2015 - Page 5 of 217 - Cisco Blogs

December 15, 2015 Leave a Comment

4 Reasons Network Architects Need Hyper-Distributed Computing

It’s an exciting time for those of us in IT as the business and technology news is dominated by stories of innovation and disruption in industries that seemed to be succeeding in a closed business ecosystem with a sensible and securely controlled computing environment. Think of apps that completely disrupted industries (WAZE, Paylah!, Spotify) not to mention the new niche players overtaking markets with new ways to use technology as their unique value proposition.

In PwC’s 2015 CEO Survey, 61% of CEOs worldwide said they think the increase in the number of their significant direct and indirect competitors threatens to disrupt their industries to some extent during the next five years.

A Wake-up Call

At the center of disruption is a laser focus on customer experience, personalization, mobile first, financial profitability and the need to differentiate. Then layer on the operational considerations of who controls the budget, improves efficiency, increases productivity and leads the agile methodology, viva la scrum! Any of that sound familiar? If so, then welcome to the vortex of hyper-distributed computing! If it does not sound familiar, then hopefully this is a wake-up call to the reality going on in the modern era of data processing and computing, otherwise known as digital business. In either case, don’t panic, don’t brush it off as a fad and above all else, please don’t think “we have been here before.” Because, we have not!

Continue reading “4 Reasons Network Architects Need Hyper-Distributed Computing”

James Jamison

Director, Technical Marketing

Software Platforms Group

5 Comments

There’s Money to be Made in the Smart Home

Ana Leung

The race for the smart home is off and running. Almost every global tech brand, from Apple to Amazon to Google and Samsung, to smaller entrants like Canary, August and tado, want to firmly establish themselves in the home. Why? They see the home as the next big thing to go digital. The market for smart home services and devices is big. And it’s going to get much bigger in the next 5 years. The total smart home market is estimated to be $115 billion by 2019. Service providers can address a good chunk of it – about 55-60%.

There’s definitely money to be made here. To help service providers understand their specific opportunity, we developed the Cisco Monetization and Optimization Index Model for Smart Home. Use this tool to get customized views of revenues, profitability and rate of return for various smart home services. With the popularity of Google Nest and Dropcam, it’s evident that the smart home is no longer just the realm of millionaires or technophiles. Strategy Analytics forecasts that 40% of U.S. households will have at least one smart home device in use by 2020.

The fact that the smart home is rapidly becoming mainstream doesn’t surprise me. I don’t consider myself a true gadget geek or DIYer. However, just in the last year, I personally installed a wireless home security system and several monitoring cameras. Now, It’s hard to imagine not being able to see my toddler at home with the nanny anytime using my iPhone.

Strategy Analytics recently released the results of a survey of 7000 consumers throughout North America and Western Europe, which assessed interest in smart home services as well as willingness to pay for them. The results are unmistakable. There is large, pent up demand for residential services that provide security, peace of mind and convenience. What was surprising to me was the size of the gap between those who currently have a smart home service and those who do not (but were willing to pay for them). For example, in Germany only 2% of respondents had professionally monitored home security. Yet, 45% who did not have the service were very interested and willing to pay up to 17 euros a month.

Consumers clearly see the value in services such as home security, energy management, and elderly monitoring. What has held back purchasing? The market is fairly price elastic, so high price levels have been a deterrent. People are willing to pay for these services, but less than what’s currently charged. Awareness was another barrier. People generally weren’t aware that these services are available. For those who were aware, they had concerns about cyber intrusion and privacy. Now, what does this mean to service providers who have entered or are considering entering the smart home market? Recognize that you have unique advantages and assets that can help you take a leading position in this market. Initially, your marketing influence and retail reach can overcome low awareness.

Then your experience “in the home” and customer trust come into play. Your residential customers expect you to understand and solve all of their in-home voice, video, and connectivity problems. If an IP-connected device in their home is not working, they are more likely to contact you than the device manufacturer. You have the tools and the experienced technical and support personnel to handle potential customer issues around the connected home.

Know also that customers want these services from you. The trust you’ve built over time is so important when it comes to services involving personal security. Strategy Analytics found that consumers preferred to get their home and family monitoring services from service providers than from OTTs in the ecommerce, retail, or electronic manufacturing space.

Along with this trust, are the advantages of established billing relationships and the ability to bundle discounted smart home services with rest of your offers. Smart home as the “Fifth Play” makes a lot of sense for both you and your customers.

A tangible advantage is the equipment (gateways, set top boxes) that you have placed in the home – devices that can potentially be used to deliver these new services. Consumers want easy set-up and one single control point for their smart home services. And you can provide it for them. You can help customers simplify how they buy, set up and use their smart home solutions.

Service providers are well positioned to be a leading player in the smart home market. To ignore this opportunity or give it short shrift means leaving large sums of money on the table or worse. What’s worse? Being dis-intermediated from your customers in the home by aggressive OTT players.

For more information on Cisco MOI check us out here.

Ana Leung

Senior Manager

Service Provider Business & Technology Architecture

Boost Your Digital Manufacturing Transformation

Douglas Bellin

Recently after traveling to Dubai for the IoT World Forum, it struck me that many manufacturers are still looking for that prescriptive roadmap to understand how they can transform their operations digitally. Everyone understands that digital disruption is a reality, no matter what type of products you manufacture or where you are located. The question is not when but how to respond and plan.

And, with the added complexity of industrial security comes serious risk s if you don’t do anything. One statistic cites: The average hacker is in your factory for 6 – 9 months waiting to steal your intellectual property. And the average time before an intrusion is detected is 6-9 months. This means that they have had freedom to look around and probably have free access to all of your information.
This truly drives home the point that it is key to ensure that your factories and facilities are not just connected but secure.

This new age of digital manufacturing is expected to drive dramatic business improvements for companies transitioning from legacy automation systems. Manufacturers can create a foundation for a highly integrated and intelligent decision-making value chain Continue reading “Boost Your Digital Manufacturing Transformation”

Douglas Bellin

Global Lead, Industries

Manufacturing and Energy

2 Comments

Threat-Focused NG-Firewall – Who Cares? Part 1

Mike Storm

Part 1: Rude Awakening

Let us begin with some context in the form of a story.

I live in a very bad part of town and I am always worried that my car is going to get stolen or broken into. So, I just invested over a thousand bucks in this awesome vehicle alarm and security system. You know, one of those ultra-advanced systems that connects to an app on your smartphone, includes an ignition kill switch, vehicle tracker, cameras, motion detection, as well as all of the typical features you would expect. If someone enters the vehicle without my key fob, it calls my phone, and even takes pictures of the inside of the vehicle. I now feel so much better about parking my car outside. The company that sold me the alarm made me feel like my car was ‘un-steal-able’ and even if it was, I would have pictures of who did it and would be able to find it easily. Perfect. I feel protected. I can sleep at night.

The other morning, I went outside and strangely, it was gone…the shock sensor and its cut-wires lying on the ground where the car once sat. I think I stood there for a solid minute with my mouth open before I thought to do anything. I checked my phone – no call. I looked at the app – no pictures or interior motion detected. All appeared normal. Darn! (actually other words, but keeping it clean here) How could this happen? That alarm company assured me this was impossible. Heck, they are the most popular system on the market – everyone loves these guys. They have all of the ‘best’ and innovative features and no one makes vehicle security easier than these guys. And, I bought the top-of-the-line model, with all of the bells and whistles, just short of the biometric entry system. Wow! How could this have happened?

I called the police to file a report and see if the tracker could be used to find my stolen car. “Sure we will look for it.” The tracker required a connection, which didn’t exist. The app was useless unless something triggered it and the company that sold it to me, of course, wasn’t much help. “Looks like someone really wanted your car” they said. Long story short, the vehicle was found 26 days later on a burned-out flatbed in Mexico. What hadn’t been taken off of it was torched; no trace whatsoever.

Security Isn’t Easy

The moral of the story is two-fold. One, there is no such thing as easy security, at any price. As soon as you think you have achieved it, the unthinkable will certainly happen. Two: no amount of prevention or detection will ever overcome human motivation and ingenuity. Knowing that today’s attackers have the technology innovations of the entire industry at their fingertips when they attack us – ingenuity is boundless. Billions of dollars are made each year by attackers stealing our data. What better motivation than money. Considering much of what we are up against today is nation-state sponsored, everything becomes that much more complicated.

Continue reading “Threat-Focused NG-Firewall – Who Cares? Part 1”

Mike Storm

Distinguished Engineer

Security Business Group

4 Comments

STEAM Carnival: Making Science Fun

Andy Soluk

What if I told you that babysitting 10,000 kids could be fun? Now instead of babysitting, let’s call it “supervising.” And let’s throw in some cool toys to play with and an awesome team of Cisco employees and volunteers. Does that sound fun now?

This sums up my weekend at the San Francisco STEAM Carnival in early November. It was an intense event, filled with all the adrenaline, caffeine, and sweat required to pull together an amazing experience for everyone who attended.

So what is STEAM Carnival? It is a celebration of Science, Technology, Engineering, Arts, and Math that is geared towards younger students (and the young at heart). The idea is to excite people of all ages and show them how cool science can be. Anyone who came could play with robots, watch the Tesla Oscillator, try out virtual reality headsets, build circuits, and even talk with a real astronaut! How often can you do all of that in one place?

Cisco was one of the main sponsors of this year’s STEAM Carnival because the company believes in the importance of energizing students about STEAM fields. Besides providing internet for the entire event, Cisco led attendees through an interactive scavenger hunt that exposed them to some of our coolest tech.

At the beginning, guests would enter the large blue tent for a map and instructions. They would then visit the green, red, yellow, and purple tents along their journey to “find” the pieces necessary to build a circuit. Along the way, attendees could play with robots, talk to each other over telepresence, and have their emotions “read” by cameras. At the end, everyone sat together in the “create space” and connected his or her wires, batteries, and lights with a special, conductive putty.

Although all of the Cisco volunteers put in many hours for the carnival to come together, the enthusiasm we saw in the kids was well worth the lost sleep. They charged through the scavenger hunt, often racing each other to see who could finish first and who could build the best circuit. A few got sidetracked with our robots or spontaneous telepresence dance parties, but everyone had fun. And everyone learned a lot.

STEAM Carnival kids — I don’t know who enjoyed STEAM Carnival more, the volunteers or the kids.

In a time where everything is becoming digital, it is more important than ever to teach the importance of the STEAM fields. 20 years from now, these children will be solving our toughest problems in a world that we can’t even begin to comprehend. The only thing that we know for certain is that technology will be even more important to our daily lives. Judging by how everyone loved the carnival, I think we are heading in the right direction.

Everyone left with brains full of science, pouches of Cisco circuits, and a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to play with the coolest toys that science has to offer. These youngsters will be our future doctors, scientists, politicians, engineers, and lawyers. If even half of them walked away with a stronger appreciation of STEAM fields, then I think we, as Cisco, are helping to change the world.

Andy Soluk

HR Project Specialist

Talent Brand

Succeeding in the Age of Digital Disruption & Complexity

Jim McDonnell

This year, according to the International Data Corporation (IDC), 3rd Platform technologies (i.e. cloud, analytics, mobility, social) have been responsible for one-third of all IT spending and account for virtually 100% of all IT spending growth.

As more enterprises engage in digitally collaborative partnerships, we’ll see more dollars being allocated to ensure companies can keep up with the diverse and ever-changing technology of the day. With greater collaboration comes greater complexity.

Think about it. Every time an enterprise adds a new service provider or the service provider adds new partners the dynamics of the support ecosystem changes. The ability to actively track provider performance for service level agreement (SLA) adherence and vendor management becomes more and more difficult. But, enterprises can’t be expected to manage this multiparty dance alone.

Service Providers Are Part of the Equation

That’s why today enterprises are looking at IT differently and rightfully so. In this age of 3^rd Platform technologies, enterprises want and need their IT departments and service partners to operate seamlessly while supporting overall business goals. This requires an effective service integration and management (SIAM) system that, at a minimum does three things:

Remove silos. The infrastructures of today and tomorrow are interconnected. Therefore, it is vital for support processes to be holistic to achieve end-to-end visibility.

Automate. Given the speed (e.g., cloud provisioning, deprovisioning of compute power) and scale (212 billion devices connected by 2020, according to IDC’s latest Internet of Things research) of change, the SP has no choice but to automate processes to ensure service-level agreement (SLA) consistency at scale.

Facilitate decision making. Next-generation IT infrastructure should make it simpler for managers to make informed business decisions in real time.

According to an IDC technology spotlight report, Automated Service Management: Accelerating Enterprise Insight, Efficiency, and Action for Service Providers, there is opportunity for service providers to become strategic partners and trusted advisors to enterprises by leveraging these three pillars. Furthermore, research has found that service providers who are integrated with their customers enjoy loyalty ratings 25% higher than those that are not.¹

Case in Point: ServiceGrid in Action

Swissgrid, a service provider of Switzerland’s energy company, was in search of a solution that would allow automated and accelerated service management processes. They wanted to integrate their internal service management, CRM systems, and service partners on one central platform to ensure efficient collaboration across the service chain.

The use of Cisco ServiceGrid enabled Swissgrid to automate processing of service requests, which improved the service quality and the efficiency of troubleshooting. But the benefits didn’t stop there. They were also able to:

Automate complex and manual provider relationships
Enable end- to-end SLA governance and automated reporting across the ecosystem
Drive faster incident resolution

“We recovered our investment within the first year and we will continue to benefit from Cisco ServiceGrid capabilities in our current ecosystem and will look to ways to expand,” said Hans Roth, Head of Service Management, Swissgrid.

Where could you see improved results in the integration of your support services? Let’s talk about it. You can reach out and learn more about ServiceGrid via email or by visiting our ServiceGrid website.

¹Source: The Outsourcing Institute

Jim McDonnell

Director, General Manager

ServiceGrid, CMCP, UCSF Alliance

December 14, 2015 3 Comments

A Year in Review. Big Data and Analytics 2015. 3rd Generation Platforms, World Record Performance, and Expanding Partner …

Rex Backman

My goodness… Were we ever busy in 2015! Our Cisco Big Data & Analytics teams executed and delivered a tremendous body of work with several key accomplishments these past 12 months. All of our activities – across all of our teams – was focused on delivering to you leading innovation, with industry leading performance & scalability, and offering flexibility via a variety of Big Data choices. Of course all of it based on Cisco UCS, Nexus, and ACI. Let’s take a look at some of the highlights:

Platform

We introduced throughout 2015 various versions of our 3rd generation Big Data architecture. The solution, Cisco’s UCS Integrated Infrastructure for Big Data, integrates our industry-leading computing, network, and management capabilities into a unified fabric-based architecture. Packaged as a Cisco Validated Designs (CVD) our architecture supports the leading Hadoop distributions: Cloudera, Hortonworks, IBM, and MapR. Our Big Data CVDs provide you peace of mind as they are tested, validated, and supported. Take a peak at our Big Data CVDs here and see how they can expedite your Hadoop projects and drive operational efficiency.

Performance Continue reading “A Year in Review. Big Data and Analytics 2015. 3rd Generation Platforms, World Record Performance, and Expanding Partner …”

Rex Backman

Senior Marketing Manager, Big Data Solutions

Data Center and Cloud

Malware stealing gigabytes of your data as seen by Cognitive Threat Analytics

Michal Svoboda

This post is authored by Gayan de Silva and Martin Pospisil.

Overview

Recently, about 50 users across 20 companies were alarmed by the Cisco Cognitive Threat Analytics (CTA) about a malware that exfiltrates gigabytes of data from their computers. An example of such CTA detection:

In addition to the usual malware command and control activities, the incident features an upload of 2.3 gigabytes of data to a highly suspicious destination. CTA has classified this incident as a malware with high severity and confidence.

This particular malware is using a custom protocol over TCP port 443, which is assigned for HTTPS. Generally, less than 10% of organizations do any inspection of HTTPS traffic. In addition to relatively low probability of intercept, malware authors also use custom protocol that is not based on HTTPS. A comparison of the stream content of the custom protocol to a stream content of a HTTPS protocol is shown below.

Continue reading “Malware stealing gigabytes of your data as seen by Cognitive Threat Analytics”

Michal Svoboda

Technical Leader

Cognitive Threat Analytics

4 Comments

When Free Conferencing Services Aren’t Really Free

Kim Austin

I’m sitting across a table from a guy we’ll call Mike.* He’s trying to join an 8:00 a.m. conference call from one of those free services. It’s not working.

First, the hold music is awful. I can hear it from here. I’m pretty convinced that it must be worth a few bucks a month to avoid just that aspect of the experience.

The call drops about 20 seconds after the chirpy voice announces “you are the only participant on this call.” When Mike calls back in, he gets the horrid music again before the system promptly launches him into a seemingly endless loop of two different recorded voices competing for his attention: “Please enter your conference code” and “Please enter your PIN.” (It’s not clear which voice is more authoritative, so he tries both codes. Neither work.)

He dials in a third time and lands in the same loop of arguing voices. The third time it not a charm after all.

He gives up and dials Luke, who originally set up the call, directly. Luke was also having trouble, so he agrees to set up another call through a different service.

All this for an audio-only bridge? Why is it so difficult? Continue reading “When Free Conferencing Services Aren’t Really Free”

A Wake-up Call

Authors

Director, Technical Marketing

Software Platforms Group

Authors

Senior Manager

Service Provider Business & Technology Architecture

Authors

Global Lead, Industries

Manufacturing and Energy

Part 1: Rude Awakening

Security Isn’t Easy

Authors

Distinguished Engineer

Security Business Group

Authors

HR Project Specialist

Talent Brand

Authors

Director, General Manager

ServiceGrid, CMCP, UCSF Alliance

Authors

Senior Marketing Manager, Big Data Solutions

Data Center and Cloud

Overview

Authors

Technical Leader

Cognitive Threat Analytics

Authors

No Longer with Cisco

CONNECT WITH US