NETWORKING

For many organizations, empowering employees to continue to work from home after the pandemic, at least part of the time, is part of their new normal. There are plenty of reasons for this. First, employees overwhelmingly prefer the flexibility and work-life balance that work-from-anywhere (WFA) provides. And second, a new study from Stanfordshows that productivity increased a jaw-dropping 47% YoY in 2020, with most of that gain led by remote workers. And at the same…

In collaboration with Dean Sanders and Brian Hollenbeck Part 1 of a 2-part series  When the Cisco global workforce went home to work in March 2020, we on the IT team suddenly had less visibility into the user experience. We couldn’t see anything from the laptop in the employee’s home to the Cisco network. So, if someone reported that Webex video kept freezing, for instance, it was hard to tell whether the problem came from…

The need for speed and sustainability With the ever growing amount of data every organization manages, there is an associated need for a higher data retrieval speed, as demanded by Business Intelligence and Artificial Intelligence applications.  Hence, the introduction of 64G Fibre Channel support on storage networking devices appears as a no brainer, especially when used in combination with the performance-optimized NVMe/FC protocol. At the same time, we are living in a context where sustainability…

Gartner says the current paucity of skilled IT worker is foiling the adoption of cloud, edge computing, and automation technologies. In its “2021-2023 Emerging Technology Roadmap” based on surveying 437 global firms, Gartner found that IT executives see the talent shortage as the most significant barrier to deploying emerging technologies, including compute infrastructure and platform services, network security, digital workplace, IT automation, and storage. IT executives surveyed cited talent availability as the main challenge for…

We launched the Partner Experience Platform (PXP) last year to simplify the partner experience and arm you, our partners, with all the information you need to grow your business, in one place, with a single login. Each quarter we continue to make enhancements to this new “digital house.” I am delighted to share the following additions to PXP, which advance our journey to predictive planning, connectivity, and collaboration. Integrated Partner Planning (IPP) Integrated Partner Planning…

Now that the Cisco Global Problem Solver Challenge 2021 winners have been officially announced, we are excited for you to learn more about each winning team and the story behind each innovation. The Cisco Global Problem Solver Challenge is an annual competition that awards cash prizes to early-stage tech entrepreneurs solving the world’s toughest problems. Now in its fifth year, the competition awarded its largest prize pool ever, $1 million USD, to 20 winning teams…

When my team and I began championing the role of advocacy within Cisco several years ago, our goal at the time was—and remains—to elevate the voices and enthusiasm of Cisco’s most loyal customers, partners, and brand evangelists to drive growth. Growth for Cisco, and growth for our customers’ and partners’ organisations. We set out to reimagine not just another reference programme, but a strategic customer and partner advocacy vision powered by community engagement and advocate-led…

VMware and Lenovo have collaborated on edge computing systems, with the goal of making  them more robust and resilient. As part of the deal, Lenovo’s Infrastructure Solutions Group (ISG) will pre-load VMware’s edge software on its ThinkSystem SE350 Edge servers, a pair of ruggedized servers designed specifically for edge deployments. This includes vSphere, vSan, and Tanzu. The SE350 is a 1U hight, half-width server with one socket for an Intel Xeon D-2100, featuring up to…

Since he helped build the highly successful ship that is VMware, it is widely expected the company’s CEO Raghu Raghuram, appointed in June, won’t rock that boat too much, at least in the near term.  VMware Raghuram is credited with helping build and grow the company’s core virtualization and multicloud  business as well as its software-defined data center strategy. VMware also credits Raghuram with driving partnerships with Dell Technologies and hyper-scaler customers. Since being appointed…

The thing about MPLS is that it’s a technique, not a service — so it can deliver anything from IP VPNs to metro Ethernet. It’s expensive, so with the advent of SD-WAN enterprises are trying to figure how to optimize its use vs. less expensive connections like the internet Did you ever order something online from a distant retailer and then track the package as it makes strange and seemingly illogical stops all over the…