Year: 2017

June 19, 2017 Leave a Comment
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Cisco Live 2017 – Las Vegas gets ready to play host second year in a row

As Las Vegas glows in the intense June summer sun, another glow is appearing on the horizon. Cisco Live 2017 is arriving in town a week from now, and the city is already getting prepared.  Cisco Live US 2017, Cisco’s premier education and training destination for IT professionals worldwide, kicks off next week in Vegas.  More than 25,000 customers and partners converge to network and share their experiences, and potentially meet new peers onsite.

Like you, I am eagerly awaiting the keynote set for Monday, June 26, 10.30 AM local time.  Cisco CEO Chuck Robbins will discuss new innovation that is changing how we design and manage networks for those who want to transform to drive future success. Big changes are on the horizon and only you can bring these new capabilities to your organizations because you’re it.

There are several other additional keynotes, from Rowan Trollope, David Goeckler, Chris Dedicoat and four-time Emmy award winner Bryan Cranston. So prepare your agenda in advance to get a broad exposure.

Cisco Live offers a vast collection of technologies and innovations to its attendees, and I would not be able to do justice covering them all. For the remainder of this blog I will focus on Tetration Analytics and Application Centric Infrastructure (ACI) highlights. The logical place to start is with Ishmael Limkakeng’s Innovation Talk on the topic “Taking Advantage of Pervasive Data in Your Data Center Session ID: INSDCN-1515” which is scheduled for June 27, 1.00 PM.  From Ish’s session you can learn how to take advantage of the ability to see everything in your data center from Spectrum Health, and how Tetration and ACI together are improving their overall performance and security.

Let us now segue into ACI and the Tetration Analytics Breakout sessions. Numerous sessions are dedicated to Tetration Analytics this year at the show. I’d recommend Tim Garner and Remi Phillippe’s session titled “Tetration Analytics – Industry’s Powerful Analytics Platform” as a must-attend. I also recommend Mike Herbert’s session BRKACI-2040, for a close peek at machine learning and Network analytics and how they enhance Data Center security and operations.  Plus there are many more, and you can pick and choose from the session catalog?

Likewise, several ACI breakouts feature prominently among a large collection of 1,000 plus breakout sessions this year with several experts addressing hot topics in container networking, operations, deployment, ACI App Center and demo sessions featuring Tetration and ACI eco-system. I recommend a few PSO breakouts I consider relevant to current Data Center trends.

Daniel McGinniss, Senior Director, Data Center Marketing, is presenting a business session and explores the top strategies companies can factor into their planning cycles in building their next-generation data centers over the next 3 to 5 years. Danny is an amazing story-teller, and in this session he’ll discuss how you can navigate the Hybrid IT transformation with Cisco ASAP Data Center architecture. This session will also introduce solutions to your key challenges as you evolve toward a Hybrid-IT model. I have seen Danny present last year in Australia, at the F5 Agility conference, and he is a gifted speaker. So, do not miss his session.

There are a few others presenting business focused PSO sessions along with Danny. Adam Ozkan, Sultan Dawood, Tony Antony, Joe/Corey complete the well-rounded PSO sessions.

Also, Cisco MDS sessions (with the recent 32G launch) has been a hot topic this year. There are several insightful breakout sessions, and I recommend all of them if you are a SAN expert. Check the sessions catalog for details.

Most of you by now will be raring to make a beeline to the world of solutions as it is where exhibitors and subject matter experts from various partners and customers of cisco throng to gather insights on what’s new and exciting.

This year, we are showcasing a big collection of solution demos spanning multiple architectures including UCS, ACI, Tetration Analytics, Security etc. It will take me several blogs to cover them all, so I will stick to my focus areas, ACI and Tetration.  Solutions from hundreds of cisco partners are on display in the world of solutions.   This is your opportunity to explore the broader Cisco Partner eco-system, find answers for your specific networking challenges, and hear unique perspectives from Cisco engineers and partners, Monday-Thursday, throughout the day.

Our ACI and Tetration Analytics solutions and demo showcase focuses on typical customer care-abouts. The demos include Multi-Pod ACI, ACI Security,Cloud Orchestration with ACI, Tetration Analytics, and Cisco CloudCenter.  Tetration Analytics is getting rave reviews with Partners and Customers and features prominently, with demos on Automatic Policy Enforcement, Application segmentation and Ecosystem Partner solutions. There’s more, so please stop by our Cisco booth for a detailed engagement with one of our subject matter experts.

Also, this year we’ll be premiering the use of Cisco Tetration Analytics Platform to visualize applications running on the live Event Network. The NOC team, in collaboration with both the Advanced Services and the Cisco Business unit, were able to deploy a brand new Tetration Cluster. Come to the Cisco Live Network Operations Center, in the World of Solutions, to see this exciting new exhibit.

If you have some time, please plan to attend the Cisco DC and Campus Theater presentations – it runs every 15 minutes. Many of these are condensed breakouts and cover customer top of mind topics.

These short duration presentations give you an overview on key topics such as how Tetration and ACI’s open API have enabled a broad L4-L7 eco-system with Citrix, F5, Splunk, ServiceNow, Tufin, AlgoSec et al.. There are several others you can choose from in the agenda planner.

I am personally leading several ACI/Tetration presentations in Partner Theaters (Citrix, Splunk, SevOne, Intel, Tufin, CA technologies), Monday-Thursday. Check the respective Partner Theater lobby for timings and schedules.

Another highlight at the WOS is The DevNet Zone, Cisco’s software developer resource and community brought to you live. It is here, we help developers and network engineers innovate using Cisco technologies and platforms. I am sure most of you developers will benefit from the Innovation talk, earlier on Monday, by Cisco VP&CTO, DevNet, Susie Wee, in her session titled “innovations with Cisco APIs”.

One of the key pillars that made Cisco ACI phenomenally successful is the Open and Secure eco-system of 65 plus leading partners that have built joint, integrated solutions with ACI.  And in past 6 months our Tetration ecosystem has grown to a significant 15+ partners.

Let me start with our key strategic ACI/Tetration ecosystem partner Citrix. All Citrix-Cisco excitement awaits you in booth #2329. Learn how to provide superior performance for end users over any cloud or network and transform your data center through true cloud-service automation, deep network and application-level intelligence, fast service deployment, and simplified networking services with Citrix NetScaler and Cisco ACI. Discover how to securely deliver apps and desktops over any network with Citrix XenDesktop, XenApp, and NetScaler on Cisco UCS/HyperFlex virtualization infrastructure that result in increased productivity, business agility and differentiation for your business. Check out sensational news on Cisco ACI and Citrix NetScaler winning the Best of Synergy award for 2017. For a quick summary of how Cisco and Citrix have been expanding the solution momentum, check out the Video recording featuring Ravi (Cisco) and Raj (Citrix).

Looking for kryptonite prevention?  IT Superheroes do not miss these Citrix sessions:

  1. Solutions Theater booth #4223 presentation on Monday, June 26 @ 1:30pm (Session ID: SOLCLD-1003): “Enabling secure delivery of apps and desktops to accelerate digital business with Citrix and Cisco.”
    Superhero Speaker:  Orestes Melgarejo, Sr. Director App & Desktop Delivery, Citrix
  2. World of Solutions Think Tank at The Hub presentation on Wednesday, June 28 @ 3:30pm (Session ID: TNKACI-2002): “Delivering business agility through secure application delivery networking with Cisco and Citrix.”
    Superhero Speaker:  Dave Potter, Sr. Solutions Architect, Citrix. Stop by booth #1601 to enter to win a Drone! Citrix Superhero mini figurines will be given away to all visitors of booth #2329.
  3. World of Solutions Cisco Campus Data Center Education Zone presentation on Tuesday, June 27 @ 2:40pm: “Accelerate your workforce with Citrix and Cisco secure delivery of apps and desktops.”

F5, another leading ACI/Tetration ecosystem partner, has a big booth presence  this year as an Emerald sponsor. Visit F5, Booth #1728 and meet F5 engineers and solution architects for technical demos and discussions on the latest F5 and Cisco solutions that automate and orchestrate up and down the stack—from layer 2 through layer 7. Attend F5 in-booth theater to learn:

  • Application Analytics Using F5 BIG-IP
  • F5 SSL Orchestrator with Cisco FirePower Next-Gen Firewall Solutions
  • Securing IoT with F5
  • Cloud-Ready with F5 BIG-IP iSeries
  • Cisco ACI and F5 BIG-IP/iWorkflow Integration
  • Automate BIG-IP Configuration with Ansible and Puppet
  • Deploy F5 BIG-IP using Cisco CloudCenter

Visit Splunk booth #2807 in the World of Solutions for live demos of how Splunk + Cisco help you get end-to-end visibility across your application and underlying networking and IT infrastructure and detect and deter advanced threats. Stay for in-depth presentations and sneak previews of new Cisco security integrations and Splunk for Cisco Contact Centers. Meet one-on-one with Splunk security specialists, IT Ops experts, business analytics gurus and industry specialists in the Splunk Engagement Suite.

There are also several other important partners in the ACI/Tetration eco-system. Tufin is a founding member of both eco-systems.  As organizations are under extreme pressure to quickly respond to network security changes, while keeping up with ever-changing business demands, Tufin and Cisco can help.  The Tufin Orchestration Suite™ integrates with Cisco firewalls, routers, SDN platforms such as Cisco ACI and Cisco SD Access, and public cloud platforms to provide Cisco customers with visibility and control of security policies across heterogeneous networks to ensure security and compliance and boost agility of network security teams.  With Cisco Tetration and Tufin, customers have the ability to discover, monitor, modify, and validate application connectivity across a multi-vendor infrastructure, in the data center and the cloud, all in compliance with their security policy. Stop by Tufin booth #1414 to see a private demo or join one of our in-booth presentations for the chance to win a JBL Clip Portable Bluetooth Speaker!

A key member of the ACI eco-system, AlgoSec extends ACI’s policy-based automation across customers’ heterogeneous enterprise network infrastructure, to deliver unified, automated security policy management. This integration provides users with visibility and control, risk and compliance insights, as well as extends the range of 3rd party devices that Cisco can manage.

Additionally, as a member of the Cisco Tetration Analytics eco-system AlgoSec will be showcasing the synergy between Tetration’s powerful application discovery capabilities and AlgoSec’s business-driven security policy management and application connectivity mapping which provides customers with unprecedented visibility into security risks and vulnerabilities in the context of business applications. AlgoSec will be showcasing the joint solution, as well as its long-standing support for Cisco firewalls and routers at Cisco Live, booth #1036 – Make sure to stop by!

Among the exciting demos at CLUS will be the analytics demos in our partner’s Avi Networks booth, #2637. The power of Tetration network analytics and Avi’s end to end application analytics delivers insights, security and control that will transform your networks.

ExtraHop is a new Tetration Analytics partner and is showcasing cool demos at their booth #329. Key activities at their booth include:

  • Live ExtraHop demonstrations including Cisco Tetration and AppDynamics integrations
  • “Show Your Data Who’s Addy with Machine Learning” presented by Matt Cauthorn in the Solutions Theater – Monday, June 26 at 5:30pm

Stop by Turbonomic booth #4633 when you have a moment. Turbonomic is Cisco Tetration Analytics partner and has lots of exciting activities on showcase. Read Turbonomic blog for details.

Corvil will be exhibiting at Cisco Live this year (Booth #2700A). Having earned the top critical capabilities score of 17 vendors in this year’s Network Performance Management and Diagnostics (NPMD) report, Corvil will demonstrate the unequaled richness of insight at the network level as well as into the application (L4-L7) to help operations teams gain improved visibility into their environments, diagnose and resolve complex problems faster.  At their booth, Corvil is particularly excited to be demonstrating capabilities featuring integration with Cisco Tetration Analytics.

CA Technologies is very excited to be presenting and exhibiting at Cisco Live this year. Stop by CA booth CL 10. Top highlights of Cisco & CA at cisco live:

CA Technologies Theater Session: Five Strategies for Maintaining Resilient Cisco Software-Defined Architectures, Monday, June 26, 3:00 pm – 3:15 pm
Day 1 Theater (Located on Level 3)

CA Technologies in the Cloud/Data Center Partner Village for solution demonstrations of: Application-centric network visibility, End-to-end SDDC and SD-WAN monitoring, closed loop service validation through network synthetics, and one-on-one time with Cisco, Netrounds and CA Technologies subject-matter experts

We also want you to have lots of fun amidst your busy schedule. Cisco customers will be in for a treat at the Customer Appreciation Event this year, and T-Mobile arena will be the setting for this spectacular celebration on Wednesday, June 28, 7:30 p.m. Multi-Grammy winner Bruno Mars will take the stage to give us a night to remember.

 

There are several other highlights to report, and I will exceed the guidelines for a blog if I were to describe each one of them.

I hope you enjoy the event, and paint the town red.  And for those who are new, don’t feel overwhelmed.  I have been there.  Our Cisco ambassadors will meet and greet you, and make you feel at home.  Do not hesitate to ask Cisco staff what you are looking for, and enjoy the show!

Related Links

http://blogs.cisco.com/datacenter/choice-and-flexibility-in-deploying-l4-l7-services-with-cisco-aci-and-cisco-cloudcenter-an-in-depth-journey

www.cisco.com/go/aci

http://www.ciscolive.com/us/

https://youtu.be/MBz_HNpZmoM

Vnomic and ACI bring Agility to CenturyLink Cloud hosted envt: https://blogs.cisco.com/datacenter/cisco-aci-and-vnomic-bring-agility-and-simplicity-to-centurylink-cloud-hosted-managed-services

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Ravi Balakrishnan

Senior Product Marketing Manager

Datacenter Solutions

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Digitizing Pedagogy & the Age of Teaching Superpowers

This blog is the first of a three-part series. 

Coming up next week is Cisco Live 2017, where I’ll be hosting an education session, and where the theme is (much to my excitement) superheroes.

I am a big fan of superheroes. The comics, the movies, and the whole idea of super human powers that enable a person to fly, leap buildings, read minds, etc. If I am honest, I like them as much now as I did when I was a boy growing up in the north of England.

That may be because of the impact of digital on our superhero experiences over the last 40 years. Digitization is evolving the way we watch, read, and consume the storylines that inspire our imaginations.

The infamous origin story of each superhero was always key to the future adventures we would take with our favorite hero. The definition of “superhero” is “a fictional hero having extraordinary superhuman powers.” They are also described as “exceptionally skillful or successful people.”

Where many superheroes’ origins start from a spider bite, born on an alien planet, straight from mythology or even a workplace accident such as falling into a tank of radioactive goo, the second definition, “a successful and skillful person,” is more directed at the self-made heroes like the Bruce Waynes and Tony Starks of the superhero universe. Those superheroes have used innovation to enable their human skills to be boosted to a superhuman level.

There is a lot more synergy between superheros and the evolution of teaching than you would expect.

Teachers expect to be the personification of superheros, exceptionally skillful people with extraordinary knowledge. This was certainly the case when I attended school (a long time ago).

Quote on teachers

“Do they even use the toilet?” was a question I remember hearing during elementary school. Especially that teacher we all identified with, the one who inspired us to a higher level within a subject, to commit to a subject into our future, helped you ace that test, or the one you try and hold in your mind’s eye as a role model for your future “you.”

The consumerization of digital technology, however, has somewhat undone that perception. Yes, we still have super teachers, but there seems to be erosion for both students and teachers. The information trust issue seems to be the villain created by the digitization of education. Today’s students, from very young to very old, have instant and easy access to digital information, textbooks, and online resources that predict a desired purpose, all via mobile and social applications. As students become more fluid with their own digital footprints, so too must teachers. When these subject matter experts show any weakness, students can see teachers as less confident, less extraordinary, and less exceptional. This has led to some teachers believing their use of technology marginalizes them, making them more of a facilitator and not the focal point of learning. I call this the technology sidekick syndrome of digital education.

Quote about teachers

In addition, parent and student expectations reduce the time for a teacher to adapt or react. Although education technologies are now more available than ever, the need for continual proof of value by stakeholders means schools sometimes hold off on adoption or professional development until mainstream curriculum is brought up to date, both as tools and methodology. The fear being that adoption will have a negative impact on student success and on a student’s future career options.

Throughout the history of disruptive advancements in pedagogy, we have seen fear rise up and stifle the speed of acceptance, holding innovation off until it’s totally fine-tuned and fully accepted by everyone in the teaching profession. Ironically, student success actually drives change faster, which, in fact, was the very thing used to push back on innovation adoption. And, the latest advances in technology are at an inflection point, especially in an era when your history student is already asking Alexa or Siri “when was World War I declared over?” They get a detailed answer in seconds rather doing the deep research traditionally required in the chosen textbooks. Oh, and they are doing this anywhere but in the classroom.

So, what’s the answer? We need to get teachers back to being superheroes, the oracles of information. We need them back on top of the pyramid of extraordinary knowledge. We want to increase the number of teachers who inspire their student every day, to an extraordinary number, not reduce them only to guides on the side. The embracing of the latest new technologies is the answer. In fact, just like many superheroes, we can choose to uplift our human capabilities with innovative technology. Just imagine what those teaching super powers could be!

Well, let me tell you…

Check out part two of the series, coming later this week! 

 

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Neal Tilley

Cisco Education Advisor

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Be an IT Superhero with Cisco CSR at Cisco Live US 2017

Cisco Live US 2017 kicks off on June 25, and our Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) initiatives to accelerate global problem solving will be on full display. We are planning plenty of exciting opportunities for our customers and partners to participate, win prizes, and become IT superheroes.

Our goal is to accelerate global problem solving to positively impact people, society, and the planet. At Cisco Live, attendees will have the chance to help us do just that. This year, we’ll be stationed at the CSR Lounge in the World of Solutions foyer and expect many of the 27,000 attendees to visit us throughout the week.

CSR highlights include:

#CiscoChat: How IT is a Superpower for Solving the World’s Problems — June 21

Before Cisco Live begins, @CiscoCSR will host a live #CiscoChat on June 21 from 10:30 am to 11:30 am PT. We’ll talk about how global problem solvers are using IT to make a positive impact in the world with our featured guests:

Kinetic Tile Racing in the CSR Lounge — June 25-29

What is a kinetic tile, you ask? It’s a way to harness the energy of your footsteps and use it to provide electricity for other purposes. As part of Cisco Live’s social impact efforts, we are hosting one of the event’s many kinetic tile areas in the CSR Lounge. Our goal is to harness the energy of 1 million steps at Cisco Live — enough to provide electricity to 40 schools in Nepal for a minimum of four days, impacting 30,000 students.

Participating is as easy as scanning your badge and running on the tiles. Attendees can race members of the CSR team and even Cisco Networking Academy students from the Dream Team.

Live Broadcast — June 28, 1:30 to 2:00 p.m. PT

Tune into the Cisco Live Broadcast, where Tae Yoo, Senior Vice President of Cisco Corporate Affairs, will provide an update on our commitment to positively impact one billion people by 2025. We’ll also visit the CSR lounge, where you can join us in celebrating 20 years of the Cisco Networking Academy. Even if you aren’t attending Cisco Live in person, you can join 200,000 online attendees and follow the live broadcast on the Cisco Live website.

Executive Symposium: Technology Solutions to Solve the World’s Problems — June 26, 4:30 to 5:15 p.m. PT

Tae Yoo will join Dipak Basu, CEO of Anudip, and Paul Polak, Founder/CEO of Windhorse International, to discuss how organizations and companies are using technology to solve global problems. One of Cisco’s nonprofit partners, Anudip has trained more than 60,000 youth and women in digital skills across India, with a 75 percent job placement rate. Participants experience an average 300 percent growth in family income.

Other highlights include:

  • More than 300 people, including 10 local Networking Academy students, will attend the fifth annual Cisco Empowered Women’s Network on Sunday, June 25 at 1 p.m. PT.
  • Giveaways at the CSR Lounge, including superhero masks and CSR-branded stickers.
  • Cisco Live is partnering with the Teacher’s Exchange of Las Vegas to donate unusued backpacks to Clark County School District students for the 2017/2018 school year.

 

Social Media

Follow all of the action on Twitter and Facebook. To join the conversation, use the #CLUS and #GlobalProblemSolvers hashtags.

For those attending, we’re giving away three Oculus Rift VR Headsets, one each on Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday. Attendees who race on the kinetic tiles in the CSR Lounge will be eligible to win. At the end of each day, we’ll announce winners via our social media channels.

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Austin Belisle

No Longer with Cisco

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Uncovering More Value from Cloud

Organizations want to know how they can innovate more and deliver new offerings for their users and customers with cloud. As I shared in my last blog, the focus has shifted from making workloads portable or getting the best pricing, to centering on how you can take advantage of the incredible innovation happening in cloud. I’m excited about how Cisco’s differentiated approach is helping customers do just that.

For those of you joining us at Cisco Live in Las Vegas next week (June 25-29), we look forward to elaborating on some of these blossoming opportunities. For now, and not in any particular order, here are a few of the most prevalent customer scenarios we are seeing.

“I want to evolve our infrastructure to support cloud and deliver innovation”

Many IT organizations are opting to move to public cloud to take advantage of cost savings and faster innovation as they adapt and expand where workloads reside. As an example, they’ll choose to use some combination of AWS or Microsoft Azure as their cloud computing platform, adding cognitive capabilities with IBM, and dabbling with Google’s TensorFlow. Customers want a common way of modeling applications, projecting cost, and viewing their multicloud environments, without having to look at different platform tools to normalize, add up, and compare. Many are using Cisco CloudCenter as a single pane of glass framework across their data center, private cloud, and public cloud environments. We are helping our customers to find the flexibility, openness, and options they want, regardless of the cloud platform or resources they choose to use.

 “I want to add cloud services for specific use cases”

Customers may want to turn on new services, create new applications that engage customers, or improve workforce productivity. Or maybe they are looking to better collaborate with partners by moving their web and application tiers to co-location facilities and keeping their database tier intact and on-prem. The reasons vary, but many of our customers want rapid innovation and the economic benefits of public cloud, while keeping some productive capabilities on-prem. They are using solutions like Cisco Cloud Services Router 1000v (CSR1000v) to extend the network and securely connect to public clouds like AWS and Azure or private clouds like VMWare or OpenStack. They also realize the value an extended network brings by securely connecting SaaS solutions to enable teams to do more. One CIO of a large consumer manufacturer that I recently spoke with is adding Cisco Spark Call to move his call manager team away from updating and patching to focus on the things that are central to delivering innovation and better experiences for customers.

“I want to manage my multicloud environment”

A big concern for customers is securely managing a growing cloud ecosystem. They don’t want a different way of managing connections, governance, and policy with Amazon than the way they do with IBM or Google, and ideally they’d like it to work well with their on-prem infrastructure as well. Customers are asking for a unified approach to how they manage connectivity across the enterprise. They also want a common framework for analytics to understand how workloads are performing, experience customers and employees have with applications, and trends (i.e., is it getting worse, staying the same, or performing as expected). They are using Cisco CloudCenter to provision infrastructure resources and deploy applications to data center, private cloud, and public cloud environments and AppDynamics to measure and improve application and business performance.

The sky truly is the limit when it comes to cloud. We’ve seen dozens of use cases come to light as companies recognize that cloud is not just about platforms of efficiency or cost savings, but a way of accelerating innovation that will deliver compelling customer experiences. I hope to share more with you at Cisco Live next week!

For more information:

 

 

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Kip Compton

No longer with Cisco

June 16, 2017 Leave a Comment
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#CiscoChampion Radio, S4|Ep. 7: Before You Go – Getting Ready for #CLUS (Open Forum)

#CiscoChampion Radio is a podcast series by Cisco Champions as technologists. Today we’re discussing Before You Go – Getting Ready for Cisco Live US.

Get the Podcast

  • Listen to this episode
  • Download this episode (right-click on the episode’s download button)
  • View this episode in iTunes

Cisco Guest
Kathleen Mudge (@KathleenMudge), Social Media Manager
Antonella Corno, Senior Product Marketing Manager, Learning@Cisco
Laura Simmons, Senior Manager, Global Content Strategy, Cisco Live

Cisco Champion Hosts
Matt Haedo (@MATTHAEDO), Senior Professional Services Engineer
Robert Boardman (@ROBB_404t), Network Engineer

Moderator
Lauren Friedman (@lauren)

Podcast Discussion Topics

  • Activations, schemes and content at Cisco Live
  • Sweepstakes and contests (including capes!)
  • Superhero photos
  • Spark board at Cisco Live
  • Educational opportunities
  • Session schedules and mobile app
  • Tech Field Day

Resources

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Candida Rodriguez-Lee

Program Manager, Cisco Champions

Social Marketing

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EU Welcomes Big Data Legislation

 

Technology is rapidly changing the way we live, work and play. Eight billion devices a year are being brought online. As they are connected, the amount of data in existence and being created daily is truly mind boggling.

Every day, we create 2.5 quintillion bytes of data. In almost every industry, data is being created in places it never was before. We produce so much data and yet 90% of the data in the world today has been created in the last two years alone. The total amount of data (at rest and in transit) in the world was 4.4 zettabytes in 2013. That is set to increase quickly to 44 zettabytes by 2020.

As we were approaching this Big Data industrial revolution, the laws governing its protection had reached a point where they were a bit like an old operating system. In need of an update or they would have become unfit for purpose. Each country, concerned about citizens’ personal data, big data analytics and security, was attempting to come up with its own legislation to control data.

The EU decided to enact General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), the biggest change to data protection law for a generation. GDPR will govern the way data is stored and protected. It’s intended to give citizens back more control of the data held about them. Despite Brexit, there is no opt in or out. The UK will still be adopting GDPR and any company that holds data of an EU citizen will be affected either way. Uniformity will make it easier to regulate.

GDPR enforcement date is 25 May 2018, at which time non-compliant organisations will face heavy fines. Penalties could potentially be more severe than the current applicable UK law, the Data Protection Act. Under this regime, companies only faced a maximum £500K fine. Under GDPR, it is possible that the EU could impose a penalty of €20 million, or four percent of global revenue, whichever is higher.

You will know only too well that financial services data is renowned as a big target for cyber criminals. Of course, regulated financial services organisations are accustomed to safeguarding customer information. Those with established digital services and customer-facing mobile applications already do their best with safety certifications. They already make additional requests for consent for the use of customer data in order to comply with existing law.

Cyber criminal organisations are getting smarter and more sophisticated, and GDPR has many aspects to it. GDPR will compel firms to have a data protection officer and to reveal details of any breach within 72 hours.

How to achieve GDPR compliance?

There is no magic bullet. But you could start with GDPR is coming: 5 Things to Be Aware Of  or this GDPR overview or study the full GDPR guidelines. For a principles-based approach, the UK Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) has created a useful roadmap to GDPR compliance.

If you’re looking for practical GDPR help, perhaps to create a security strategy, control access to your network, secure your data centre or protect against ransomware, Cisco has the tools to help. Security starts with speed of detection and strong DNA. Big data management begins with the intelligent use of data. Visibility is key. Cisco data centre analytics provide visibility of data at the network level. Perfect if you want the right data sent to the right target endpoints at the right time.

Clearly, with big data comes big responsibility. Any company entrusted to hold intimate customer data has a moral duty to protect it and that’s why GDPR is a welcome and timely piece of legislation as we go further into the big data revolution.

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Mike Buckley

Content Marketing Storyteller

UKI Professional Services

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Outdated healthcare network? Don’t miss the signs and symptoms

Electronic health records. Patient monitoring devices. Imaging systems. Mobile communications. It’s true: virtually every function in your healthcare facility relies on a robust, modern digital infrastructure.

Healthy network security is a mission-critical need, too. The well-publicized WannaCry attack last month has everyone taking a closer look at cybersecurity gaps – but ransomware isn’t the only threat.

There are also increasing concerns about the tens of thousands of connected medical devices found throughout the average healthcare facility (and the vulnerabilities those devices create). But an up-to-date network can go a long way toward strengthening your digital defenses.

If it’s been a while since you’ve given your aging network a check-up, it might be time. Check out our infographic below to uncover the five signs you need to update your legacy infrastructure – before it’s in critical condition.

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Amy Young

Marketing Manager

Healthcare

June 15, 2017 Leave a Comment
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Cisco Hyperflex: The Time for HCI Compromise is Over

Hyperconverged infrastructure (HCI) – it’s a bit of a mouthful but the truth is it’s not half as complicated as it sounds.

While the concept has only been mainstream for a few years, HCI is the fastest-growing segment of the market for integrated systems.

In fact, Gartner predicts it will grow from a niche industry in 2012 to a $5 billion industry by 2019[i], while a recent ESG Lab report states that 85% of businesses currently use, or are planning to use, HCI solutions.

That said, I believe HCI will become mainstream in the Australian and New Zealand (ANZ) market a lot sooner than the rest of the world. From IP telephony to cloud, the ANZ market has always lead the way in technology adoption. And as I’ll discuss below, Cisco HyperFlex is primed to lead the way in the HCI market.

But first, what is HCI and Cisco HyperFlex?

HCI, in a nutshell, is the latest evolution in delivering data centre infrastructure. It’s flexible, simpler to manage and was introduced to leverage the economic benefits of software-defined storage.

Cisco takes the benefits for HCI further. Designed with an end-to-end software-defined infrastructure approach, the platform eliminates the compromises found in other hyperconverged products. We combine software-defined computing using Cisco UCS servers, software-defined storage using the powerful Cisco HyperFlex HX Data Platform software, and software-defined networking (SDN) using Cisco unified fabric, which integrates smoothly with Cisco Application Centric Infrastructure (ACI)

HyperFlex systems deliver the agility, scalability, and pay-as- you-grow economics of the cloud, but with the benefits of on-premises infrastructure.

It supports a broad range of applications and workloads for data centres and remote locations and brings increased operational efficiency and adaptability to more workloads in your data centre.

Key Benefits

One of the biggest benefits of Cisco HyperFlex is that it integrates into existing management suites. Cisco UCS provides a single point of connectivity and hardware management that integrates Cisco HyperFlex HX-Series all-flash or hybrid nodes and a variety of Cisco UCS servers into a single unified cluster.

So if you’re an existing Cisco UCS customer and you’ve found a use case for HyperFlex in your environment, you can use the same set of tools for managing the entire environment.

In earlier evolution phases of HCI, most products focused on simplicity and overlooked performance. With HyperFlex, however, performance is key, while simplicity and ease of management is a given.

ESG Labs on HyperFlex

The next generation of HCI cannot rely only on simplicity and automation. IT teams must start thinking about running mission-critical workloads.

A recent ESG Labs performance report recently showed that Cisco HyperFlex is the best placed HCI solution to run these mission-critical workloads. The ESG report noted that “Cisco delivers an HCI solution that provides the essential simplicity and cost-efficiency features of HCI, but also the consistent high performance that has been missing”.

The report benchmarked across all major HCI vendors and also found that Cisco’s highly integrated approach in providing compute, network, and storage in a fully integrated stack was not evident in other HCI solutions.

Which businesses are set to benefit?

Two words: any organisation.

Applications range from big businesses looking to use HyperFlex for specific use cases – for example virtual desktop infrastructure – to smaller businesses looking for a solution to do everything.

Required infrastructure and planning

Cisco HyperFlex is turnkey out of the box and scales up. It’s almost like a Lego set. You can scale it more and more as you go.

There are three main things customers need to consider when looking at HCI.

The first is target workloads and applications: what workloads and applications in your business environment are best suited for HCI?

Where our competitors would go in and say ‘it can all go on hyperconvergence’. We say ‘yes it can, but should it all go on? And what are benefits of putting it all on there?’

The second consideration is integration to existing environments: Assuming that in many cases HCI will not immediately fully replace existing environments, simply adding a HCI solution may increase total cost of ownership as there will now be two environments to manage.

With HyperFlex fully integrating to Cisco’s existing UCS management facilities it allows customers to evolve in a controlled and planned manner.

The third consideration is to ask ‘how will it scale?’. Different resources may be needed at different times.

For example, you may have sufficient CPU and memory but be short on storage. We handle our scaling very differently from other HCI providers. Cisco’s HyperFlex system lets IT managers independently scale up computing, storage and networking resources to avoid over-provisioning in any one area.

Final word

Organisations today must be extremely flexible, with the ability to scale quickly and affordably.

This is extremely difficult to achieve with silos of compute, network, and storage gear that are static and require individual management.

Cisco delivers an HCI solution that provides the essential simplicity and cost-efficiency features of HCI, but also the consistent high performance that has been missing.

 

Additional Resources:

Learn more about HyperFlex click here. 

Read: ESG Lab Validation: Cisco HyperFlex Report click here.

 

[i]         http://www.datacenterknowledge.com/archives/2015/12/10/why-hyperconverged-infrastructure-is-so-hot/

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Rodney Hamill

Director, Data Centre and Cloud, Australia

Sales

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The Technicolor Experience Center: This Is Where Shift Happens

Today is a very good day: A day that proves without question that shift happens. That creativity is alive and thriving. What goes on? Today is the grand unveiling  of the Technicolor Experience Center, a milestone moment for seeing around corners, and I get to be here.

Called “TEC” for short, the Technicolor Experience Center is a 10,000-foot salon, designed to be a world-class content creation playground — a place where industries come together to create with VR, AR, and MR, and learn how they best convey into the different components of video production. Picture lots of vendors, partners, and startups; artists, colorists, technologists — all co-inventing to advance the state-of-the-art in visual arts, one Jungle Book at a time.

(Aside: If you missed the The Jungle Book hoopla from last year, the movie won an Oscar for best Visual FX for its photo realistic scenery, animals, and stunning beauty. Fun Fact: it’s hard to remember while you’re watching that the characters are mostly digitally and artificially created in huge render farms spanning across Technicolor’s MPC division and the public cloud.  Talk about shifts happening.)

Just the TEC space alone is an experience — picture a former fashion warehouse, all marble and velvet, redolent with the vestiges of haute couture and avante garde design. When you walk in, you see one, big, open space, with different staging areas — one to try out different VR goggles, another to create content using AR. Production, too: Spaces to, say, look at a 3D rendering of a scene, and be able to move a tree back by six feet, without sending everything to rendering.

Cisco’s part in all of this started with our intent to help enable the shift of IP-based technologies deeper into the video eco-system — to edge it closer and closer to video capture, production, and that glorious haven for creatives and technologists. Collaboration spaces, we call them, to expand what it means when people say “immersive experiences.”

As video experiences go, it’s no longer enough to just cover walls with multiple displays, no matter how dazzling. It’s about having that augmented reality, live statistics, and analysis, all going on at the same time. It’s already happening in stadiums, but it can go much wider, and deeper: Bringing the director onto the remote site, for not just multi-way video, but multi-way content sharing, directional input, and handling of production details that used to be deemed too important to handle remotely.

The details of what we’re bringing to the TEC table are still a bit under wraps, but I can say that it involves next-gen collaborative spaces, and will include our Spark solution — to capture the conversations, drawings, white boards, and other creative elements, for further vetting/analysis/collaboration, inside and outside of main TEC salon.

And with that, it’s time to get over to Culver City for The Big Extravaganza…

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Roger Sherwood

Sales Manager

Media & Entertainment