Year: 2016

January 13, 2016 Leave a Comment
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Network Automation and Programmability for Application deployments using Cisco Nexus 9000 and F5 BIG IP

One of the major burdens in today’s Data Center is the management of complex IT environments. It requires considerable staff time to configure, deploy, and manage application infrastructure. Increasingly Automation and Programmability are becoming top of mind for Developers and Operators as companies transform to cloud based business models.

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Virtualization and Programmability of Network and Application Service Infrastructure is making it possible to test policies and configurations before production, in increasingly complex configurations.. This support and ability to test is paramount as DevOps continues to make its way into the network and bring with it the benefits developers and operators have begun to enjoy: stability of infrastructure, consistency of policy, and speed of deployment. By including critical network and application services as part of an extended Continuous Integration/Development (CI/CD) pipeline, organizations can enjoy the benefits of a more agile deployment pipeline.

Today, many customers are eager to learn and implement best practices on how Network Programmability and Automation can come to the rescue of Data Center operators, from initial network startup through provisioning of new workloads and end points and into visibility and monitoring of operations.

With Cisco Open NX-OS on the Cisco Nexus 9000 and Nexus 3000 Series switches, Cisco exposes the full power of the underlying Linux operating system. In addition, Cisco provides numerous extensions that make it possible to access these capabilities with the appropriate level of security and protection desired by the specific user. Likewise, F5 BIG-IP’s programmatic framework provides Developers, the ability to work with control plane, data plane and simplified application deployments through their iControl, iRules and iApp applications.

To further kindle your interest on this topic, I want to invite you for an online Panel session titled “Network Automation and Programmability for application deployments using Cisco Nexus® 9000 and F5 BIG-IP”, the latest episode of our series of live developer panels being hosted  by Cisco and F5. This episode is going to discuss capabilities and use cases for Network Automation and Programmability with the devices.

The Live Panel session will be held on Jan 20, 11 AM, PST.

Title: Network Automation and Programmability for application deployments using Cisco Nexus 9000 and F5 BIG-IP

Moderator: Ravi Balakrishnan

Panelists: Ranga Rao, Latha Vishnubhotla

Register Now for the event and you’ll be able to submit questions to be considered for answering during the seminar.

Related Links:

https://communities.cisco.com/community/developer/blog/2015/12/17/join-us-for-network-automation-and-programmability-for-application-deployments-using-cisco-nexus-9000-and-f5-big-ip

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Ravi Balakrishnan

Senior Product Marketing Manager

Datacenter Solutions

January 12, 2016 2 Comments
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#CiscoChat: Jump Start Your Connected Factory

CHat_connected_factory_LINKEDIN

A new year- and time for new initiatives and a chance to fast start your competitiveness as a manufacturer. According to our recent Manufacturing Thought Leadership Study, digital manufacturers who have connected their factories and production facilities are driving up to 19% more profits (over 10 years) than their ‘unconnected’ counterparts.

What are some of the issues holding manufacturers back from undertaking networking and automation, wireless or security initiatives in their factories? Many have told me it is not inertia or budget, but sometimes being overwhelmed and unsure of where to start. In today’s typical factory , there are so many “things” to connect (including machines, robots, sensors and more) as well as processes to allow manufacturers to reap benefits and address challenges that more traditional models and operating practices were not able to do. The challenge is identifying and prioritizing what area to tackle first.

We all know that major gains in overall equipment effectiveness (OEE), reduced downtime, and manufacturing flexibility can be achieved with a factory that is digitized and connected. By providing visibility to machines and processes, Continue reading “#CiscoChat: Jump Start Your Connected Factory”

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Douglas Bellin

Global Lead, Industries

Manufacturing and Energy

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New Year’s Resolutions for CIOs

As 2016 begins, people all around the world are making resolutions to improve themselves in the coming year. While you might be dedicating yourself exercising more and eating healthier, I encourage everyone in government IT to think about resolutions you can make to help your organizations better embrace digital transformation.

In no role is this more necessary than the Chief Information Officer (CIO), a position that has changed in recent years and continues to evolve. Instead of just overseeing technical assistance across a department or agency, many government CIOs now serve as a partners who help leadership develop the strategies and processes to accomplish the organization’s mission. And in 2016, the CIOs’ role in decision-making processes will only get larger as government agencies at all levels—federal, state and local—look to better integrate technology to enhance the mission, whether it’s improving citizen services at home or enhancing operations for our defense and intelligence agencies.

In order to fully embrace that responsibility, CIOs should consider making some resolutions for themselves and their job so they can keep up with the latest trends and ensure their organization is reaping the benefits of new technology.

Our own distinguished engineer Kapil Bakshi recently wrote an article on Nextgov about this topic, outlining four main resolutions that government CIOs should consider making in 2016. These resolutions are:

  1. Embrace hybrid
  2. Take Analytics to the next level
  3. Invest in advanced threat detection
  4. Unleash “Fast IT”

Check out the article here to learn more about the details of each resolution and why they are so critical for a CIO to consider in the coming year. By embracing these and other resolutions, CIOs and the larger government IT community will be able to harness the best technology solutions and increase the efficiency, security and agility of their organizations.

Good luck and Happy New Year!

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Dan Kent

Director

Public Sector Engineering & CTO

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Microsoft Patch Tuesday – January 2016

The first Patch Tuesday of 2016 has arrived. Today, Microsoft has released their monthly set of security bulletins designed to address security vulnerabilities within their products. This month’s release is relatively light with nine bulletins addressing 25 vulnerabilities. Six bulletins are rated critical and address vulnerabilities in Edge, Internet Explorer, JScript/VBScript, Office, Silverlight, and Windows. The remaining three bulletins are rated important and address vulnerabilities in Exchange and several parts of Windows.

Bulletins Rated Critical

Microsoft bulletins MS16-001 through MS16-0006 are rated as critical in this month’s release.

MS16-001 and MS16-002 are this month’s Internet Explorer and Edge security bulletin respectively. In total, four vulnerabilities were addressed and unlike in previous bulletins there are no vulnerabilities that IE and Edge have in common.

  • MS16-001 is the IE bulletin for IE versions 7 through 11. Two vulnerabilities are addressed with those being CVE-2016-0002, a use-after-free flaw and CVE-2016-0005, a privilege escalation flaw. Note that CVE-2016-0002 is a VBScript engine vulnerability that is addressed in this bulletin for systems with IE 8 through 11 installed. Those who use IE7 and earlier or who do not have IE install will need to install MS16-003 to patch this vulnerability.
  • MS16-002 is the Edge bulletin addressing two vulnerabilities as well. Both CVE-2016-0003 and CVE-2016-0024 are memory corruption vulnerabilities that could result remote code execution if exploited.

One special note regarding this month’s IE advisory: In August 2014, Microsoft announced the end-of-life for Internet Explorer versions older than IE 11 that would take effect today. As a result, this month’s bulletin will be the final one for affected versions. After today, “only the most recent version of Internet Explorer available for a supported operating system will receive technical support and security updates.” As such, there are exceptions to the end-of-life announcement with those being Windows Vista SP2 (IE9), Windows Server 2008 SP2 (IE9), and Windows Server 2012(IE 10). For more information on the IE end-of-life, please refer to Microsoft’s documentation here:
https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/WindowsForBusiness/End-of-IE-support

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Talos Group

Talos Security Intelligence & Research Group

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#CiscoChampion Radio, S3|Ep. 1. Open NX-OS Enabling a Dev Ops Driven Data Center

#CiscoChampion Radio is a podcast series by Cisco Champions as technologists. Today we’re talking about Open NX-OS Enabling a Dev Ops Driven Data Center with Cisco Subject Matter Experts Parag Deshpande & Shane Corban.CiscoChampionbadge_announcement

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  • Parag Deshpande, Software Development
  • Shane Corban, Product Manager

Cisco Champion Guest Hosts

Moderator

Continue reading “#CiscoChampion Radio, S3|Ep. 1. Open NX-OS Enabling a Dev Ops Driven Data Center”

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Lindsay Hamilton

Social Media Blog Program Manager

Global Social Media Marketing

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Small Business Update

Hello all,

Welcome to 2016.

I wanted to provide a quick update as we start the new year.

First off, if you did not know, we have a fantastic Small Business support community. There are sections for Routing, Switching, and of course Wireless. In each section you will find a repository of videos on demand on. You will have to register, but it is a quick process. Be sure to check out the knowledge base for our support documents. We also have our device emulators there on the community. The Small Business Support Community Team has been hard at work at improving the already great community, stay tuned for continued improvements.

Now for the good stuff. Yes I saved the best for last…

We have some new products coming up. We have new routers: four new models with web filtering, a VDSL2/Ethernet Wireless AC model, an ADSL2+/Ethernet Wireless-N model, a whole host of new Wireless Access points including a new outdoor model, and a new high-end 500 Series Indoor model.

New switching models include 250 and 350 PoE models adding a whopping sixteen new models.

These new Cisco Small Business products will help you to connect to more, do more for your business, and your business outcomes. Remember, these new models work the best when integrated with other Cisco Small Business models. We have the best support team in the industry. But I’ll save that for another day.

Thanks for spending a few minutes with us.

Marc and Team.

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Marc Nagao

Product Manager

Small Business RV Series Routers

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The Digital Manufacturer: Differentiating with New Service-Oriented Revenue Models

I spend a lot of time with manufacturing leaders around the world and often our conversations focus on innovation. It used to be that innovation was simply about creating a great product. Now, in a climate of profound digital disruption and intense global market pressures, business model innovation is just as important. As a result, many manufacturers are exploring service-oriented revenue models to rise above the competition.

http://www.slideshare.net/CiscoBusinessInsights/how-machine-builders-can-transcend-the-service-dilemma/1

Shifting from a traditional focus on products to a service-oriented strategy can change the game by creating opportunities for new and significant revenue streams for your organization. It provides a pathway to expanding your portfolio to include value-added offerings that allow you to charge for business outcomes —such as performance or uptime — rather than physical assets. Continue reading “The Digital Manufacturer: Differentiating with New Service-Oriented Revenue Models”

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Tony Shakib

No Longer with Cisco

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Your New Year’s Resolution for 2016: Start with a Cisco Domain Ten Workshop

A few years ago, I wrote a series of blogs on Cisco’s Domain Ten(SM)  framework.  Since then, we’ve used this simple yet powerful analysis tool to help guide many customers on data center and IT transformation projects.  I personally found it quite notable that leading market analyst firm IDC, recognizing Cisco as the worldwide leader in the Networking Consulting Services arena in their August 2015 IDC MarketScape Worldwide Network Consulting Services 2015 Vendor Assessment (IDC Document #258131), called out Cisco Domain Ten in their assessment of Cisco.

Over the years, as we’ve used this framework to analyse customer IT, data center and cloud challenges, we’ve evolved and tuned the framework.  You can learn more about Cisco Domain Ten, in the video below as well as my original blogs, which are still very relevant.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vxSM2xqpo3Y

How then, do you know if a Cisco Domain Ten would help you in your data center, cloud and broader IT initiatives? How do you know if you should be making a Cisco Domain Ten workshop one of your new year’s resolutions for 2016?

Continue reading “Your New Year’s Resolution for 2016: Start with a Cisco Domain Ten Workshop”

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Stephen Speirs

No Longer at Cisco

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Cisco Innovation Centre Toronto Creates Big Bang in Digitization Universe

Technology innovations fueling the mass digitization of countries, cities and companies are reignited today with the highly anticipated opening of Cisco Innovation Centre Toronto – the first in North America and ninth worldwide.

Yes, the opening created a Big Bang in our expanding universe of Innovation Centers made possible by the Internet of Things (IoT). Toronto – North America’s fourth largest city – is the perfect catalyst for innovation.

Why? There are multiple calculations, proof points and experiences that help determine the right hubs for incubating, co-creating and prototyping innovations that can be applied locally and scaled globally. All the complex ingredients seem to converge quite neatly in Toronto.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uTscnA4rUTY

Continue reading “Cisco Innovation Centre Toronto Creates Big Bang in Digitization Universe”

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Alex Goryachev

Senior Director, Innovation Strategy & Programs

Corporate Strategic Innovation Group