one is going to link to you because it makes them look bad. Even with a tight budget, you can hire a relatively cheap designer and take advantage of content management platforms like WordPress to create a user-friendly site.

Finally, ensure that your website functions properly most of the time by tracking your uptime and downtime. All your social media and content marketing efforts will be for naught if your site is always down. And if your visitors can’t access your website reliably, they’ll probably go somewhere else.

Be warned that it could take some time and persistence before you see the results from certain methods. However, if you focus on creating the best experience for your customers, you’ll see great returns on your effort over time.



Authors

JT Ripton

Business Consultant and Freelance Writer

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At Cisco, we say that the Internet of Everything (IoE) changes everything. We really believe it.  No other technology has been so pervasive or as rapid in its growth as the Internet—adding billions of new connections every year. But, the number of people and things getting connected isn’t what matters most. What matters most is the outcomes those connections make possible.

People use Internet connections to improve the way they live, work, and interact. Governments improve how they serve their citizens, and businesses use the information from all these connections to make better decisions, be more profitable, and innovate faster.

As our partner, we want to empower you with the information, resources, and technology you need to build your own IoE roadmap. The sooner you act to help your customers understand how to take advantage of IoE to bolster their competitive position and profits, the sooner you’ll establish your organization as an IoE provider of choice. Continue reading “Create Your Roadmap to Capitalize on the $19 Trillion IoE Market Opportunity”



Authors

Sherri Liebo

Vice President

Global Partner Marketing

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Since its founding in 2007, Fibrenoire, based in Montreal, Quebec, has grown from a startup to one of Canada’s largest metro-fiber-to-the-business service providers. As further testament to their success Fibernoire was the first Canadian service provider to earn MEF Carrier Ethernet 2.0 Services certification leveraging Cisco’s Carrier Ethernet Systems.

We recently had an opportunity to interview Jean-François Lévesque, Fibrenoire’s Chief Technology Officer, to hear how the company has stayed on the cutting edge while remaining lean and efficient.

Cisco: What makes you stand out in the service provider business?

Jean-François Lévesque:

One of the things that differentiate us is focus that we specialize exclusively in fiber optic Internet connections and fiber optic private network services for companies. We also offer a consultative engineering approach that accompanies solution engineering, from project delivery to 24/7 technical support and access monitoring from our Network Operations Centre (NOC).

In addition, we are midsized—lean but savvy—so we are essentially in the middle of the market. We contend with both smaller network service providers and Canada’s largest carriers. On one hand, small service providers often win out based on price, while the well-known brands may deliver “vanilla” solutions or put junior staff in charge of projects. On the other hand, we use both technology and know-how to create custom solutions for customers to stay ahead of the competition.

These efforts have paid off. We’ve gone from three to 50 employees in seven years and continue to expand.

Cisco: What services do you provide? Continue reading “Fibrenoire’s Jean-François Lévesque shares tips with Cisco on how to thrive in the fast-paced service provider world”



Authors

Greg Smith

Sr. Manager, Marketing

Cisco Solutions Marketing

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Cisco Live is always a ‘High Energy’ event, and this week at San Francisco proved no different.

It was also a place where Energy companies themselves had come to learn about the newest trends and product solutions from Cisco and, just as important, to mingle and network with peers and industry thought leaders.

The ‘World of Solutions‘ had a number of examples of Energy Industry Solutions aimed at business needs, not just “bits and bytes”. One example was the use of OSISoft’s Pi software which can run directly in Cisco Grid Routers. OSISoft and Cisco are partnering to improve real-time gathering and monitoring of process data in the the Utilities and Oil and Gas Industries. The Pi Software actually runs on the Cisco router as a form of ‘Fog Computing’. A thermal camera was shown collecting data (a heat lamp in this demo) and the information from that ‘Internet of Things’ thing was sent in real time across the network. This kind of solution can alert supervisors of a possible problem, and allow faster remediation. That kind of real-time data monitoring and fast reaction over the network can save lives. More of that in a future blog, when I’ll be telling you more about the business benefits Utilities and Oil and Gas companies are getting from this kind of Cisco technology today.

One of the highlights for me had to be the arrival of Alan Matula on stage with John Chambers. Alan is EVP and CIO at Royal Dutch Shell. It was quite allegorical to see both industry leaders on stage together. Here was not a supplier/customer relationship, but a business partnership between Shell and Cisco aimed at producing successful business outcomes.

Alan talked about “Innovation is in our DNA“, and “We are a technology Company first and an oil company after that“. Clearly strong synergies with Cisco – the Cisco Live event is a poster-child for Innovation! Alan added that they have “…A very different business model supported by Cisco technology“.

SAlan Matula Cisco Live 2014hell also talked about how Cisco was partnering with them to address critical infrastructure security, and how they didn’t want sales people, although salespeople are good, they need people who can help them turn technology into business processes and outcomes. My colleague Joseph Bradley tweeted: #CLUS #IoE Shell CIO and EVP on stage with Chambers. Shell has reinvented its DNA…”Failure has to be supported” IOE is not without failure. John Chambers added to Alan Matula’s comments: “Shell has taken the Internet of Everything to new levels.” More about Shell in one of my future blogs too, as Cisco is sharing the challenges with it’s customers including companies such as Royal Dutch Shell.

Look out for my future blogs giving you more insights into the Cisco Live 2014 event – focusing on the Energy Industry.



Authors

Peter Granger

Senior Sales Transformation Manager

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Please take 3 minutes to take the 17-question 2014 Survey to weigh in on key issues to be discussed by North Bridge, Gigaom, and industry colleagues over the next year. Hear the issues debated first hand during the Gigaom Structure “Future of Cloud Computing Survey” panel on June 18th!
Please take 3 minutes to take the 17-question 2014 Survey to weigh in on key issues to be discussed by North Bridge, Gigaom, and industry colleagues over the next year.

The 4th annual Future of Cloud Computing Survey is underway! Cisco, along with North Bridge and Gigaom Research, and over 60 industry collaborators aim to explore the types of cloud computing technologies being used today and in the future.

Please take 3 minutes to take the 17-question 2014 Survey to weigh in on key issues to be discussed by North Bridge, Gigaom, and industry colleagues over the next year. You can also hear the issues debated first hand during the Gigaom Structure “Future of Cloud Computing Survey” panel on June 18th!

Your participation in the survey is instrumental for our industry to understand how cloud computing resources are being applied. This survey will help shed light on the requirements and needs of the cloud computing market so that vendors can deliver the best solutions.  Accordingly, your answers in this survey will help shape future solutions.

As more and more emphasis is put on shifting workloads across the Intercloud, understanding the drivers and inhibitors will help define accurate cloud strategies across organizations.

Re-cap of the 2013 Survey Findings:

  • Business is driving cloud adoption:   Organizations average 52% current use of applications that advance business priorities, compared with an average 36% that use applications that advance IT priorities – underscoring the increasing value placed by organizations on facilitating the delivery of services beyond IT via the cloud
  • Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) leads but fastest growth is in Infrastructure-as-a-Service (IaaS), which will give way to Platform-as-a-Service (PaaS) in five years.
  • Agility and scalability are the primary drivers for cloud adoption. However, the need for cloud services to support mobility and the ability for continuous innovation to drive competitive advantage through more integrated business processes are all key drivers for the future.
  • Security is starting to lose its label as the primary inhibitor to cloud adoption as other significant adoption issues arise

The survey closes May 30th, get your responses in now!

 

Addition Resources:

Did you miss CiscoLive? Read the “Moving at #Cloud Speed” recap by Didier Rombaut.  This blogs includes links to many new cloud assets.

Gigaom: Future of Cloud Computing Survey Results, June 18-19 2014 (San Francisco, CA)

Read Nick Earle's bio
Read Nick Earle’s bio

Cloud World Forum:  Nick Earle, Senior Vice President of Worldwide Services Sales and Channels at Cisco will be giving a keynote at Cloud World Forum (London, UK) on June 17th at 16:30.  His masterclass address will discuss how you can align your strategy and business for success using cloud.