Cisco Intelligent Traffic Director (ITD) is a zero latency multi-terabit layer 4 load-balancer available on 5k/6k/7k/9k. It has support for traffic steering and clustering solution on the Nexus series of switches.
ITD allows customers to deploy servers and appliances from any vendor with no network or topology changes. With a few simple configuration steps on a Cisco Nexus switches, customers can create an appliance or server cluster and deploy multiple devices to scale service capacity with ease. The servers or appliances do not have to be directly connected to the Cisco Nexus switch. ITD takes load balancing decision in a single clock cycle of the switching hardware, Hence avoiding latency altogether.
ITD supports IP-stickiness, resiliency, NAT (EFT), VIP, health monitoring, sophisticated failure handling policies, N+M redundancy, IPv4, IPv6, VRF, weighted load-balancing, bi-directional flow-coherency, and IPSLA probes including DNS. There is no service module or external appliance needed.
ITD provides order of magnitude CAPEX and OPEX savings for the customers. ITD is available on Nexus 7000/7700 series in NX-OS 6.2(10) or later. It is available for demo/EFT on Nexus 5k/6k/9k. ITD is much superior than legacy solutions like PBR, WCCP, ECMP, port-channel, layer-4 load-balancer appliances.
Note:- ITD is not a replacement for L7 load balancers
If you’re an experienced malware reverse engineer, exploit developer, response specialist, intel analyst, or looking to start your career in security, Talos might be the place for you. We have a number of positions open in Columbia, Maryland; Austin, Texas; San Jose, California; and San Francisco, California. If you are open to relocation to one of those areas, have the right skills, and share some of our beliefs below then applying for one of our numerous positions might be for you.
For those not familiar with Talos, it is Cisco’s premier Threat Intelligence organization that supports all of Cisco’s security portfolio. Detecting and preventing threats that target Cisco customers is our job, and given Cisco’s security footprint and breadth of product portfolio we can engage those threats from Cloud to Core.
It does however, take a special type of individual to join Talos, so give the list below a look and see if your beliefs match up with our distinctive culture. Continue reading “Talos is Hiring”
Many years ago I found myself talking to venture capitalists about the differences between SaaS, outsourcing, ASPs, MSPs, online applications; etc. Also I noticed that my Stanford students had little understanding of the economics of software, so I developed the idea of seven business models to cover everything in the software business, and remove the buzzwords and replace them with economic models.
In my previous blog post we discussed the first four models, this post will cover Models Five through Seven.
We ended the last blog talking about Model Four being able to provide management of the security, availability, performance and change of the software at nearly 10x less cost.
The question we left with was “how”?
How is it possible to decrease the cost of management without just paying people a fraction of what they made previously?
Founded in 1915, Black & Veatch is a leading global engineering, consulting and construction company, specializing in Energy, Water, Telecommunications, Federal, and Management Consulting. Black & Veatch’s annual Strategic Directions Report identifies top of mind issues based on a compilation of data and analysis from an industry-wide survey. The complete report is available from the Black & Veatch website.
“The annual Strategic Directions report series captures Black & Veatch’s global engineering and thought leadership expertise across key elements of the critical human infrastructure market.… This report represents the evolution of Black & Veatch’s inaugural Strategic Directions: Utility Automation & Integration report, with an expanded focus on automation and integration and utilities’ efforts to harness data to make operations and service delivery more efficient.”
— Black & Veatch 2015
The major sections of the report address:
Utility Telecommunications
Utility Automation
Data Analytics
Smart Communities
Perspectives
The report notes that utilities and communities, with the proliferation of smart devices, automation and the use of analytics are transforming development and delivery of key infrastructure services to become more responsive, efficient and resilient.
Especially relevant to Cisco’s engagement with the utility industry and communities around the world is Black & Veatch’s observation that as legacy equipment is replaced or upgraded, IP-based technology is creating new opportunities. Connected devices on utility telecommunications infrastructure is now widely recognized as “…an essential element of the Internet of Things (IoT).”
Advanced metering Infrastructure (AMI) has often been thought of as synonymous with “Smart Grid”, but the expectations of real-time pricing or even time-of-use (TOU) rates and demand side management are far from the top of the list of top areas enabled by increased data management and analytics. The top three listed in the report are:
Asset Management (67%)
Capital Investment (45%)
Customer Service/Engagement (27%)
More than 63% of electric utilities report plans to replace, upgrade or build communications infrastructure in the next 5 years, with IP leading the way as the network protocol standard including SCADA systems.
“Some utilities are completely embracing a converged mentality and running everything over a shared infrastructure, while others are moving more cautiously by keeping protective relaying and other mission-critical applications separate from the converged network.”
The report notes that some utilities are more focused on the cost of maintaining and replacing outdated equipment and are unconvinced that smart grid technologies and automation are critical, but concludes, “Staying on the sidelines carries risk.”
Budget concerns dominate the obstacles to new technology implementation, and convincing stakeholders is key to addressing cost and perception issues.
The report concludes that the adaptive planning enabled by IP communications and advanced analytics allow leaders to effectively address core management functions of Strategic Options Assessment, Asset management and Operational Planning.
“For organizations that provide essential services, this represents the greatest transformation in utility operations in decades. For the smart city, it will facilitate the transformation to becoming a better place to live and a more friendly and desirable place to do business for generations to come.”
Black & Veatch and Cisco partner to create architectures for electricity, natural gas, solar and wind customers that provide secure and optimized network integration for smart grid environments. If you’d like to know more about our work together, contact me by commenting on this blog.
When we launched Project Squared in November of 2014, one of the things that was really important to us was to listen to our customers, and to use the things we heard to adjust the experience. We established several “listening posts” – ways for us to get feedback. Analytics and metrics were one way. Another way was a feedback capability right within the application. We encouraged our users to use the feedback feature to report problems, but to also make feature requests or generally tell us what they think.
Within a few weeks of launch, we already started to see some trends in the feedback we were receiving. The number one requested feature that we got – by a long shot – was the ability to leave a 1-1 room. For the engineering team, this was an unexpected request. Why do users want to leave a 1-1 room? After all, if a 1-1 room has no activity, it will downwards in the room list and you won’t see it anymore. So, what is the issue? Continue reading “Project Squared: You Asked, We Listened”
With Cisco’s cloud-hosted, analytics solution Mobility IQ, retailers and their partners can now gain invaluable insight into their customers’ “showrooming” habits, understanding more about why customers browse in-store – but buy online. This breakthrough solution is making it easier to capitalize on untapped business opportunities and create impressive customer-focused campaigns.
Wouldn’t it be great to show her your in-store item (with a price match!) for that online deal she’s browsing? With Mobility IQ, you can do it right now.
Cisco’s Connected Mobile Experiences (CMX) solution leverages information from the Wi-Fi network to collect aggregate location data from mobile devices. This can be used to tease out behavioral patterns and trends, which in turn can help businesses make informed decisions on how to improve the visitor experience and boost customer service.
The Mobility Services Engine (MSE) forms the core of the CMX solution. Cisco Live! Milan was an exciting milestone for the MSE development team, as the new version of MSE, 10.0, was officially announced. Among its enhancements are improved scalability and robustness, as well as better monitoring tools. In this blog, we’ll show some real-world examples of what information MSE 10 can provide, as was captured during Cisco Live!.
The New Analytics Dashboard
One of the visible improvements is the redesign of the Analytics dashboard. The dashboard provides reporting capabilities, in which each page can be scheduled at specified intervals to run as a report and be sent to interested parties. Because of this new capability, we now refer to the pages on dashboard as “Reports”.
Each report can have any number of “widgets” – essentially little boxes of information – such as the device count within a certain area, the time spent there, or the number of devices moving between areas. The widgets can be configured to show a set of numbers (ie number of devices detected, new devices vs. repeat visitors, etc.), a graph of specified information broken down by time/place, or data tables.
The most basic and fundamental piece of information CMX can provide is visitor count. In Figure 1 you can see the number of detected devices during one just one of the show days. The dashboard gives not only a very clear overview of detected devices, it also shows a comparison of those devices and where and when they’ve been detected throughout the conference.
We’re here in Barcelona for the opening of Mobile World Congress 2015, and the energy is palpable. I have to say I’m pretty excited myself as Cisco unveils a new way of doing business with our service provider customers: Cisco Mobility IQ. Mobility IQ changes the conversation from what the network does, to what value it can create. It provides real-time intelligence for network operations, marketing and business development across Wi-Fi, 3G and LTE networks. By giving providers visual network knowledge for driving new business, you can monetize your network in new ways.
When I say it changes the conversation, this is not marketing hype. Over the past few months I’ve been involved in these conversations with ten pilot customers. In one example we worked with an operator to estimate the ROI on running Mobility IQ on their existing network. We looked at results over a five year period and found Continue reading “Get the Big Picture with Cisco Mobility IQ”
Carpe diem – Seize the day! Inspiration from everyday heroes of Cisco Empowered Women’s Network
Welcome to our second edition of Cisco Empowered Women’s Network (CiscoEWN) Everyday Heroes. We all make resolutions and set goals to improve ourselves– but somewhere along the way, life interrupts our plans, we find ourselves juggling different priorities and invariably things get dropped. What you will find in this segment is inspiration from ordinary people who have achieved extraordinary results. Everyone featured in this series has faced challenges and opportunities that the rest of us can identify with; let’s draw inspiration from the choices they made and aspire to the outcomes they created.
We are honored to feature this month Sharon Sputz!
Sharon has combined experience in business strategy and technical research and after reinventing herself many times through her career; she now is doing some fascinating work in Data Sciences at Columbia University. Find out more about Sharon here.
CiscoEWN: You have held various positions in your career, but technology has been a common theme; how old were you when you discovered your passion for the field?
Sharon: I was always fond of Math and Science. When I was in middle school, I wanted to ensure that I went into 8th grade in the highest honors math track. Unfortunately, I did not do well in the placement test and was told that I couldn’t join that track. My parents knew how much it meant to me and spoke to the school to let me take the test again – but I still didn’t do well. I could have given up but I was so driven that my parents and I got the school to agree (at my own risk) to let me sit in the class. My math teacher was a formidable lady who ended up believing in my persistence – her faith in me made me strive harder and I ended up going to college for medicine.
Cisco EWN: Medicine? Did I miss that in your bio? Sharon: We all choose a path but sometimes things change – how we accept those changes and make what we can out of them determines our tenacity and character. I lost my way a little in freshman year of a pre-med program – there were some health issues, some peer pressure issues and I ended up thinking that I wasn’t good enough to continue down the medical path. But thankfully, I had a very strong foundation from high school and I was doing very well in the physics courses I was taking. I am grateful again to have professors who cared enough to call if one didn’t show up for class and I thrived in the rigor of Quantum physics. That’s when I knew that I loved physics and research and would rather pursue that field. That decision gave me the foundation for how life turned out.
CiscoEWN: What would you write in a letter to your younger self?
Sharon: Life is a journey, it’s not about getting from point A to point B. Have patience and don’t rush. You can make each day more fulfilling by increasing the balance in your life. When we are young we tend to think that we are entitled to success – but only hard work and persistence enable us to remove each rock from our way. Success doesn’t come instantly so don’t give up.
CiscoEWN: You spent 13 years in Bell labs as a research scientist with world-renowned physicists; produced revolutionary patents; went to school at night to get your Masters; and had two children. How did you do it?
Sharon: (Laughing) I don’t really know. I just did what needed to be done and looking back I don’t really know where the energy came from. Those were also challenging years because there were hardly any women or minorities working in research but I never felt conscious and never let that impact me. Instead I saw tremendous opportunity and worked hard and didn’t let the difficult environment stand in my way. Juggling everything was hard and I am fortunate I had my family, husband, community of working women and friends who supported each other and me.
CiscoEWN: And then, when you were at the top of your game, you quit and joined Lucent in a marketing job. Did you have any marketing skills?
Sharon: No, and I didn’t think about it either. It was a huge change but I was joining a field (Telecom) that was booming and would make me grow in ways that I couldn’t have grown had I kept doing only research. I also got a confidence boost when I saw that if you were willing to work hard and learn and problem solve then people are willing to take their chances on you and train you. I rolled up my sleeves, read a lot, learned from mentors on the job and because it was a technical marketing job, I was able to leverage my scientific training and differentiate myself.
“Life is a journey. Celebrate each moment. Don’t be in a rush to get from Point A to Point B.”
-Sharon Sputz
CiscoEWN: Since then, you have taken the risk of reinventing yourself twice more – first as a defense contractor working on DOD projects, and now at Columbia University as an educator. Do you have any self-doubt as you set about proving yourself anew each time?
Sharon: Everyday – I think about how I can do my job better, how can I push myself harder? I wouldn’t call it self-doubt, but I always question if I am doing all I can. And when I am given the opportunity to reinvent myself, I am so grateful that someone took a chance on me, gave me the chance to learn and grow, that I work harder to live up to their faith in me.
I was 51 when Columbia University approached me; my first reaction was to decline the opportunity. But education and my teachers have had such a huge impact on my life, I felt this was my opportunity to impact other people and give back. While I have never felt that being a woman has held me back, I enjoy the opportunity to enable other women coming into an academic environment and encourage them to pursue any opportunity without impediments.
CiscoEWN: Leave us with your favorite Carpe diem statement.
Sharon: Life doesn’t always go the way you think it’s going to go. While it’s important to persist and believe in yourself and go after your dreams, it’s also ok for those dreams to change. Celebrate each dream and make the most out of it.
