Read Me First As a network and workload security strategy leader, I spend a lot of time thinking about the future of the good old network firewall. Everyone has been using and abusing the “next-generation” qualifier to describe any modern firewall product for far too long, so it is appropriate to drop this extraneous prefix and talk about what truly comes next for this technology. There will be no sales pitches or product announcements here…

Everyone is familiar with the nuances of a corporate nine to five job. You get in, get out and get on with your life. When I started at Cisco in 2016, my sentiments were similar; it was my first corporate job. But after I found my footing a couple of months later, I decided to explore what else Cisco offered.   What I soon discovered was a whole other world to explore in addition to my…

A startup founded by two MIT grads says that it can deploy self-powering sensors to handle low-intensity IoT tasks, eliminating the need for batteries or wired electrical supplies, adding a new level of flexibility to IoT deployments. Ben Calhoun and Dave Wentzloff are the founders of Everactive, an IoT-device manufacturing startup whose sensor modules can create their own power from a variety of sources, including indoor solar, thermal gradient differential, and vibrations. The sensors can…

Prologue Over the years, as new technology has been introduced, there has always been a barrier to adoption. While automation is powerful, we need to test it fully. Delays in getting started are typically caused by the wait on lab equipment. If it’s not lab equipment, it’s licensing or the time required to set up and cable the equipment. This, together with the development time, resources, and scheduling, makes the whole activity painful. This typically…

In collaboration with Joel Barbier and Chris Groves   Why automating software image management (SWIM) matters Like many network administrators, you’ve probably come to dread the process of upgrading your company’s device software. Most IT organizations still do this manually – a tedious process in which a network engineer must remain tethered to a computer while completing several detailed steps: Identifying the correct code, or “golden image” Submitting a change request Obtaining a copy of…