Year: 2015

February 20, 2015 Leave a Comment
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Software Defined Contact Center

If you are a technology professional, then chances are that you are aware (maybe to the point of annoyance) that everything is getting defined in software these days. We have Software-Defined Networking (SDN), Software-Defined Data Center (SDDC), Software-Defined Storage (SDS), and the list goes on and on. Software defining anything has become such a powerful trend that we now have a generally accepted name and acronym for just that: “Software-Defined Anything” or SDx for short.

Despite the widespread nature of the trend, Software-Defined Contact Center (SDCC) is nowhere to be found amongst the Software-Defined goodness that floods our social media feeds on a daily basis. Software-Defined Contact Center is so absent from the online world that if you search Google for the term you get only articles that reference Software-Defined Data Center, seemly because 3 out of the 4 words are common to both. If you search for the #SDCC hash tag on Twitter you will find yourself at the official account of the San Diego Comic Con. This raises the question, why isn’t SDCC “a thing?” This question is particularly relevant since Cisco’s Intelligent Contact Management (ICM) has been allowing us to build Software-Defined Contact Centers since the late 1990s. Let’s take a look at how ICM delivers on the Software-Defined paradigm for Contact Centers. Continue reading “Software Defined Contact Center”

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Michael Aossey

Solutions Architect

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Cisco UCS demonstrates performance leadership with world-record Oracle PeopleSoft benchmark results

Cisco UCS®) delivered world-record performance on Oracle PeopleSoft Human Resources Management Systems (HRMS) 9.1 FP2 Self-Service (online transaction processing [OLTP]) and Self-Service and Payroll Batch benchmarks.

The Oracle PeopleSoft Human Resources Management System (HRMS) 9.1 FP2 benchmark results for the Self-Service section of the benchmark demonstrate world-record performance and linear scalability. These results give you direct evidence of the degree to which you can scale your Cisco Unified Computing System™ deployments as the number of users of your human resources management system grows

Oracle PeopleSoft HRMS 9.1 FP2 Self-Service Benchmark Results

Number of Users Average Search Time (seconds) Average Save Time ( seconds) Transactions per Minute Availability Date
12,000 0.294 0.139 2400 January 15, 2015
16,000 0.324 0.155 3200 January 15, 2015
20,000 0.353 0.167 4000 January 15, 2015

 

Oracle PeopleSoft HRMS 9.1 FP2 Self-Service and Payroll Batch Extra-Large Data Model Benchmark Results

Number of Users Minutes  Payments per Hour Availability Date
500,480 21.95 1,368,055 January 15, 2015

 

Some of the key highlights of Cisco’s Oracle PeopleSoft Benchmark results are:

  • The Oracle PeopleSoft HRMS benchmark is designed to provide verifiable performance metrics across a broad range of PeopleSoft HRMS workloads. With these world-record results, Cisco, EMC, and Oracle demonstrate the performance characteristics of real-life representative workloads to provide a template for you to use in obtaining exceptional performance for your business.
  • These results demonstrate world-record performance and linear scalability and give you direct evidence of the degree to which you can scale your Cisco Unified Computing System™ deployments as the number of users of your human resources management system grows
  • The world-record-setting Self-Service and Payroll Batch Extra-Large Data Model benchmark results show you how quickly you can accomplish batch payroll tasks. 

Check out the Performance Brief for additional information on the benchmark configuration. Cisco measured the performance of all three components of the Oracle PeopleSoft HRMS benchmark. The disclosures for the three components are available at the following locations:

It is interesting to note that although all vendors have access to same Intel processors, only Cisco UCS unleashes their power to deliver high performance to applications through the power of unification. The unique, fabric-centric architecture of Cisco UCS integrates the Intel Xeon processors into a system with a better balance of resources that brings processor power to life. . For additional information on Cisco UCS and Cisco UCS Integrated Infrastructure solutions please visit Cisco Unified Computing & Servers web page.

Disclosure

Cisco measured the performance of all three components of the Oracle PeopleSoft HRMS benchmark. The disclosures for the three components are available at the following locations:

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Girish Kulkarni

Senior Marketing Manager

Data Center & Virtualization Marketing

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Cisco UCS Manager Plug-In for Oracle Enterprise Manager 12c

Cisco is pleased to announce the latest version of the UCS Manager Plug-In for Oracle Enterprise Manager 12c (OEM).  This new version (12.1.0.9.0) is posted on the Cisco Communities website. The plug-in provides health monitoring and status checking.

Continue reading “Cisco UCS Manager Plug-In for Oracle Enterprise Manager 12c”

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Bill Shields

Senior Product Manager

UCS Solutions Product Management

February 19, 2015 3 Comments
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Cisco Global Cloud Index: Innovation and Integrated Experience Are Keys to Driving a Successful Campaign

For the past four years, Cisco has been at the forefront of forecasting trends in global and regional data center traffic, data center virtualization, cloud computing and more. And in those years, a quick press release, perhaps a timed blog post and a bit of industry buzz have herald the arrival of a new Global Cloud Index (GCI) study. But, with the fast-paced accessibility of social media and news being just a quick “like,” “share,” or “tweet” away, our social media team knew the changing landscape called for an evolution in how the fourth annual GCI study would need to be promoted and shared.

Often one of our most anticipated releases, the Cisco Global Cloud Index (GCI): Forecast and Methodology, 2013 – 2018 (GCI) is an informative – but fairly lengthy – document. Not wanting this to become an obstacle in sharing the study’s key findings, we set out to promote the study findings in an entirely new way, harnessing the power, flexibility in trying new approaches, and extended reach of social media.

Cisco’s social media team knew it would take an innovative campaign to (1) promote the numbers-heavy study findings, (2) showcase the data relevance, and (3) maximize awareness potential as well as thought leadership for the GCI release. Considering the targeted audience – bloggers, analysts, media, government regulators and service providers – the team created sixteen distinctive and “shareable” digital assets. In coming up with the social media strategy, the team considered the following: Continue reading “Cisco Global Cloud Index: Innovation and Integrated Experience Are Keys to Driving a Successful Campaign”

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Ying Shen

No Longer with Cisco

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OpenStack Podcast #19 Yuriy Brodskiy

Symantec’s Director of Cloud Platform Engineering, Yuriy Brodskiy, was a really interesting interview–not only because he was a very early adopter of OpenStack in his PayPal days, but also because he now works for one of the pioneers in software security. He gave us some surprising insights into how his company views open source in general and OpenStack in particular, as well as what they’re doing to make the cloud more secure. He also discussed:

  • How cloud changes the culture of an organization
  • How OpenStack changed perceptions of open source software
  • The upside (and downside) of rolling your own distro
  • The future of PaaS and containers
  • What Symantec is doing with OpenStack
  • What to consider in order to create a truly secure OpenStack environment

To see who we’re interviewing next, or to sign-up for the OpenStack Podcast, check out the show schedule! Interested in participating? Tweet us at @nextcast and @nikiacosta.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KopaZARUhxg

For a full transcript of the  interview, click read more below.

Continue reading “OpenStack Podcast #19 Yuriy Brodskiy”

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Niki Acosta

OpenStack Evangelist

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Healthy Dose of the Internet of Everything Keeps Healthcare Industry Fit and Vibrant

It’s safe to say the Internet of Everything (connecting people, processes, data and things) is impacting nearly every aspect of our lives.

When we wake up in the morning, we can check our smartphones for weather updates and use that data to decide if we need to wear an extra jacket or bring an umbrella. In some cities, sensor-based parking spaces can allow us to check a smart parking app to determine where to park our cars and how much it will cost to park in a certain space.

But the Internet of Everything (IoE) does not just impact our morning routines or where we park our cars – it also is transforming healthcare and is reshaping the patient experience. IoE for healthcare is all about better health outcomes, increased productivity, and more patient choice that drives an enhanced patient experience. Continue reading “Healthy Dose of the Internet of Everything Keeps Healthcare Industry Fit and Vibrant”

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Tapan Mehta

No Longer with Cisco

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IoE Can Help Banks Regain Customer Trust by Delivering Better Advice and Mobile Services

In years past, a visit to the neighborhood bank branch often featured face-to-face meetings with a trusted advisor who would guide customers through their most challenging financial journeys — often over a cup of coffee. Today, many banks have ceded that privileged position of trusted advisor. While banks have made great strides in using technology to cut costs and streamline transactions, customer experience and engagement have suffered.

In a Cisco survey of 7,200 bank customers in 12 countries, 43 percent of customers said their primary bank does not understand their individual needs. As a result, many respondents feel that their choice is between bad financial advice or no advice all. Moreover, nearly one in four bank customers intend to choose another provider for their next financial product or service. Increasingly, that provider could be a non-bank such as Apple, PayPal, or a retailer. Four out of five customers would trust a non-bank to handle their banking needs.

Clearly, the perceived value that customers receive from banks is declining, along with their trust in banks to represent their interests. Banks are seen as commoditized — and replaceable — providers of transactions. Meanwhile, in the wake of the financial crisis of 2007-2008 and some well-publicized banking scandals, banks’ “trusted advisor” status has suffered. Moreover, it is easier than ever to switch to a non-bank that customers believe has a better understanding of their needs.

Continue reading “IoE Can Help Banks Regain Customer Trust by Delivering Better Advice and Mobile Services”

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Joseph M. Bradley

Global Vice President

Digital & IoT Advanced Services

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Cisco publishes results of the New SAP Concurrent Benchmark

Cisco is the first organization to publish a result for the new SAP Concurrent Benchmark

Cisco is the first organization to publish a result for the new SAP Concurrent Benchmark and have it certified by SAP on behalf of the SAP Benchmark Council. The benchmark allows vendors to demonstrate how well their SAP environments work side by side in a shared environment. Getting a new benchmark running and tuned can be difficult for some vendors, but because the Cisco Unified Computing SystemTM (Cisco UCS®) is a platform built for virtualization we were the first to demonstrate results—and we did it all using virtualization with Microsoft software: the operating system, the database management system, and the hypervisor.

Recently, the SAP Benchmark Council created a new category of concurrent benchmarks that allows benchmarking of multiple SAP dialog applications
running concurrently using shared resources—in our scenario, on a single server. The benchmark rules allow the use of any supported partitioning and isolation technologies, including hypervisors, hardware partitioning, and operating system containers. With a benchmark designed by SAP to measure the performance of these environments, we now can make objective comparisons between the same SAP applications running on bare metal or in concurrent environments with results certified by SAP.

Benchmark Results

Not only did Cisco publish the first- ever results on this new concurrent benchmark, but the results are remarkable. Comparison of the results with the results for the same software configuration running on a bare-metal server shows that the penalty for running in a virtualized environment was only 6.6 percent in terms of benchmark users, and only 6.7 percent in terms of SAP Application Performance Standard (SAPS) score.

With the Cisco UCS C240 M4 Rack Server powered by the Intel Xeon processor E5-2600 v3 product family, Cisco supports a total of 14,975 SAP SD users or a total SAPS score of 81,827. This result is excellent for virtualized environments and is further evidence that when you choose Cisco® servers and a complete Microsoft software stack, you have access to outstanding SAP performance.

Conclusion

Many organizations and SAP administrators prefer to run their landscapes on Microsoft software stacks. This first-ever SAP Concurrent Benchmark result shows just how easily you can incorporate virtualization software from Microsoft to add
more flexibility to SAP application deployments with little performance impact.
Now you can use our SAPS score certified by SAP on behalf of the
SAP Benchmark Council to estimate your capacity on Cisco UCS running Microsoft software and run all your SAP landscapes in a shared environment with higher utilization rates and with less infrastructure.

 

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Rick Speyer

No Longer with Cisco

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The Advice Advantage: How Banks Can Close the ‘Value Gap’ and Regain Customer Trust

Today’s banking consumers are used to experiences that reflect their likes, dislikes, past histories, and even their future plans. But not always from their banks. These kinds of interactions are more common when buying an online book, streaming a movie, or planning a vacation. Despite numerous omnichannel initiatives, many banks continue to lag in providing contextual, relevant, and convenient experiences to their customers. And while many customers yearn for personalized financial guidance, a Cisco survey of 7,200 smartphone users and bank customers in 12 countries found that for too many bank customers, the choice is between no advice, or what they perceive to be generic advice delivered inconveniently.

As a result, bank customers often try to attain their most important financial goals on their own, via “friends” on social media, or from non-traditional providers of financial services. Moreover, since the financial crisis of 2007-2008, banks’ brand equity has fallen. Continue reading “The Advice Advantage: How Banks Can Close the ‘Value Gap’ and Regain Customer Trust”

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Paul Jameson

Global Senior Director, Financial Services

Marketing and Solutions Development