Cisco swept three product categories of IT Brand Pulse’s 2015 Data Center Infrastructure IT Brand Leader survey. Cisco took home the prizes in the WLAN Controllers and Access Points, Fiber Channel Network Monitoring and Network Performance Monitoring product categories. No other company in the survey placed in more than two product categories.
For the third year in a row Continue reading “Cisco Wins Gold in Data Center Infrastructure Survey”
The U.S. space program in the 1960s and ‘70s was a classic example of an innovation model that began with a government initiative, was applied to enterprise issues, and finally filtered down to consumers. Internet innovation in the early 2000s turned that model on its head by focusing first on consumer needs, consumer applications, and consumer-oriented technologies such as e-commerce, mobile, social, and cloud.
Today, the Internet of Things (IoT) is inverting the innovation yet model again, bringing enterprise-oriented business-to-business (B2B) technologies and applications back into vogue. IoT is making traditional industries such as manufacturing and logistics “cool” again.
One indication of this trend is the large number of startups focused on enterprise solutions. I meet with several startups every week, and all of them seem to be focusing on some aspect of IoT—analytics, fog computing, vertical applications, sensor connectivity, and more. These startups see the huge transformative business opportunity of IoT, as the connections among people, process, data, and things become more pervasive. Millennials are driving this digital transformation. We can see their influence as consumers in the auto industry, for example, where new cars have essentially become smartphones on wheels. But now Millennials are also driving IoT innovations as participants who insist on using mobile devices and state-of-the-art software and tools to access and control IoT operations.
Continue reading “Back to Business: IoT Makes Traditional Industries Cool Again”
On Tuesday, October 20, North Carolina’s Governor Pat McCrory swore in retired U.S. Marine major general Cornell Wilson as the state’s first cabinet-level secretary of the new Department of Military and Veteran Affairs. Cisco’s Stan Roberts, a Research Triangle Park-based customer support engineer and former Marine wounded in Afghanistan, was invited by General Wilson to represent Cisco and the North Carolina veterans community.
Like more than 27,000 military service members in North Carolina who left the armed forces in 2015, Stan struggled to translate his military experience to the civilian workforce. Veterans have a strong work ethic, can make quick decisions under pressure, and understand the value of teamwork, but those skills don’t always resonate with hiring managers.
As part of the NC4ME program, North Carolina and Cisco are empowering veterans with the tools and skills to thrive in a connected world long after they’ve finished their military service. Earlier this year, we launched the NC Military Pipeline, a sophisticated online platform that maps military occupation codes to civilian career paths and job openings. This tool is helping veterans find jobs that match their skills, and the Cisco Networking Academy is helping them discover new passions that can lead to certifications and fulfilling careers in the IT industry.
Continue reading “Cisco, North Carolina Partner to Empower Military Veterans”
Just about everyone today knows the power of social video; however, some do not know how to articulate the top reasons why marketers should incorporate video into our marketing campaigns. I have combined my 15 years of experience in marketing, communications, e-commerce and social media management with degrees in Videography and Public relations to compose the top 3 reasons for integrating video. These top three reasons will help you modernize your marketing efforts by giving you best practices in video that will not only enhance your marketing budget/efforts but will also extend your ROI by way of greater adoption through engagement and reach.
As EDUCAUSE officially gets underway, I wanted to share with you some of the Cisco Education solutions for the Digital Campus and Digital Learning that we’re demonstrating at our booth. The Internet of Things is making it easier than ever for students and faculty to collaborate, improving schools’ efficiency and expanding education opportunities. We’re so excited about our portfolio of smart, network-centric solutions that are helping to transform classrooms and campuses across the country.
For example, we’ve got a whole host of tools used to create a digital campus – both in the classroom and beyond. Classrooms can use Cisco WebEx for remote or distance learning. Tools like SpeakerTrack, which is a dual-camera system used with a video solutions like Cisco TelePresence that allows participants in a video meeting to see the active speaker on the other end of a call in full view, make remote learning even more immersive and help give students the best possible educational experience. And Cisco Spark allows teams to send messages, video chat and share files all in one place, which enables instructors to work closely together and makes it even easier for students to collaborate on group projects.
Outside the classroom, Cisco has smart solutions to help campuses run efficiently, like smart lighting that helps colleges and universities save on energy costs and smart parking that helps campus parking lots run more smoothly. We also have solutions that focus on the safety and security of your campus. We’re demonstrating FireSIGHT here at EDUCAUSE, which helps identify many aspects of network visibility. This information can be used to automatically prioritize events, modify policy and block threats which save money and improve security.
Additionally, new digital solutions from Cisco partners make it easier than ever for colleges and universities to reap the benefits of collaboration in the classroom. VBrick’s Capture, Transform and Share tools allow instructors and students to maximize the benefits of video collaboration tools, allowing for on-demand viewing and easy editing and sharing. And with CirQlive, you can now easily integrate your Cisco WebEx with your learning management system to improve learning outcomes.
Other tools from our partners help improve campus security. For example, iOmnicient’s Facial Recognition solution can help keep students safe on campus and in dorms. The University of San Francisco is utilizing it right now to control access to their residence halls to keep the students who reside in them safe. Plus, the Splunk Cisco Security Suite can help security teams take full advantage of the information collected across their Cisco security devices and enables a single, comprehensive view for complete situational awareness.
All of these solutions are part of the ongoing digitization of higher education, using the Internet of Things to give administrators and instructors easy, efficient and cost-effective solutions to help them meet their goals: improving student outcomes, increasing efficiency, enhancing safety and security, and expanding research capabilities. If you’re at EDUCAUSE, make sure you stop by our booth, #1121, to see these Cisco Education solutions in action!
Today, Cisco announced the fifth annual Global Cloud Index, 2014-2019 update. The Cisco Global Cloud Index (2014-2019) was developed to estimate global data center and cloud-based traffic growth and trends.
This is a story about the access network requirements for evolving cloud applications (from basic to advanced). As fixed and mobile network performances are enhanced, better and more reliable cloud-based experiences can be realized.
Mr. and Mrs. Byte couldn’t be more proud of their bouncing new boy, Bob Byte. For his first check-up, results show him to be a normal baby Byte, capable of web browsing, sending emails and web conferencing.
With a download speed of up to 750 kbps, an upload speed of up to 250 kbps and his latency above 160 ms, the newest little Byte meets Single Basic Cloud Application requirements.
Fast forward some years and Bob Byte is off to high school, with full access to perform SD video conferencing, the ability to use cloud-based learning management systems and his personal content locker to collaborate with classmates around the world. He is now able to Continue reading “Life in the Cloud – a Byte-Sized Tale”
In today’s rapidly evolving market, the lines continue to blur between PayTV, such as premium subscription content, and over-the-top (OTT) streaming video service offerings. Service providers, content providers, media companies and broadcasters are all launching services of their own. OTT is fast becoming the new normal, where open, cloud-based technologies allow innovation at a rate simply not possible with traditional TV technologies.
Today, we are pleased to announce our intent to acquire 1 Mainstream Inc., a privately held company that offers a cloud-based video platform designed to quickly launch live and on-demand OTT video services to a variety of connected devices. 1 Mainstream helps service providers, broadcasters, media companies and emerging digital content companies deliver their media content to almost any connected media device, from Apple TV to Microsoft Xbox.
1 Mainstream plays a key role in the OTT PayTV and media industry, sitting at the intersection between content and connected devices, and seamlessly moving content across connected devices. The company’s platform is widely used by major content providers and traditional service providers, to deliver their content across most of the video streaming platforms available today.
According to Cisco’s Global Cloud Index announced today, global cloud traffic will more than quadruple by the end of 2019. With the acquisition of 1 Mainstream, Cisco will enable our customers to leverage the cloud to deliver new services faster and accelerate their own TV services.
1 Mainstream’s technology complements Cisco’s new ‘Infinite’ suite of cloud-powered video entertainment solutions designed to help service providers, broadcasters and media companies to deliver outstanding TV experiences to multiple screens, utilizing one cloud, on any network. Today’s acquisition will enable service providers, broadcasters and media companies to make their entire channel lineup and content library available to their customers on the internet via their TV, tablet or connected devices, either within the home or on the go.
Acquisitions are a foundational element of Cisco’s build, buy, partner, invest and co-develop approach to innovation. 1 Mainstream represents the third acquisition announced by Cisco this week and highlights how we are applying our unique approach to innovation to capture key market disruptions in areas such as cloud (1 Mainstream), analytics (ParStream) and security (Lancope).
1 Mainstream will join our Service Provider Video Software and Solutions Cloud Engineering Group, under the leadership of Conrad Clemson, senior vice president and general manager. The acquisition is expected to be complete in the second quarter of Cisco’s current fiscal year.
Guest Blog by Igor Dayen, SP Product and Solutions Marketing
Cisco Live has become one of the main IT conferences in the Latin America region as it gathers customers, experts and partners from different business segments and levels. At Cisco Live, attendees will have access to premier education and training on the latest products and trends as well as certification on Cisco technologies, in an environment that encourages the exchange of ideas that can lead to great innovations.
Cisco Live LATAM 2015 will offer Continue reading “Cisco Live Brings Latest Innovations to Latin America”
At the Mazak Discover Conference being held in Kentucky this week, I have the honor presenting daily keynotes during one of the largest industrial user events. It is an exciting week, as we are announcing an industry-shaping collaboration with Mazak Corporation, a global leader in the design and manufacture of machine tools, and MEMEX who provides an industrial Internet communications platform for machine-monitoring. Called a “SmartBox,” this technology will enable real-time manufacturing data and analytics from Mazak machines to significantly improve machine efficiency (OEE) for Mazak’s manufacturing customers. .
The SmartBox is a component within Mazak’s iSMART Factory concept and takes advantage of our Cisco Connected Machines solution to provide insights into machine operations. Using a fog computing model, manufacturing data is gathered via the MTConnect protocol. MT Connect software agents run directly on our ruggedized, industry-leading Cisco Industrial Ethernet (IE) 4000 switch – providing real-time visibility and insights into data right on the factory floor. In addition to switching and compute capabilities, we are also embedding network level security to help prevent any issues with unauthorized access to or from the machines and equipment within a network. Take a look at this video on the Cisco IE4000 switch for more detail:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MiBNqF7cbhw
So far, the feedback I have been receiving at this show has been overwhelming- customers feel that this solution will provide immense value to their manufacturing operations. Mazak and customers will be now fully aware of program stops, feed holds, Continue reading “Cisco Partners with Mazak and MEMEX to Connect Machines”
