NETWORKING

What Are Microbursts and Why Do They Matter? Ever wondered why a switch interface shows an average utilization of well below wire rate, and yet egress discards are incrementing? Most likely, that interface is experiencing microbursts. Often, when multiple input interfaces simultaneously receive traffic destined to a single egress interface – a so-called “incast” traffic pattern – no problem arises because the instantaneous receive rate is low enough that the output interface can handle the…

We have all heard the maxim “Life Imitates Art”. It might also be true that Life imitates IT operations as well. A recent personal experience led me to a new perspective on how important it is to have proper Day 2 Operations Tools in the data center. In this blog post, I refer specifically to Nexus Dashboard Insights as the tool of choice for ACI and NXOS DC fabrics. About a year ago, I was…

We have created a new blog series that will focus on how our nonprofit grant recipients are using Transformational Tech. Each blog in this series will highlight a different nonprofit partner using technology to help transform the lives of individuals and communities. When it comes to healthcare, showing proof of identity is an essential step in accessing life-saving services. Many of us may take for granted being able to reach for our wallet and sharing…

I am ready for the day my grandkids ask me what it was like to live during the year 2020. I will tell them of the many cancellations I experienced, like how I missed my classes, my college graduation, and (maybe most disappointingly) a European vacation with my best friends. Although I will have many cancellations to tell them about, my experience as a new hire in Cisco’s Customer Experience Academy (CXA) won’t be one…

Cyber attacks to industrial organizations and critical infrastructures are now making headlines regularly. As Talos pointed out in a recent research blog, we’ve entered a new world of critical infrastructure security where threat actors are structured businesses. Nevertheless, few industrial organizations have implemented comprehensive security programs to protect their operational technologies (OT) and even fewer have deployed at scale. At the same time, the pandemic is highlighting how digital transformation can help industries be more…

Ransomware is wreaking havoc. What can we do? Ransomware is making its way outside the cybersecurity space. It’s popping up everywhere from the nightly news to the G7 Summit. Indeed ransomware has entered the mainstream as threat actors increasingly focus their attention on critical infrastructure providers that can’t afford any downtime or disruption from a cyber incident – from food and transportation suppliers to energy and healthcare systems. Most people probably know what ransomware is…

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…

Visibility is as important to network health as it is to operating a motor vehicle. Have you ever tried to drive through a whiteout snowstorm or torrential rainfall and had to pull off to side of the road under an overpass to wait it out because you just couldn’t see out of the windshield? Now picture a network facing these same challenges. Network visibility is the next big hurdle as broadcasters move content production to…

In the blog titled Power of Cloud Application Centric Infrastructure (Cloud ACI) in Service Chaining, we talked about how cloud ACI provides an elegant solution for lifecycle management of native load balancers in the public cloud. We also looked at a simple use case of a Firewall insertion before traffic hits the application load balancer. In this blog, we will  look at more complex use-cases that we can solve using a comprehensive service chaining framework with…

Building on my recent blog around Accelerate and Differentiate with Hybrid Cloud, I wanted to take one step further in giving you my perspective on why Cisco is your best partner to deliver premium experiences for your customer engagements. As a result of the global pandemic, the acceleration and reliance on digital experiences have been swift. Digital is now defined as a way of working, making decisions, and managing the company. For example, e-commerce is open 24…