Year: 2015

June 11, 2015 1 Comment
Avatar

Stopping DDoS Attacks at the Network Edge

ASR 9000We’ve been talking a lot about security this week with the announcement of the Firepower 9300 and how we’re helping to secure the Evolved Programmable Network.  Earlier posts talked about the security threat, the challenge to video delivery networks, and what steps we’re taking to for both DDoS mitigation and security in general.

Part of the challenge is that there are two types of DDoS attacks – volumetric – meaning, massive amounts of data – and application specific, a smaller attack but one that targets a specific service. An efficient, effective, defense-in-depth requires protection for both. Firepower 9300 is optimized for the application centric attacks, but the Cisco ASR9000 virtual DDOS or vDDOS mitigation leveraging from technology from Arbor Networks ensures that the bad guys can’t overwhelm your defenses at the edge of the network.

That edge-based protection is important since DDoS attacks getting bigger – in 2014 the biggest according to Arbor was 400 Gigabits per second.  They’re also getting more complicated, or “multi-vector”, meaning the bad guys are attacking from multiple directions.

The Cisco ASR 9000 virtual DDoS mitigation solution, provides Continue reading “Stopping DDoS Attacks at the Network Edge”

Authors

Avatar

Greg Smith

Sr. Manager, Marketing

Cisco Solutions Marketing

Leave a Comment
Avatar

Collaboration Notes from Cisco Live: Wednesday Wrap-Up

You know it’s a star-studded day when the morning starts with Rebecca Jacoby, the afternoon features Rowan Trollope and Jonathan Rosenberg, and the night ends with Steven Tyler and Joe Perry wearing this year’s freshly minted Cisco Live hat. Yes, Wednesday was a busy day.

If you somehow missed it, the word of the week is exponential. It’s a strong message in every major session I’ve attended — and for good reason. Thinking, development, change — we all know the basics of moving forward, but it’s adding exponential in front that will make the difference in your ability to disrupt yourselves, your markets, and your competitors. The exponential component is really what’s required to advance and succeed in the digital age. It’s simple math, really.

Read on for: Rowan Trollope and Jonathan Rosenberg, Industry Keynote, Intercloud, Innovation Session, Customer Appreciation Event, Customer Connection Program, Keep Up-to-Date Beyond Cisco Live  Continue reading “Collaboration Notes from Cisco Live: Wednesday Wrap-Up”

Authors

Avatar

Kim Austin

No Longer with Cisco

Leave a Comment
Avatar

Federal Agencies and the Internet of Things

Earlier this week, Federal Computer Week ran an article – “Are agencies really ready for the Internet of Things?” – that discusses the potential challenges government agencies face when implementing the Internet of Things (IoT). The article’s author spoke to Gary Hall, chief technology officer for Federal Defense at Cisco, about these challenges, as well as why federal agencies can’t afford to ignore IoT any longer.

The biggest concern that all organizations have with IoT is the massive scope it involves – there is a huge volume of data being produced and a need to store and process it all. Even just the number of connected devices is expected to explode in the coming years, growing from around 16 billion today to 50 billion by 2020. “Humans can’t deal with the volume of data we’re producing,” Hall said.

All this data means more chances for security breaches as well, which is especially worrying for federal agencies. In this case, awareness is key, as Peter Romness, a business development manager Cisco, spoke about at a recent GovLoop seminar. Romness cautioned that there is no “silver bullet” defense, so agencies must prepare to deal with inevitable hacks. “It’s not a question of if you’re going to get hacked, it’s a matter of when,” he said.

Despite these concerns, IoT experts agree that federal agencies cannot avoid the issue any longer, and if they haven’t already started planning for IoT implementation, they’re behind. Cisco estimates that IoT will generate $4.6 trillion for the public sector over the next 10 years, and agencies that are too wary of potential security issues risk missing out on this value. “This is the next big disruption,” Hall said. “It’s important that we aren’t so afraid of the fear of attack that we don’t realize the value.”

For example, the General Services Administration (GSA) – which manages nearly 10,000 government-owned buildings around the county – is reaping the rewards of its IoT- building management initiative, GSALink. GSA collects almost 30 million data points from sensors throughout its buildings, constantly monitoring everything from light to humidity. Using this data, GSA is able to optimize conditions when workers are present and save on energy costs when buildings are empty. IoT can add significant value like this to all federal agencies – they just have to take advantage of it!

Read more about how IoT can transform the public sector here, and check out more thoughts from Cisco’s experts like Gary Hall on our blog.

Authors

Avatar

Dan Kent

Director

Public Sector Engineering & CTO

1 Comment
Avatar

Business Benefits of Universal Intelligent Access Demonstrated at Cisco’s UK Showcase

Screen Shot 2015-06-11 at 4.52.42 AMGuest Blog written by Scott Morrison, Vice President SCTG – Small Cell Eng

Enterprises have long recognised the benefits of wireless – to enable faster, more productive working processes and a more empowered, more flexible workforce. After all, it is the enterprise sector that pioneered Wi-Fi deployments, often working with service providers, and it represents a significant business for Cisco worldwide. But the feedback from our enterprise partners is that businesses are hungry to build on this wireless foundation. Specifically, they want to extend the reach and power of their applications by combining the power of their Wi-Fi networks with the universal service of cellular networks.

Business BenefitsBusinesses want a simpler approach to mobile and they want it everywhere. For example, many workforce and process automation systems are isolated in individual locations today. Blending indoor Wi-Fi with cellular networks will help these systems to make faster, better and in time more predictive decisions.

This presents a both a challenge and a huge opportunity for service providers. Continue reading “Business Benefits of Universal Intelligent Access Demonstrated at Cisco’s UK Showcase”

Authors

Avatar

Lisa Garza

Senior Marketing Manager

Leave a Comment
Avatar

802.11ac Wave 2 is a Game Changing Technology for the Wired Network

The WiFi industries latest standard—802.11ac wave 2—is now upon us.  This version of WiFi smashes the Gigabit barrier and promises to raise the performance of wireless network to levels never seen before.  802.11ac wave 2 is ideally suited to meet the new demands created by the influx of wirelessly connected devices being brought into businesses at an unprecedented rate.  Make no mistake, for most workers today, the wireless network is not just an alternative way to connect.  Rather, it has become the primary access network for most businesses and is creating new experiences and new ways of engaging customers and workers.

aironet 1850

There’s another aspect of this WiFi version that is unique, wave 2 is the first WiFi standard that will dictate the architecture of the wired network.  Prior to wave 2, the wired network had always outperformed wireless so business could deploy WiFi without much impact to the wired network.  With wave 2, the wireless network will have as good—or better—performance than wired switches.  Now businesses can enable more devices per user, such as stream 4K video over WiFi, and be assured their Internet of Things deployments go smoothly. Continue reading “802.11ac Wave 2 is a Game Changing Technology for the Wired Network”

Authors

Avatar

Zeus Kerravala

Founder and Principal Analyst

ZK Research

2 Comments
Avatar

10 Smart New Ways to Keep Your Network Up and Running: Final Thoughts from Cisco Live

After several days of attending Cisco Live, I’m excited about what I’ve seen and heard. Not just from my Cisco colleagues but from customers who are transforming their businesses by using their networks in new and previously unimaginable ways. Today’s business call to action, “Disrupt or be disrupted,” couldn’t be more true.

In my blog before Cisco Live, I described how we decided to combine our two most popular enterprise support services to create one powerful and flexible service. Converging SMARTnet with Smart Net Total Care under the name of Smart Net Total Care allows you to choose the basic network support capabilities traditionally found in SMARTnet, as well as reach higher to access the proactive smart service features of Smart Net Total Care. In doing so, you can optimize the full lifecycle of all your Cisco equipment. This consolidation creates more flexibility and more value for you when it comes to selecting a single solution that supports all your company’s Cisco network devices. Learn more here:

 

In my last blog, I also shared with you five of the most popular user applications of Smart Net Total Care based on customer feedback.  Now, I’m sharing the final five applications to complete the ten smart ways to keep your network up and running smoothly and reliably – and to protect it from unnecessary risk.  As a reminder, I’ve included the first five. Skip to number 6 if you’re already familiar with them.

1. Simplify Contract Management

Many customers use the contract management features of SNTC to simplify how they manage their Cisco service contracts. It provides a consolidated view of all the Cisco devices in the network and their support contracts.  This visibility can help dramatically reduce the number of contracts and result in less administrative overhead, faster renewals and timely product refresh. If you’re not familiar with how to take advantage of this functionality, take a few minutes to check out this video. It demonstrates how you can plan for service coverage renewal and save hours and even days managing your contracts in the future.

2. Save Installed Base Management Time

Time is your most valuable resource … yet you never have enough. Freeing up time from routine network maintenance tasks helps you focus on more strategic IT assignments. SNTC lets you eliminate steps – and accelerate others – in your IB management process. Learn how you can get more out of your day with time saving tips found in this video.  Continue reading “10 Smart New Ways to Keep Your Network Up and Running: Final Thoughts from Cisco Live”

Authors

Avatar

Mala Anand

No Longer with Cisco

1 Comment
Avatar

Cisco’s IoT World Forum Young Women’s Innovation Grand Challenge Top 20 Finalist Announced

Team,

Cisco is proud to announce the top 20 finalists from the first annual IoT World Forum Young Women’s Innovation Grand Challenge!

In collaboration with our key partners, this challenge enabled us to connect with over 1500 girls between the ages of 13-18, located in 171 countries across the world. We received approximately 400 completed submissions for connecting mobile devices to the internet using IoT technologies in multiple fields including education, healthcare, manufacturing, energy, retail, transportation, mining, and smart cities.

Out of all the ideas submitted, our pool of judges have determined the top 20 finalists who they felt demonstrated the most original, creative, and feasible ideas. And the finalists are: Continue reading “Cisco’s IoT World Forum Young Women’s Innovation Grand Challenge Top 20 Finalist Announced”

Authors

Avatar

Inbar Lasser-Raab

No Longer with Cisco

3 Comments
Avatar

Cisco brings proven ASA security to AWS marketplace customers

We are very excited to announce the availability of Cisco’s best-selling Cisco Adaptive Security Virtual Appliance (ASAv) for the Amazon Web Services (AWS) cloud platform.

Our customers can now use Cisco ASAv to protect their on-demand AWS workloads and achieve consistency across hybrid cloud environments. The Cisco Adaptive Security Virtual Appliance (ASAv) runs the same software as physical Cisco ASAs to deliver proven security functionality in a virtual form factor.

Cisco ASAv on the AWS Marketplace offers: Continue reading “Cisco brings proven ASA security to AWS marketplace customers”

Authors

Avatar

Bill McGee

No Longer with Cisco

June 10, 2015 1 Comment
Avatar

Transforming Through Innovation: Marking Cisco’s CPE Milestones

Screen Shot 2015-06-10 at 4.41.41 PMBy Joe Chow, Vice President, Connected Devices BU, Cisco

Our theme this year at ANGA COM 2015 in Germany is “transformation through innovation.” That’s why we thought it timely to showcase the elements we build, that get installed into consumer homes.

Almost a quarter of the world’s television households — more than 300 million, in fact — are connected, in some way, shape or form, with the Videoscape components we make. We celebrate 25 years of partnerships with over 150 service providers Continue reading “Transforming Through Innovation: Marking Cisco’s CPE Milestones”

Authors

Avatar

David Yates

as Director of Service Provider Video Marketing at Cisco

SP360