Zeus Kerravala
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Zeus Kerravala
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Cisco announces cornucopia of product updates at Enterprise Connect
The industry’s largest collaboration show, Enterprise Connect, gets underway this week in Orlando, Florida. The show has become the place for vendors to show off the latest and greatest, and the week started off with Cisco announcing some new products and updates to existing ones. Cisco’s collaboration business has been on quite a roll of late, as it has released a number of new solutions, including the game-changing Spark Board, which was unveiled earlier this year. To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
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Cisco announces cornucopia of product updates at Enterprise Connect
The industry’s largest collaboration show, Enterprise Connect, gets underway this week in Orlando, Florida. The show has become the place for vendors to show off the latest and greatest, and the week started off with Cisco announcing some new products and updates to existing ones. Cisco’s collaboration business has been on quite a roll of late, as it has released a number of new solutions, including the game-changing Spark Board, which was unveiled earlier this year. To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
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Fortinet CISO on securing critical infrastructure: ‘We can no longer bring a knife to a gunfight’
Earlier this year Fortinet hired its first chief information security officer (CISO). The timing makes sense, as the company has grown into a leading security vendor with an integrated, security fabric vision that few competitors can match.As Fortinet continues to expand its presence in the federal and critical infrastructure markets, CISO Philip Quade brings the credentials and background needed to help lead the strategy. Prior to joining Fortinet, Quade was the NSA director’s special assistant for cyber and chief of the NSA Cyber Task Force. Before that, he was chief operating officer of the Information Assurance Directorate at the NSA.I recently talked with Quade regarding his new role and the challenges the United States and businesses in general face with respect to security.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
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Fortinet CISO on securing critical infrastructure: ‘We can no longer bring a knife to a gunfight’
Earlier this year Fortinet hired its first chief information security officer (CISO). The timing makes sense, as the company has grown into a leading security vendor with an integrated, security fabric vision that few competitors can match.As Fortinet continues to expand its presence in the federal and critical infrastructure markets, CISO Philip Quade brings the credentials and background needed to help lead the strategy. Prior to joining Fortinet, Quade was the NSA director’s special assistant for cyber and chief of the NSA Cyber Task Force. Before that, he was chief operating officer of the Information Assurance Directorate at the NSA.I recently talked with Quade regarding his new role and the challenges the United States and businesses in general face with respect to security.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
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RingCentral aims to unify ‘unified communications’
I started my career as an analyst in 2001, and one of the first reports I wrote was on the topic of “unified communications,” or UC as it’s more commonly called today. The concept is pretty simple: Workers use lots of communications tools, so why not bring them together into a single, easy-to-use tool? Makes sense, doesn’t it? However, a funny thing has happened over the past 15 years. In an effort to give workers more functionality, many specialty UC vendors popped up. I understand the term “specialty UC” is somewhat of an oxymoron, but this is the state of the industry because we now have UC vendors for video, web conferencing, chat, audio conferencing, VoIP, document sharing, file storage and the list goes on. To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
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Complete security deception includes detection and incident response
Deception tools have been growing in popularity over the past several years, but customers need to ensure they are using the technology to its fullest potential. The concept behind deception is fairly simple to understand: Security teams deploy a fake target that is monitored closely, which hackers will attack. Once the target is breached, the security team is alerted to the threat. In my experience, the use of deception technology is relatively low compared to the amount of time, energy and money invested in traditional intrusion prevention systems. Part of the challenge of deception is that maintaining things such as decoys, breadcrumbs and honeypots can be difficult in environments that are always changing. However, networks are becoming more agile through the use of software, making deception technology more agile and easier to use. To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
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Complete security deception includes detection and incident response
Deception tools have been growing in popularity over the past several years, but customers need to ensure they are using the technology to its fullest potential. The concept behind deception is fairly simple to understand: Security teams deploy a fake target that is monitored closely, which hackers will attack. Once the target is breached, the security team is alerted to the threat. In my experience, the use of deception technology is relatively low compared to the amount of time, energy and money invested in traditional intrusion prevention systems. Part of the challenge of deception is that maintaining things such as decoys, breadcrumbs and honeypots can be difficult in environments that are always changing. However, networks are becoming more agile through the use of software, making deception technology more agile and easier to use. To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
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Microsoft and NVIDIA partner to bring GPUs to the public cloud
The cloud has been a core component of almost every organization's IT strategy for the past five years. However, I believe we are reaching a cloud “tipping point” where it will be used for dramatically different things than it has in the past.The first wave of cloud growth was fueled by organizations looking for a cheaper alternative to running servers on premises. The next wave of cloud growth will be driven by organizations looking to fundamentally change their businesses through the use of advanced technologies like machine learning and artificial intelligence (AI).Over the past year, we have seen a veritable cornucopia of AI use cases included playing poker and Go, writing news stories, filing insurance claims, driving cars and writing code. This current phase of cloud moves it from being a “nice to have” to an absolute, slam dunk, need to have as it’s almost impossible for a business to have the scale and elasticity required to power an AI platform.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
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Extreme Networks buying Avaya networking good for customers of both companies
The fate of Avaya’s networking business has been the subject of speculation for well over a year now. In December, I wrote about the most likely suitors for the business. Ideally, I would have liked to have seen Avaya remain a “full stack” solution provider and keep the group, but it appears that wasn’t in the bankruptcy cards. This brings us to the current news where the winner of the Avaya Networking sweepstakes is (drum roll… although its in the title) Extreme Networks. That’s correct: Purple Extreme Networks is purchasing the networking assets from Avaya (Red) that came to it from Nortel (blue), so from a color perspective, it all makes sense. To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
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Extreme Networks buying Avaya networking good for customers of both companies
The fate of Avaya’s networking business has been the subject of speculation for well over a year now. In December, I wrote about the most likely suitors for the business. Ideally, I would have liked to have seen Avaya remain a “full stack” solution provider and keep the group, but it appears that wasn’t in the bankruptcy cards. This brings us to the current news where the winner of the Avaya Networking sweepstakes is (drum roll… although its in the title) Extreme Networks. That’s correct: Purple Extreme Networks is purchasing the networking assets from Avaya (Red) that came to it from Nortel (blue), so from a color perspective, it all makes sense. To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
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Extreme Networks buying Avaya networking good for customers of both companies
The fate of Avaya’s networking business has been the subject of speculation for well over a year now. In December, I wrote about the most likely suitors for the business. Ideally, I would have liked to have seen Avaya remain a “full stack” solution provider and keep the group, but it appears that wasn’t in the bankruptcy cards. This brings us to the current news where the winner of the Avaya Networking sweepstakes is (drum roll… although its in the title) Extreme Networks. That’s correct: Purple Extreme Networks is purchasing the networking assets from Avaya (Red) that came to it from Nortel (blue), so from a color perspective, it all makes sense. To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
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Cisco HyperFlex’s some data center muscle, fuels HCI war
It’s safe to say that the hyperconverged infrastructure (HCI) market has heated up in a big way. In September 2016, Nutanix went public and had a fantastic IPO. Since then, the company’s stock has slid due in part to increased competition from the likes of Dell-EMC, which recently extended its HCI products to private clouds, and HP Enterprise, which acquired SimpliVity earlier this year.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
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Cisco HyperFlex’s some data center muscle, fuels HCI war
It’s safe to say that the hyperconverged infrastructure (HCI) market has heated up in a big way. In September 2016, Nutanix went public and had a fantastic IPO. Since then, the company’s stock has slid due in part to increased competition from the likes of Dell-EMC, which recently extended its HCI products to private clouds, and HP Enterprise, which acquired SimpliVity earlier this year.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
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Arista puts itself in a container
The network industry is rarely kind to new entrants, as buyers typically have their favorite vendors and seldom give a passing look to someone new. Names like Woven Networks and Consentry come and go while the tried and true live on. One vendor that has bucked this trend—started fast and stayed fast—is Arista Networks. RELATED: Will containers kill the virtual machine? How has Arista avoided the fate of so many before them? One reason is that it’s able to keep ahead of the innovation curve because of the flexible architecture of its operating system, EOS. The flexibility of its software has also enabled Arista to adopt new silicon faster than the competition without having to build entirely new platforms. To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
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VOSS simplifies hybrid Spark provisioning
Last week, Cisco held the European version of it’s Cisco Live event in Berlin. At these events, Cisco typically makes several product announcements and demonstrates many of its new products. Cisco Live is also a time for the company’s alliance and technology partners to showcase their own wares as they look to add value to the Cisco ecosystem. One of the more interesting announcements by an technology partner at the 2017 show was from VOSS Solutions, which extended its platform to support Cisco Spark Hybrid Services. The Spark platform has been red hot of late, as Cisco has made it the company’s main UC platform. During the show, the Spark Board garnered a lot of attention, including being part of Ruba Borno’s day 1 keynote. To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
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Cisco unveils Hierarchy of Needs for the digital enterprise
The European edition of Cisco Live took place this week in Berlin, which is a fitting location given the amount of innovation happening in that city right now. If you ever find yourself in Berlin, be sure to check out Cisco’s Open Berlin innovation center where inventive start-ups are building and showcasing solutions that run on Cisco technology. Innovation and digital transformation are linked together like Kirk and Spock. You can’t have one without the other. At this week’s event, Ruba Borno, Cisco vice president of growth initiatives and chief of staff for the office of the CEO, gave her first-ever keynote to a Cisco Live audience. Not surprisingly, she focused on digital transformation. However, unlike many keynotes I have seen, Borno didn’t just talk about digitization at a high level. Instead she was more prescriptive and gave the audience a guide on how to proceed with making the shift to a digital enterprise. To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
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Cisco unveils Hierarchy of Needs for the digital enterprise
The European edition of Cisco Live took place this week in Berlin, which is a fitting location given the amount of innovation happening in that city right now. If you ever find yourself in Berlin, be sure to check out Cisco’s Open Berlin innovation center where inventive start-ups are building and showcasing solutions that run on Cisco technology. Innovation and digital transformation are linked together like Kirk and Spock. You can’t have one without the other. At this week’s event, Ruba Borno, Cisco vice president of growth initiatives and chief of staff for the office of the CEO, gave her first-ever keynote to a Cisco Live audience. Not surprisingly, she focused on digital transformation. However, unlike many keynotes I have seen, Borno didn’t just talk about digitization at a high level. Instead she was more prescriptive and gave the audience a guide on how to proceed with making the shift to a digital enterprise. To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
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Cisco unveils Hierarchy of Needs for the digital enterprise
The European edition of Cisco Live took place this week in Berlin, which is a fitting location given the amount of innovation happening in that city right now. If you ever find yourself in Berlin, be sure to check out Cisco’s Open Berlin innovation center where inventive start-ups are building and showcasing solutions that run on Cisco technology. Innovation and digital transformation are linked together like Kirk and Spock. You can’t have one without the other. At this week’s event, Ruba Borno, Cisco vice president of growth initiatives and chief of staff for the office of the CEO, gave her first-ever keynote to a Cisco Live audience. Not surprisingly, she focused on digital transformation. However, unlike many keynotes I have seen, Borno didn’t just talk about digitization at a high level. Instead she was more prescriptive and gave the audience a guide on how to proceed with making the shift to a digital enterprise. To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
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Dell EMC brings hyperconverged infrastructure to hybrid clouds
Hyperconverged infrastructure (HCI) has been red hot over the past few years as more customers look for turnkey solutions to simplify the deployment of technology in its software defined data centers. The converged infrastructure group at Dell EMC, formerly known as VCE, was a late entrant into the market, but with Usain Bolt-like speed, the company has caught up to the field and is well on its way to becoming the market leader and de facto standard. RELATED: Hyperconvergence: What’s all the hype about? The value proposition for Dell EMC is as simple as its products are to deploy. It’s HCI solutions, VxRack and VxRail, are kept in lockstep with VMware’s vSphere and VSAN roadmaps. Businesses that want to run VMware on HCI will almost certainly get a superior experience with VxRack and/or VxRail than they will with any other solution. The VMware install base is obviously huge, and Dell EMC has parlayed this into the following momentum in about a year: To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
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Dell EMC brings hyperconverged infrastructure to hybrid clouds
Hyperconverged infrastructure (HCI) has been red hot over the past few years as more customers look for turnkey solutions to simplify the deployment of technology in its software defined data centers. The converged infrastructure group at Dell EMC, formerly known as VCE, was a late entrant into the market, but with Usain Bolt-like speed, the company has caught up to the field and is well on its way to becoming the market leader and de facto standard. RELATED: Hyperconvergence: What’s all the hype about? The value proposition for Dell EMC is as simple as its products are to deploy. It’s HCI solutions, VxRack and VxRail, are kept in lockstep with VMware’s vSphere and VSAN roadmaps. Businesses that want to run VMware on HCI will almost certainly get a superior experience with VxRack and/or VxRail than they will with any other solution. The VMware install base is obviously huge, and Dell EMC has parlayed this into the following momentum in about a year: To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here