NETWORKING

Almost a year ago now, Cisco decided to ensure the safety of all employees and closed our offices globally. It was clearly the right move to make in the wake of so many unknowns. As a Site Engagement Manager for our Galway, Ireland offices – I had to sit down and figure how this affected us from a culture perspective. With 75% site attendance in Galway we always have a highly populated office which helps…

Artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML) can be invaluable tools to spur innovation, but they have different management requirements than typical enterprise IT applications that run at moderate CPU and memory utilization rates. Because AI and ML tend to run intense calculations at very high utilization rates, power and cooling costs can consume a higher proportion of the budget than an IT group might expect. It’s not a new problem, but the impact is…

As the traditional approach to networking is replaced by hybrid cloud, SD-WAN and edge networks, in-house skill sets haven’t kept up. Hiring new staff is one option to narrow the deficit, but there’s a skills shortage in the industry right now, and hiring is expensive. According to McKinsey, it often costs around $30,000 to bring on a new employee, not counting the onboarding training. As a result, 82% of global executives surveyed by McKinsey say…

Chances are good that any skill set or title including the word “cloud” will open doors for new job opportunities these days. That’s because the cloud has become a key component of digital transformation—something many organizations are striving to achieve. To that end, enterprises continue to migrate data, workloads, development, and other components of their technology environments from on premises to cloud services at a brisk pace, and they need people who possess relevant skills…

We will see a rise in Apps! Last year, IDC predicted a 50% increase in the number of applications over 2020/2021 (Source: IDC InfoBrief, sponsored by Cisco, Transforming Applications and Multicloud Operations). Fast forward to today, it’s even more about apps and digital services to keep the business running and to grow and compete even more aggressively. It’s not just the rise of the Apps, how they are being built, deployed and operated has changed. Monolithic…

Today, Talos is publishing a glimpse into the most prevalent threats we’ve observed between January 8 and January 15. As with previous roundups, this post isn’t meant to be an in-depth analysis. Instead, this post will summarize the threats we’ve observed by highlighting key behavioral characteristics, indicators of compromise, and discussing how our customers are automatically protected from these threats. As a reminder, the information provided for the following threats in this post is non-exhaustive…

Many of you are familiar with the 40G BiDi pluggable optic, but did you know that the 40G CSR can serve similar use cases and is sometimes an attractive alternative? Written by Craig Pasek, Product Manager, Cisco Optics As network operators increase their link bandwidth from 10G to 40G, they need to choose between two categories of 40G pluggable optics: Those that require ribbon fiber or those that use duplex fiber via advanced transceiver technology. …

The office will never look the same – and maybe that’s a good thing. According to a survey conducted by Dimensional Research, 53% of larger organizations plan to reduce the size of their office space and more than three quarters will increase work flexibility. This is a direct and lasting consequence of the recent increase in working from home. Companies see an opportunity to reduce real estate and save on expenses with remote work on…

As you jump on your brand-new exercise equipment to celebrate a newer version of yourself in this new year, I’m reminded of this idea of building some new muscle –for ourselves personally and perhaps even as a business. Moving into 2021, we all find ourselves in a head space of deep reflection, on the year that has past, the successes we’ve achieved, the challenges we’ve overcome and more importantly, how we’re determined and destined to…

Next week we will publish our third annual “Defending Against Critical Threats” report; a roundup of some the most impactful cyber attacks from the past 12 months. Included in the publication are articles about how cyber criminals sought to take advantage of the COVID-19 pandemic. We also cover Big Game Hunting attacks, whereby cyber criminals seek to monopolize a ransomware deployment in a ‘post compromise’ phase. Of course, last year saw one of the most momentous general elections in United States history, and Cisco Talos have spent…