Year: 2015

October 6, 2015 1 Comment
Avatar

Using Health IT to Detect Breast Cancer

This week marks the convergence of Breast Cancer Awareness Month and National Health IT Week.   Breast Cancer Awareness Month is an annual campaign to increase awareness of the disease and to promote early detection, while National Health IT Week is a collaborative forum to advance health through the best use of information technology (IT).

While these may seem like unrelated events, they really aren’t.  Health IT, specifically the Internet of Everything (IoE), is beginning to use technology to change how breast cancer is detected and diagnosed.

Rob Royea, a scientist and entrepreneur, has developed a medical innovation called the iTBra, a bra patch embedded with IoE sensor technology.  The iTBra solution contains comfortable, intelligent breast patches which collect up to 12 hours of data for analysis.

The iTBra can detect abnormalities, such as tiny temperature changes, in breast tissue.  These tiny temperature fluctuations may indicate breast cancer, at an early state when it can be treated and possibly even cured.  The iTBra is tissue agnostic so it even works with dense breast tissue, which can be difficult to detect with traditional screening and often results in false negatives during mammography.

Cisco is helping fund a documentary about the iTBra called DETECTED. This documentary will chronicle Rob’s journey to create the iTBra and shed important light on how internet-enabled bras can make a difference in early cancer detection.

Throughout the month of October, you can follow inspirational stories from Cisco employees who are breast cancer survivors. Their personal stories highlight the importance of early detection, positive attitudes, and a determination to live each day to the fullest.

By using the IoE for early cancer detection, you can see that Health IT has the potential to advance healthcare in innovative and intelligent ways.  At Cisco, we know that IoE is more than just big data and sensors – it is the positive impact on human lives through transformed patient care.

Is your organization planning to use IoE to transform patient care?  If so, let us know – we’d love to hear from you.

Authors

Avatar

Mike Haymaker

Healthcare Industry Marketing

No Longer with Cisco

Leave a Comment
Avatar

Private LTE : The Service Provider Opportunity

Ian RossGuest Blog by Ian Ross, Global Solution GTM Manager

In this second of a series, Ian Ross from our Mobility Solutions and Architectures team explores the Service Provider opportunity around Private LTE networks.

In my last blog I outlined the growing level of interest in private LTE networks; triggered when an enterprise has specific design, operational or performance requirements that can’t be met by public services.

On the surface this may look like a marginalisation risk for service providers, and within the context of legacy offers this would be right. However, while we see a growing interest from enterprises in some verticals in having their own LTE wireless infrastructure, Service Providers are far from precluded from a role in enabling these and in some markets are instrumental.

Women Mobility workplace

New markets require new offers

While virtualisation is lowering barriers to adoption, the drivers for Private LTE are Continue reading “Private LTE : The Service Provider Opportunity”

Authors

Avatar

Jim O'Leary

Sr. Manager Mobile Solutions Marketing

2 Comments
Avatar

Accelerate Job Creation through Social Incubators

This post was originally featured on Huffington Post ImpactX

This week, I’m excited to be a part of the SOCAP15 (Social Capital Markets) annual conference. This event convenes more than 2,000 impact investors, world-class entrepreneurs, and incubator managers, working together to create a better future through social entrepreneurship and impact investing. When you’re surrounded by the world’s leading social innovators, it’s impossible not to be inspired by the energy and the “what if” possibilities all around us.

iHanger-SkillZone-incubator

For example, what if we empowered a new generation of global problem solvers to innovate rapidly? And then, what if we enabled them to use their innovations to bring creative ideas to market and launch startups that generate more jobs through a global incubator network?

In a recent blog post, I talked about youth unemployment—74 million unemployed youth globally in 2014 (International Labour Organization, 2014)—and a recent Gartner Study that defines the landscape of job opportunities related to the Internet of Everything (IoE). In order for countries to thrive in the new economy fueled by IoE and digitization, we must address not only unemployment but also job creation.

Today, I want to share the UBI Global Social Benchmark 2015 Report developed in partnership with Cisco Corporate Affairs. The goal of this benchmark is to better understand and measure the success of social incubators using over 40 key performance indicators (KPIs) to measure success factors, such as the value created for the participating client start-ups as well as the economic and social impact.

According to the UBI report, social incubators have created more than 90,000 jobs over the last five years. Job creation will no doubt play a crucial role in addressing the global unemployment challenge, including jobs created within social enterprises.

Continue reading “Accelerate Job Creation through Social Incubators”

Authors

Avatar

Tae Yoo

No Longer with Cisco

1 Comment
Avatar

Learn about the latest FlexPod Solutions at NetApp Insight 2015

NetApp’s annual technology conference takes place in Las Vegas next week and Cisco is excited to again be a diamond level sponsor for the event. Together, we will highlight Cisco and NetApp’s technology alignment, leadership, partnership and raise awareness of FlexPod solutions and momentum.

Cisco’s presence at the event will revolve around Cisco and NetApp’s joint integrated infrastructure platform – FlexPod. Based on Cisco UCS integrated infrastructure and NetApp storage systems, FlexPod simplifies and modernizes IT with continuous innovation, delivering unmatched application performance, broad support for any cloud strategy, and improved operational efficiency to accelerate data center transformation.

There will Nick Earlebe numerous opportunities for customers and partners to engage with us throughout the week, including keynotes, boot camps, breakout sessions, Meet the Engineer sessions, booth demos and more. Attend a Cisco breakout session for a chance to win a Intel Compute Stick.

The highlight of the event will be the Cisco keynote given by Nick Earle, Senior Vice President, Cloud and Managed Services, on Monday, October 12th.

The comprehensive list of Cisco speaking sessions can be viewed here. Continue reading “Learn about the latest FlexPod Solutions at NetApp Insight 2015”

Authors

Avatar

Tim Stack

Product Marketing Manager

Data Center and Compute

6 Comments
Avatar

Threat Spotlight: Cisco Talos Thwarts Access to Massive International Exploit Kit Generating $60M Annually From Ransomwa …

This post was authored by Nick Biasini with contributions from Joel Esler, Nick Hebert, Warren Mercer, Matt Olney, Melissa Taylor, and Craig Williams.

Executive Summary

Today, Cisco struck a blow to a group of hackers, disrupting a significant international revenue stream generated by the notorious Angler Exploit Kit.  Angler is one of the largest exploit kit found on the market and has been making news as it has been linked to several high-profile malvertising/ransomware campaigns. This is the most advanced and concerning exploit kit on the market – designed to bypass security devices and ultimately attack the largest number of devices possible.

In its research, Cisco determined that an inordinate number of proxy servers used by Angler were located on servers of service provider Limestone Networks ­ — with the primary threat actor responsible for up to 50 percent of Angler Exploit Kit activity, targeting up to 90,000 victims a day, and generating more than $30M annually.  This implies that if you apply the full scope of Angler activity the revenue generated could exceed $60M annually. Talos gained additional visibility into the global activity of the network through their ongoing collaboration with Level 3 Threat Research Labs. Finally, thanks to our continued collaboration with OpenDNS we were able to gain in-depth visibility into the domain activity associated with the adversaries.

Cisco then took action:

  • Shutting down access for customers by updating products to stop redirects to the Angler proxy servers.
  • Released Snort rules to detect and block checks from the health checks
  • All rules are being released to the community through  Snort
  • Publishing communications mechanisms including protocols so others can protect themselves and customers.
  • Cisco is also publishing IoCs so that defenders can analyze their own network activity and block access to remaining servers

This is a significant blow to the emerging hacker economy where ransomware and the black market sale of stolen IP, credit card info and personally identifiable information (PII) are generating hundreds of millions of dollars annually.

Watch Angler compromise a box and install ransomware at the end of the video.

Continue reading “Threat Spotlight: Cisco Talos Thwarts Access to Massive International Exploit Kit Generating $60M Annually From Ransomwa …”

Authors

Avatar

Talos Group

Talos Security Intelligence & Research Group

Leave a Comment
Avatar

Experience Day 0, 1, 2 and N Operations @ PuppetConf

Craig Huitema blogged about Cisco’s SDN strategy and one of the key pillars is programmable networks. Cisco’s programmable networks is based on Nexus operating system NX-OS and our Robb Boyd from TechWiseTV covers it here and goes in more depth about NX-API REST (Object model) here and here.

Also go here if you missed our September 25th SDxCentral DemoFriday where we looked at use cases and demos related to NX-Toolkit and NX-API REST. Bottom line is to drive operational agility in the data center by enabling IT admins to manage Nexus switches as a Linux server with open interfaces and integrating DevOps tools.

One of the DevOps tools is Puppet. Integrating Puppet Enterprise agent is an integral part of programmable networks as I touched on it in my previous blog.

As we break lifecycle management into Day 0, 1, 2 and N to install, configure, optimize and upgrade the network to meet application and user requirements, Puppet plays a key role in each step.

Day0_1_2_N Operations

Come and visit Cisco’s booth at PuppetConf October 7 – 9 to see demos and learn more about the integration of Puppet and its benefits on Day 0, 1, 2, and N. Also, visit our sponsor theater on Thursday, Oct 8 at 12:10 PM in the main exhibit hall as well as our breakout session Friday, October 9 at 2:30 PM. We will share how Cisco’s strategy of openness has helped the developer community.

To stay up to date on the latest version of the CiscoPuppet Module source code, visit this GitHub repository that allows network administrators to manage Cisco Network Elements using Puppet.

Authors

Avatar

Rami Rammaha

Sr. Marketing Manager

IDS

October 5, 2015 2 Comments
Avatar

Cisco @ Strata-Hadoop World Wrap-Up: If we can make it there, we’ll make it anywhere…

 

Strata-HadoopWordCloud

We made it…another successful Strata-Hadoop World show for Cisco’s Big Data & Analytics team. This year we had a few unique challenges – the Pope was leaving town when we arrived; then the UN General Assembly made traffic a bit more difficult than normal; finally towards week’s end the threat of ‘The Hurricane’ for the East Coast…

Cisco had an active presence at Strata this year with several newsworthy and interesting highlights:

• Introducing Cisco Data Preparation. Cisco Data Preparation (Data Prep) makes it easy for non-technical business analysts to gather, explore, cleanse, combine and enrich the data that fuels analytics. Read Kevin Ott’s Data Prep blog here. Continue reading “Cisco @ Strata-Hadoop World Wrap-Up: If we can make it there, we’ll make it anywhere…”

Authors

Avatar

Rex Backman

Senior Marketing Manager, Big Data Solutions

Data Center and Cloud

13 Comments
Avatar

Oil and gas operations made safer, more efficient, and more secure

The oil and gas industry is going through challenging times. Clearly the reduced price of oil is top of mind, and organizations are therefore accelerating their move towards digital business to address major business concerns such as profitability, market share, cost controls as well as safety and security. Here is a guest blog from our Global IoE Solutions Lead for oil and gas, Serhii Konovalov that addresses many key areas of concern for our clients:

skonoval
Serhii Konovalov, Global IoE Solutions Lead for oil and gas

When our energy customers discuss business issues, two areas of concern often come up. Across the board, physical and cyber security are top-of-mind. They are also concerned that worker productivity levels should be higher.

Together with Schneider Electric, we have developed a Smart Connected Pipeline solution, which addresses both of these areas of concern. This solution helps to make pipelines more efficient and safer, and can reduce costs from losses and leaks. It will be of interest to oil and gas customers looking to implement green field (new) installations, or brown field (established) installations where they are looking to upgrade existing pipeline infrastructure.

This new solution addresses the broad pipeline infrastructure, including the control center and converged telecommunications systems. Schneider Electric is particularly versed in pipeline control systems and leak detection systems. They’ve combined their strength in operational technologies with Cisco’s experience in IT networking, security, and enterprise infrastructure. Together we’ve developed a solution tailored for the pipeline industry that:

  • Provides pipeline automation across a unified end-to-end network providing improved visualization in real-time, reducing accidents and detecting leaks faster
  • Can be implemented faster and delivers earlier return on investment because it is pre-engineered and validated.
  • Works with third-party intrusion (TPI) prevention and leak-detection systems (LDS)
  • Offers real-time control room visibility and response to out-of-line situations

Who’s using Connected Pipelines today?

A major integrated European oil and gas company that operates in around eighty-five countries around the world is using the solution to address some critical concerns.

The first concern was the risk of leaks: they wanted to detect and manage leaks better along the pipeline.

The second concern was security: they wanted to implement new physical security services along the pipeline itself, reducing theft and lowering losses. They also wanted to optimize the maintenance downtime to improve product throughput.

They had a mature infrastructure, about twenty years old, and wanted a more agile, responsive, and up-to-date digital solution. Continue reading “Oil and gas operations made safer, more efficient, and more secure”

Authors

Avatar

Peter Granger

Senior Sales Transformation Manager

2 Comments
Avatar

Cisco’s Solution Framework for the Digital Journey

Every country, city, industry, and business is becoming digital in order to leverage the unprecedented opportunities possible from rapidly expanding connectivity around the globe.

Digitization requires customers to rethink their business, operations, and technology strategies. Cisco’s research, along with countless business experts, forecasts that 40% of today’s leading businesses will be displaced by competitors disrupting the market with new approaches— digitization is an imperative for business survival.

I am excited about today’s announcement of Cisco’s Digital Solutions for Industries. This showcases our unique approach to help customers capture the promise of digitization.

Tony Shakib news conference

Digital transformation necessitates a combining of business and IT strategy that connects everything, embraces analytics, and takes a holistic approach to data security that spans technology and operations. According to the 2014 Digital Transformation report by the Altimeter Group, 88% of companies report undergoing a digital transformation — however, only 25% have mapped the digital customer journey and have a clear understanding of new or under-performing digital touchpoints. Continue reading “Cisco’s Solution Framework for the Digital Journey”

Authors

Avatar

Tony Shakib

No Longer with Cisco