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Technology’s impact on business continues to deepen, as more and more companies embrace digital transformation. In fact, analysts predict that by 2018, over 65% of Global 2000 enterprises will place digital transformation at the center of their corporate strategy.

Data centers sit at the heart of every company’s operations, and form a key component in digital transformation. Data centers can be thought of as the “brain” of a company, where the most critical information and applications operate and run. Managing data center operations is an essential part of a company’s overall embrace of technology. But data centers are becoming increasingly complex.

Imagine yourself navigating in a foreign city with no GPS, no map, and no street signs — that’s the data center of today.  We don’t know what’s happening inside our data centers: How applications are interacting, how they’re connected, or even how many there are. Due to application proliferation and mobility, virtualization, hybrid clouds, and the continuous development cycle required to compete, we’ve lost visibility into data centers at a very fundamental level.

As a result, implementing change in the data center as part of an overall digital transformation effort can be very difficult, making more companies prone to vulnerability.

Cisco has a strong history of delivering innovative data center technology to benefit our customers — from our early days with Catalyst switches to the Unified Computing System to most recently Application Centric Infrastructure — so if any company could solve the visibility challenge, we thought it should be us. We’re also very interested in the potential that analytics can bring to improve efficiencies and enhance customer experiences. We’ve delivered analytics solutions that help digital transformation across industries, including transportation, healthcare, retail and energy, to name just a few.

Many companies, from global giants to inspired startups, have tackled data center visibility with different tools, and they’ve managed to deliver bits and pieces of the solution, but nothing comprehensive, easy-to-use or scalable to the dimensions required by the modern data center.

Today I’m pleased to announce a new solution, Cisco Tetration Analytics, an open platform that provides data center visibility at a level that’s never been achieved before, and at a scale never possible before. Tetration Analytics collects data in real time using software and hardware sensors — gathering 1M events per second — stores up to a year’s worth of data, analyzes the data with advanced analytics in real time, and delivers information critical for data center operations by providing actionable insights in real time, through easy to understand visuals.

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We’ve also built in what amounts to a “time machine for the data center” that gathers and stores historical data and simulates what might happen. With this “rewind” capability, our customers can review the past and replay events in real time, plan for the future, and even freeze time and examine exactly what happened at a specific second.

Early customer field trials and feedback have been extremely positive— we’ve clearly identified a technology gap that has been holding organizations back. Companies are eager to begin taking advantage of this new-found visibility into their up-till-now mysterious data centers, and creatively using that knowledge to build up new capabilities as they embrace digital transformation. Our partners also have huge opportunities with the platform to drive incredible business value.

The story is just beginning for the Tetration Analytics platform. We’re looking forward to having more conversations and implementations with our customers so we can build on these initial capabilities. We are excited to be able to provide meaningful solutions that solve our customers’ most pressing challenges, and Tetration Analytics delivers on that promise.

Authors

Chuck Robbins

Chair and Chief Executive Officer

Cisco Systems, Inc.

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Did you know that 37% of the average employee time is spent in meetings, according to the National Statistics Council?  No matter what you call it – powwow, touch base, huddle up, kick off, walkthrough or update – a meeting is people getting together to share ideas and get things done. It’s just a meeting. And while the meaning of a meeting has remained the same, the way we organize and conduct them is definitely changing at a rapid pace.

First, you have to decide to meet – not a big problem. Then you’ve typically had to run through questions such as:

  • How many people are you inviting to the meeting?
  • Where are participants physically located?
  • For those who won’t be in the central meeting location, which devices will they use to join?
  • Are their systems secure? Compatible with each other?
  • What’s the best way to manage all these pieces to be sure everyone can connect to audio, view content, and share video?

When you can resolve the technology behind planning a meeting, you can create better meeting experiences. The benefit? Drive business outcomes, resulting in increased engagement, accelerated sales cycles, reduced time to market, and more.

https://youtu.be/jjPPjTVH5RA

Simplifying Meetings for Everyone
We work to simplify the Cisco WebEx experience so you can focus on your day job. The experience goes beyond just “meet” to eliminate steps, reduce complexity, and keep people in sync from inception to resolution. At the same time, we work to simplify the technology: We eliminated the delineation between voice, video, and web conferencing.

It’s really just a meeting. Period.

Thanks to a richer and simpler user experience – and industry-leading features like free video, people can join a meeting from their own video systems, without worrying about technology. Whether they’re using a mobile phone while on the go, a laptop from an airport terminal, or a video conferencing device at their desk, WebEx connects participants to the meeting without them giving it more than a moment’s thought.

You can have the meeting call you. Everyone can share documents, files, or images easily. Whatever you discuss is shared with crystal-clear audio and lifelike video, creating an in-person experience.

When all the technology works and everyone can join, you can get past the technology and get back to the real purpose of your meeting.

Better Meetings Mean Better Business
Using video conferencing to conduct meetings can lead to better business outcomes. Video conferencing can help organizations increase innovation and stimulate business growth. In today’s environment, business agility is essential to keeping pace with fast-moving changes. In fact, recent research by Techaisle reported:

  • 75% of high-growth businesses are using video-enabled collaboration solutions
  • Strong adopters of business video collaboration outgrew other companies by 300%
  • Innovative companies experience 30% faster decision making with video enabled collaboration

Business communications have changed, which means meetings have evolved. No matter how much things change, people still just want to get together to move business forward. They want to focus on the meeting not the technology.

Learn how your team can receive WebEx Meeting Center video conferencing functionality with their subscription, at no additional cost.

Authors

Ellie Ruano

No Longer with Cisco

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Technology for technology’s sake is an interesting academic exercise. It pushes the boundaries of what’s possible and opens new avenue for research. However, the real value of technology is in its ability to deliver benefits. Companies and people buy technology because it meets a need.

This is by no means a revolutionary concept for most IT professionals. We all know who butters the bread. If we can’t deliver meaningful results, our budgets and positions go away.

So why is there such a big disconnect? Why do many technology companies talk technology rather than business outcomes? Let’s talk real business outcomes not generalities about increased sales and lower costs. What business doesn’t want to increase sales and lower costs? But that’s not a one-size fits all challenge. It differs by region and company size but mostly it differs by industry. Put simply, the business drives that boosts sales in retail are the same that boosts sales in healthcare.

https://www.instagram.com/p/BFR1iXoLorg/?taken-by=ciscoenterprisenetworks

Well, Cisco is changing that. We’re not simply talking technology and letting customers connect the dots. We’re talking specific business objectives, challenges, and outcomes by industry and tying specific mobility technologies to those elements.

Check out our new Mobility Industry pages—for:

Each of these pages will take you on a journey. We’ll bridge the gap between technology and industry. We’ll highlight the business challenges and objectives customers tell us matter most. We’ll highlight case studies where Cisco made a difference for an industry leader. We’ll link you to specific Cisco mobility technologies and Cisco Services that will help you build a successful solution for yourself. And finally, we’ll provide links to industry-specific resources to help you discover what you need.

In the coming months, we’ll continue to increase the assets for the existing pages, as well as, build new pages for new industries. Sure, academic papers may be interesting, but we think the time you spend on these pages is a smart move.

Authors

Daryl Coon

Cisco Customer Solutions Marketing

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Hello! My name is Suzy Treece and I shepherd Cisco’s Hospitality practice. As you can see, we have now added Hospitality to our Retail feed.

For those of us who have lived and breathed Hospitality for a number of years, it’s a passion, not a trade. Hospitality is about delivering an amazing experience, on the guest’s terms. Technology is the means of transforming that experience from the mediocre or even expected, to one that amazes and delights. My job here at Cisco is working with hoteliers, casino operators, cruise lines, and other travel-related practitioners to help you achieve that type of experience.

This is an exciting time of year for our industry because we’re all getting ready to go to HITEC 2016 in New Orleans, on June 21-23 – the world’s largest hospitality technology show. If you are planning to attend, be sure to visit Cisco Booth 1646 to learn how Cisco Hospitality Solutions can give your tech-savvy guests a truly connected travel experience that keeps them coming back over and over again.

We have seen the most incredible changes in how we connect and communicate. After all, it was only 15 years ago that the Internet burst onto the scene. In a very short time, it dramatically changed how we work, how we live, and even how we play. And now, Hospitality, like other industries, is experiencing digital disruption.

Visit Us at Booth 1646

To digitally transform, businesses are focused on three priorities:

  • Simplify and automate processes so they can increase speed to market and lower costs
  • Empower workforce efficiency and innovation to drive productivity gains and increase retention
  • Personalize guest and staff experiences to increase loyalty through greater insight

Visit the Cisco booth and see how digital transformation is helping to expand your business opportunities by increasing customer loyalty and capturing new guest segments. Some of the major trends contributing to digital transformation include Mobility, IoT, Analytics, and the Cloud. For Cisco, this is our DNA, our heritage. Join the excursion and see:

  • Cisco Meraki for cloud-delivered Wi-Fi
  • Cisco Enterprise Mobility Services Platform for enriched and personalized mobile guest experiences
  • IoT for Connected Hospitality
  • Virtual concierge, way-finding, digital signage, and more with Cisco’s Digital Interactive Experience Platform

Cisco experts will be on hand during show hours to answer your questions about implementing digital innovations that make guest experiences easy, personal, and fun.

Be sure to also visit our partner BlueprintRF, who will be at the show in Booth 1907. Blueprint is a next-gen systems provider of Smart IT services for the hotel industry.

Attend Our June 22 Security Session

Cisco’s William Gustafson will present an intensive session on security, “Physical Security vs. Customer Experience: The Cool, Compliant, and Creepy,” on Wednesday, June 22 from 4:00-5:00 pm. Learn how you can differentiate customer experiences by using smart technologies such as mobile, beacons, smart sensors, automated alerts, microcell technology, and RFID for guest recognition while providing guests with unprecedented safety—from the daily events to potential security incidents.

Join Us on Social Media

Cisco partners will also be attending and we’ll be co-sponsoring receptions and other events. Be sure to follow our @CiscoTravel Twitter feed and join our LinkedIn group.

I look forward to seeing you at HITEC!

Authors

Suzy Treece

Practice Advisor

Retail & Hospitality

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Connected Transportation for Education helps Howe Public Schools improve safety, efficiency, mobility and productivity.

With live video monitoring via on-board cameras, Howe Public Schools can help keep students safe while enroute. Real time surveillance allows better monitoring of the students on the bus, and can help inform administrators and guardians about the activities happening on the vehicle.

Wi-Fi on the vehicle lets students access the school network and online courses to continue their studies and maximize travel time (which often exceeds an hour in this district). This is especially important for many students who do not have Internet access at home.

With GPS monitoring on the vehicle, administration can view a live map to determine if the vehicle has travelled outside of the the designated route, and vehicle telematics keep track of the health of buses for proactive maintenance. Through these features alone, Howe Public Schools streamlined routes to save time and money.

Watch this video to learn more about Howe Public Schools’ implementation of Connected Transportation for Education.

Authors

Alexia Crossman

Senior Cross-Portfolio Messaging Manager

Cisco Marketing

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“Over the last five years we have witnessed a radical shift in shopper behavior fueled by the seismic impacts of mobile and social.” That’s how Piers Fawkes, founder of leading edge research firm PSFK introduces his latest report: The Future of Retail. Indeed, the way consumers shop is changing in all sorts of ways. Whether they’re in-store, at home, or on the go, consumers have come to expect a personalized, immersive, and interactive shopping experiences. Many consumers look up products online mobilely while visiting brick and mortar stores, in order to check for out of stock items, compare competitor prices, check product reviews, and more.

Wherever they’re shopping, consumers expect to have all of the information at their fingertips to make an informed decision and ensure that they’re getting exactly what they’re looking for, at the best price. And it’s the job of the stores where they shop to provide them with a seamless shopping experience across whatever channel or platform they may use, be it on their desktop, smartphone, tablet, or in store.

How can retailers keep up with this demand? That’s the subject of our next #CiscoChat, on Wednesday, June 22nd at 10am – 11 am PT. There, we’ll be joined by Scott Lachut (@scottlachut), President of Research & Strategy at PSFK, Ed Jimenez (@PaloAltoEd), Director of Business Transformation at Cisco, and Jeremy Witikko (@jwitikko), Sr. Practice Advisor at Cisco. Together, we’ll discuss some of the implications of mobile technology on the retail world and how retailers can evolve to adapt to the modern “instant gratification” shopping mindset.

To participate in the chat:

  • Make sure you’re logged into your Twitter account.
  • Search for the #CiscoChat hashtag and click on the Live tab.
  • The moderator of this chat is the Cisco Retail Twitter channel. Be sure to follow our account @CiscoRetail to participate. They will begin welcoming guests at 10am PT and posting questions for discussion.
  • For @ replies to specific participants in the discussion, please use a “.” at the beginning of the tweet, so that your question or comment will appear in your public twitter feed.
  • If you need multiple tweets to answer a question, please preface each tweet with “1A, 2A,” etc. in order to make it easier for others to follow along with the conversation.
  • Use the #CiscoChat hashtag at the end of each tweet, so that others can find your contributions to the discussion.

Be sure to bring your own questions to the discussion as well. We look forward to hearing your input! See you there!

 

Authors

Brian McDonald

Global Retail & Hospitality Industries Marketing Lead

Private Sector Industry Marketing

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This post was written by guest blogger Linas Dauksa, Marketing Manager, Picture1Enterprise Segment, and DIRT volunteer

A few months ago, I picked up my friend, Audra, at San Francisco airport. During our drive, we chatted about her full-time work at a charity in Canada and my volunteer work with Cisco Tactical Operations (TacOps). We realized there are some interesting parallels between a non-profit health organization in Toronto, Canada, and a high-tech company in Silicon Valley.

From an outsider’s perspective, Cisco provides companies with network capabilities. The charity organization Audra works with funds research and provides support to patients and families. At both organizations, making good things possible is based on a set of competencies, innovation, and passion.

As a volunteer on the Cisco TacOps team, I apply my technical skills and work experience, along with my company’s core technologies, to help support communications during natural or man-made disasters.

Cisco TacOps volunteers training on deployment of a portable satellite uplink
Cisco TacOps volunteers training on deployment of a portable satellite uplink

As a manager at the charity, when Audra seeks volunteers, she needs more than people who will stuff envelopes. She requires high-value skills such as graphic design or copywriting to help develop, for example, an advertising campaign.

The commonality here is the use of expertise, creativity, and innovative products and solutions to support local and global communities. Not only does this integration create real change for those people with the biggest needs, but it also impacts employee satisfaction, drives new ideas internally, and increases brand affection and loyalty.

The financial return on investment (ROI) becomes clear very quickly when you think of the costs associated with recruiting and retaining employees, and when you recognize the cost of promoting innovation and creative thinking.

A few days after I had this conversation with Audra, a colleague forwarded an interesting article that resonated with me: “Millennials are more fervent in their support of corporate social and environmental efforts and are, above and beyond, more likely to say they would participate in CSR initiatives if given the opportunity,” the article stated. “Millennials are also prepared to make personal sacrifices to make an impact on issues they care about.”

Closer to home (actually, work), I know an MBA student who chose to join Cisco instead of another company based on our CSR program. She is impressed by what Cisco solutions offer in real-time crises, and she appreciates the opportunity to give back. She believes it’s a real differentiator.

Cisco TacOps team deployed in Philippines after Typhoon Haiyan
Cisco TacOps team deployed in Philippines after Typhoon Haiyan

As we prepare to meet and mingle with the world’s thought leaders on creativity and innovation at Cannes Lions Festival of Creativity, we would like to challenge you to innovate around your company’s or your own core competencies when offering volunteer and CSR opportunities.

As an example, perhaps your company is in the hospitality services. Do you have a plan to leverage your wonderful assets to help the community if there is a major catastrophe such as an earthquake? Do you know where to start this preparedness conversation with the larger community?

Can you market your product to change the way people see it so that you reach a new and deserving audience? Can you redesign the way you collect, analyze, and share data to reduce strain in struggling areas or to allow for new growth?

Hopefully, we have sparked some creative juices here. Share your thoughts, ideas, and possibilities in the comments below. Or, tweet your thoughts at @Cisco, @CiscoCSR, and @canneslions using #canneslions2016!

Be sure to join our #CiscoChat tomorrow (06/16) featuring two amazing Women in Tech: Sue-Lynn Hinson of Cisco TacOps and Lauren Woodman of NetHope!

More information about Cisco TacOps, including how to reach out to the team, can be found at:

If you are a full-time Cisco employee and would like to volunteer: go2.cisco.com/dirt

Authors

Austin Belisle

No Longer with Cisco

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With ten new partners you know it’s not an illusion

Do you remember that magic trick with the metal rings that seem linked together? The magician pulls and an audience member pulls and the rings seem to be solid – forming an unbreakable chain. But with sleight of hand they come apart. It’s just an illusion. And an old trick.

I see a lot of technology ecosystems that remind me of that. They aren’t much more than a collection of logos and links. Sometimes there is one-to-one API integration but they typically look like brand sharing.

Well that’s not the way it is with the pxGrid group of technology partners. Because pxGrid is a secure, scalable and IETF standards-based way to share telemetry and quickly kill attacks using the network as an enforcer.

Security is an arms race that continues to intensify – in a threat landscape too big for any single vendor to confront. If solutions don’t work together the bad guys have the advantage which is why we must consider security technology that is open to integration.

That is openness is what pxGrid embodies – it’s open to virtually every network security company.

But getting in the program takes an engineering and support investment. That’s why I’m proud to let you know ten new partners are showing they are extra-serious about helping customers fight the bad guys and their wares (ransom and mal). So now our list of serious security partners keeps getting bigger.

Cisco pxGrid reduces the complexity and fragmentation you get with security products that don’t interoperate, and allows you to get more value from the tools you especially need to keep your company safe.  With pxGrid you can automate the sharing of telemetry and even automate the containment of threats without sneakernet (I can’t believe I used that, but you get the idea).  Plus you can suck-in identity information from the Identity Services Engine and turn a misbehaving IP address into a real thing: a person, their BYOD type, at a certain location, and access time.

We know many products are superb individually, but are vastly more powerful when integrated — vastly more powerful because they share data and become more intelligent.  By exchanging intelligence and services you can detect and stop threats faster — before they cause even bigger problems.

Check out the new partners (notice the cutting-edge companies that are adopting pxGrid?)

Cloud Access Security Broker

Make sure your cloud-based security can be shared and enforced on your on-premise network.

netskope-pxgridNetskope™ the cloud access security broker (CASB) enables IT to protect data and ensure compliance across cloud apps so businesses can move fast, with confidence.

User Behavior Analytics

Keep an eye on the activities of users to see if they are doing something out of the ordinary.

fortscale-pxgridFortScale finds insider threats with intelligent rule-free UEBA that’s quick to set up, low false-positive and easy to scale.*

niara-pxgridNiara provides machine learning-based analytics for automatic cyber-attack detection on the inside, and integrated forensics for easy access to the context needed to investigate actionable events.

Cisco Rapid Threat Containment, including the new Threat-Centric NAC

Stop attacks as they are detected via admin or automatically using the network as an enforcer.

attivo-pxgridAttivo Networks Deception Platform integrates with the Cisco ISE using pxGrid to automatically block attacks that have been detected by the Attivo BOTsink engagement server, expediting incident response and safeguarding networks.

intelliIntelliment allows enterprises to automate network security policy management in order to help them better handle security at scale and to automatically respond to network threats via the ISE integration.

lemonfish-pxgridLemonFish provides advanced discovery and high-end threat analytics by scouring the deep and dark web to determine if sensitive data has been leaked from the organization, to quickly reduce risk and shorten the time to mitigate.

qualys-pxgridQualys supports the new Threat Centric NAC feature to dynamically change user permissions based on the changing threat ratings of a device.*

redshift-pxgridRedShift Networks is a leader in securing Cloud based VoIP networks and provides the industry’s first complete security solutions developed for Unified Communications (UC), VOIP and Video.

threattrack-pxgridThreatTrack empowers cybersecurity teams to quickly identify and disrupt active cyberattacks by correlating discovered malware with anomalous network behavior to reveal malicious intent, the malware infections and lateral movement that indicate a breach or attack is in progress.

trapx-pxgridTrapX DeceptionGrid deploys camouflaged traps that uniquely emulate endpoints, servers, Cisco Switches, VoIP, SCADA and IOT devices to deceive, detect and then defeat insider threats. TrapX DeceptionGrid integrates with Cisco pxGrid to support rapid network mitigation actions through Cisco ISE for high-severity threats.

Identity and Access Management

situational-pxgrid

Situational provides integrated security for identity, mobility, and information protection.

 

Network Visibility

Improve your understanding of what systems on your network are doing with each other.

lumeta-pxgridLumeta delivers real-time, authoritative network visibility for simplified breach detection.

AnyConnect Network Visibility Module and mobility ecosystem and partners

These are existing partners who have added the ability to suck-in NetFlow data from an AnyConnect-enabled endpoint so you can get an idea where users are going and what they’re doing with your intellectual properties.

ibm-pxgridIBM:  IBM Security QRadar SIEM integrates with AnyConnect NVM to form a solution that combines leadership IBM Security Intelligence capabilities with valuable contextual information about users, identities, privilege levels, and device types including mobile and BYOD.*

liveaction-pxgridLive Action integration with Cisco ISE allows Live Action to manage user information and give administrators deep visibility in performance and availability of network devices.*

splunk-pxgrid

Splunk: combining Splunk software with Cisco ISE provides analysts with the context they need to quickly assess and respond to network and security events in Cisco network environments.* 

*Not a new partner, but they are expanding the use cases they support with pxGrid

See the full list of our technology partners here.

 

Authors

Andrew Peters

Senior Manager for Product Marketing

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Cloud is now a fundamental part of IT landscapes.  Enterprise and IT executives deal with large numbers of applications that are being versioned faster than ever before. Running IT is increasingly challenged to support line-of-business needs.

To learn how to simplify application lifecycle management across multiple data centers, private clouds, managed private clouds, and public clouds, watch this video,Accelerate Hybrid IT Deployments with Cisco Data Center Innovations” with Carlos Pereira and Dave Cope.

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Learn how application relevancy transforms data center automation and accelerates the adoption of hybrid cloud environments. With this information, you can easily model an application once and deploy it across any combination of data center and private or public clouds.  You also see how to deliver hybrid IT as a service, so users get on-demand experiences while IT gets governance, visibility, and control.

Trimble, a leading customer, talks about how they deployed the Cisco CloudCenter solution with ACI to deliver a powerful hybrid IT solution.

To learn more about hybrid IT and policy driven infrastructure:

Solution Brief – CloudCenter with Cisco ACI Experience the Full Power of Software Defined Networking

White Paper – Cisco CloudCenter Solution with Cisco ACI: Deployment Topologies and Requirements

Blog – Hybrid Cloud Power Trio

Blog – The Data Center Has Changed Forever

Authors

Harry Petty

Director

Data Center and Cloud Marketing