Welcome to Tokyo, Japan.
The OpenStack Summit is a four-day conference for developers, users, and administrators of OpenStack Cloud Software. It’s a great place to learn about how Application Centric Infrastructure (ACI) makes it better to Build – Deploy – Scale – Connect your OpenStack based applications.
Why should ACI be used with OpenStack
We are happy to announce the final schedule for IRespondCon, a conference that is specifically designed for incident responders. IRespondCon is held annually at OpenDNS HQ and offers a day of free training, presentations, and networking with some of the top information security engineers, instructors, and fellow responders. They’ll be showing how to use freely available, open source tools to better defend networks and improve the effectiveness of DFIR efforts.
The agenda (subject to minor changes) is as follows:
Lenny Zeltser, SANS Institute: How to Run Malware Analysis Apps as Docker Containers.
Thibault Reuille, OpenDNS Labs: Using OpenGraphiti, the Open Source 3D Visualization Tool and framework.
Jason Craig, DropBox: An introduction to Sysmon and how it can be used for proactive hunting and IR in Windows environments.
Rob Fry, Netflix: Using FIDO the orchestration layer that automates the incident response process by evaluating, assessing and responding to malware and other detected threats.
Dean Sysman, Cymmetria: Using Nested virtualization with KVM. Showing how to create a nested virtualization array and it’s unique benefits for multiple security problems.
Rick Wesson, Support Intelligence: Performing static malware analysis using GPU’s.
Joel Esler Cisco: An update on Cisco Security Open Source projects and how they can help responders.
Kurt Hurtado, Elastic Search: Using Elastic Search and Logstash for Incident Responders.
For more information and to register visit https://irespondcon.eventbrite.com and for information on IRespondCon I check out our blog wrap-up from last year here at https://labs.opendns.com/2014/09/23/s4-irespond-con-wrap/.
Note: Seating is limited so register as soon as you know you can make it !
Guest Blog by Igor Dayen, SP Product and Solutions Marketing
What do we need to know about New Orleans? It offers great Jazz, and Bourbon Street provides rich insight into New Orleans’ past, but we can’t overlook that it has been home this year to SCTE Cable-Tec Expo. SCTE is the cable telecommunications engineering show of the year. Nearly 10,000 attendees annually seize the opportunity to discover and learn first-hand about the latest in cable telecommunications technology, products and services. For more than 30 years the industry has relied on Cable-Tec Expo to provide the most energizing, technical knowledge exchange of the year.
New Orleans Convention Center opened its doors to the biggest cable show of the year.
The “welcome” signs made it very clear that all attendees were welcome to be here, share their knowledge and learn from the exhibitors.
Coming from Cisco Live, Continue reading “Cisco cBR-8 Rises up to the DOCSIS 3.1 Challenge”
I love football, especially the NFL. I grew up in Memphis — a city without a team. Oh, yes, we had WFL and USFL teams along the way. However, their owners could never convince the NFL to expand and let them in when the other leagues folded. We even hosted – though inhospitably – the once Houston Oilers for a year as their Nashville stadium was finished for the Titans. Now I am in the Boston area and am a big Patriots fan, but I watch games with any teams almost any time.
I was watching the Thursday night game the other night and saw the ad from Verizon Wireless for NFL Mobile. It’s only available from them. It reminded me that service providers are searching for new revenue opportunities as the market is undergoing a lot of change. They are seeing consolidation, new competitors and rapid technology shifts. At the same time revenues from traditional services are flattening out or, in a number of cases, starting to erode. An important challenge is determining what new services offer good growth opportunities.
There are lots of market opinions and reports that touch upon this issue. Yet, Continue reading “Seeing Revenue Opportunities through the Data Forest: Monetization & Optimization Index”
In Greek mythology, Sisyphus was a trickster king cursed with the eternal torment of fruitless labor. As punishment for his hubris and wile, Zeus condemned this hapless figure to the unending task of pushing a boulder up a mountain. Once he reached the top, the boulder would fall back down. And he would begin again. And again. Every day. Forever.
I suspect that it will not be a great imaginative leap for those of you in the in the information security industry to empathize with this unfortunate soul. Cyberattacks are continuously growing in frequency and sophistication. Threats are ever-present. New technologies and changing business models are always forcing you to change your tactics. Protecting your organization’s sensitive information seems like a Sisyphean undertaking: constant and unceasing.
I hear this from our customers all the time. IT security feels like an uphill battle, and the struggle to guard against ever-evolving threats seems interminable. As innovative social, mobile, analytics, cloud, robotics, and Internet of Everything (IoE) technologies transform every organization into a digital organization, the prospect of maintaining a strong security posture amid such rapid and widespread change can be daunting. We hear you, we get it, and we are ready to help. Just as Cisco is helping organizations become digital, we are also deeply committed to ensuring that security is the bedrock upon which the successful digital enterprises of the future will stand. For that to happen, organizations will need security solutions designed for the world of tomorrow. To help organizations transform securely, we have created Cisco Active Threat Analytics – a suite of next-generation managed security services that will help customers to detect threats in their environments with great speed, accuracy, and focus.
Continue reading “Active Threat Analytics: Easing the Burden of Threat Management”
Blogs can be tricky. They are a great asset until you realize you haven’t posted in a week. Or, one day you wake up and there are 13 blogs you have to review and approve.
An essential component to any social media strategy at a company is a good blog program. We have an open blogging system and authors are able to publish directly – this is a good thing! However, how do you manage an influx of blog requests that can impact the overall engagement and metrics of your blog?
What can you do when your blog becomes wild and untamed?
1. Start with an audit of all bloggers
When we performed an audit we realized some of our authors had changed organizations and were no longer focused on blogging and a number of the authors had not blogged in over a year. We removed the individuals who had changed focus and those who had not blogged for a significant amount of time.
2. Re-train the authors
After the audit, we noticed some of our active bloggers had another issue – blogs were written in formal, company-branded voices that read more like a press release. We wanted our blog to highlight the individual voices and share real stories. We trained over 100 bloggers in three different sessions on how to bring their own voice to their blog, encouraged them to share photos, graphics, and videos. We also reviewed best practices such as SEO for blogs, how to use the “read more” function, and create a custom tweet for each blog article. This kind of training can help even seasoned bloggers understand new trends in blogging and social media, new tools available in the blogging platform, and reinforce company guidelines.
3. Use Gamification
Cisco had recently partnered with Bunchball to create Social Rewards – social gamification and badges on the blog site for authors and subscribers to the blogs. In our training sessions, we encouraged authors to use the Social Rewards to help boost their own author profile and to support the other authors on their team. After we reviewed the program we had some very healthy competition going on who could reach higher levels.
4. Focus on Engagement, Not just Page Views
In all our training and efforts, we focused on engagement and social shares on the blog, not just page views and visits. When an individual puts their social profile behind content by sharing it on their social media accounts, they are giving you a true stamp of approval. This is a significant measure of just how well your content is resonating with your audience. As a team, we set an initial goal of a minimum number of social shares per blog to encourage authors to think deeper about what their audience wanted to hear – and to encourage personal sharing on their own account. It was a naturally occurring result that by encouraging our audience to take part in the Social Rewards program, we were also encouraging social shares.
5. Build an Editorial Calendar
We set a self-service editorial calendar where bloggers could sign up for their blog timeslot. We limited blogs to no more than two a day and limited posts on “big news” days. By having a public editorial calendar, we allow the authors to see what is being planned and if their content is redundant or something fresh and new. When conflicts arise, we leave it to the bloggers to decide amongst themselves which topic should be a priority.
6. Measure and Report
Measurement is critical. I ran a baseline for five months before we started the audit and all other aspects of the new program. Then, every month we ran reports on top blogs and the lowest performing blogs. We looked at social shares, unique visitors, and page views. We tracked month over month success and called out the areas were we did not see success.
The Results:
By implementing the steps above we saw a major change in the blog content and performance. From January 2015 to July 2015, the average social shares per post increased by 40% and the average unique visitors per post increased by 555%! In addition, after May we saw zero blogs with under 50 social shares. This is our success story!
It’s Oscar’s night. Your technology is getting ready to debut in less than three minutes on Jimmy Kimmel Live (emphasis on the “live” part). You’re not sure if the celebrity interview you’ve planned at the Governor’s Ball is going to happen. Then, the show launches, Cisco’s Wall of America is a hit, you interview Kevin Hart and Eddie Murphy and you go back to your LA hotel to crash, satisfied with your technology.
It’s just another day in the life of a Technical Marketing Engineer (TME) at Cisco.
“Sometimes the role is stressful,” says Chris Ward, TME. “But hey, we’ve been backstage at Jimmy Kimmel. The perks of doing stuff like this are awesome. I’m not sure I’d be able to do this at another company.”
“Plus, we have access to the latest Cisco technology,” says Kevin Roarty. TME. “Being one of the first to get hands on and test is a cool opportunity. “
So what does a TME do?
“We work with our engineering teams to help test and validate new software and products,” says Mike Thomma, TME Manager. “But we’re also customer facing, and often present at trainings and trade shows to explain how Cisco tech works. It’s a great role, you can decide what you want to focus on.”
Chris and Mike started at Cisco in tech support. Kevin started in engineering. The team also has members with no tech background at all.
“The key is to be a product expert,” Kevin says. “Plus, a willingness to learn how our customers will want to use our products.”
So what’s it like to see your work displayed weekly on a HUGE late-night TV show?
“It’s really fun,” Kevin explains. “They orchestrate a show within a show. It’s a big important conference call within a live recorded late-night show. It’s really interesting to see them strike a balance between being spontaneous and scripted. ”
How’d they get to work on such a cool project? Jimmy Kimmel expressed an interest in using video technology to bring the home viewer into his show . The team started with some demos, and within 6 months, they were planning an Oscar-night launch.
“When we first went down to do a live demo, I was overwhelmed by how frantic it all was,” Mike says. “Seeing the chaos as they prepared for a new show every day made me realize I couldn’t last long under that much pressure. But we got to meet Jimmy Kimmel when we were doing a demo for the producers. He just walked in unexpected, shook our hands, said it looked cool, and thanked us.”
“Jimmy, himself wants to be entertained,” Chris added. “He didn’t want to talk to people on the Wall of America until it was live, so we’d use Cisco people on the rehearsal. The show has really embraced it beyond just the studio – they’ve built it into their regular day. Their producer sees forward. As we deployed Cisco tech, he’d ask if we could also do this or that. So we’ve added three new components since launch.”
“You can’t get exposure to most of this kind of tech at other companies,” Mike says. “My career advice for those who want to work in tech is to not stay in one place in a company. Expand your views. . Try new things that challenge you and always keep learning.”
Want to work with the best technology and teams around? Join our Cisco team.
As the burgeoning Internet of Things (IoT) becomes a reality, it’s estimated that 50 billion devices and objects will be connected to the Internet by 2020. With this massive number of new connections, valuable data will be created at an even faster pace than most companies can manage. That’s why we are pleased to announce Cisco’s intent to acquire ParStream, a privately-held company based in Cologne, Germany that provides an analytics database that allows companies to analyze large amounts of data and store it in near real time anywhere in the network.
Speed is critical for helping companies to generate value from data in IoT environments. ParStream’s highly specialized database is built for IoT environments. It allows customers to compute and analyze large amounts of data at the edge in real time, with minimal infrastructure and operating costs at the edge. Using innovative compression and indexing capabilities, ParStream’s technology helps customers access data faster and at scale, rapidly analyzing and filtering billions of records and getting information to the business in near real-time. This acquisition complements Cisco’s current data and analytics portfolio, improving our ability to provide analytics at the edge of the network, where data is increasingly being generated and in huge volume. The value of IT has always been derived from the intelligence contained in data. Analytics are at the heart of Cisco’s strategy for a hyper distributed intelligent infrastructure.
ParStream’s technology, for example, can help a renewable energy company track and monitor thousands of wind turbines at once by providing the information to optimize the performance of each turbine and quickly adjust to changing environmental factors like wind direction and temperature. Instead of sending this data to a centralized server, now a company can store the data at the edge of the network, closer to the turbines and sensors, and track results even across a highly distributed network. Real-time access to data derived from the connected equipment can lead to benefits like decreased equipment downtime through predictive maintenance, increased productivity, and historical analysis of environmental patterns.
ParStream was part of the Cisco Entrepreneurs in Residence start up program. The ParStream team will be integrated into Cisco’s Analytics and Automation portfolio, joining the Data and Analytics Group. The acquisition is expected to close in the second quarter of fiscal year 2016.
The SD-WAN Bill of Rights talks about your right to never visit a branch office again. Depending on the size of your organization, budget, and operational preference etc there are various ways to exercise this right:
Option 1: Leave it to someone else
Last month, Verizon announced a new SD-WAN service that includes Cisco Intelligent WAN as a managed service offering. For customers, this means you get the best of both worlds. Verizon’s expertise in managing your network combined with the advantages of Cisco Intelligent WAN. Shawn Hakl, vice president of enterprise networking and innovation at Verizon speaks in this video about the two companies’ partnership.
“Verizon as a trusted service provider and Cisco as a trusted technology provider, together we give the customer the confidence to move forward and enjoy the benefits of the technology.”
