Zeus Kerravala
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Zeus Kerravala
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Cisco adds some Spark to meetings
In the technology industry, we like to swing pendulums too far one way or the other and make general statements like “everything is moving to the cloud” or “everything is connecting over wireless,” and those statements are, of course, false. There are still more on-premises workloads than cloud ones, and there’s a huge world of devices that are connected with wires. The collaboration industry is no different, as there has bee a significant rise in the number of tools to improve virtual meetings. We have web conference platforms, audio bridges and advancements in video. And recently there has been an explosion in the number of team messaging products. All of these products help workers conduct virtual meetings.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
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Open letter to Avaya management: Don’t sell the networking business
The fate of Avaya has finally been determined. It’s not being broken up, shut down or having parts stripped off it in a fire sale. Instead, Avaya filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy to help shed the $6 billion debt load that is weighing the company down.The question for the company now is what happens next? Obviously the business will be restructured. I believe the management team will keep the call center and UC businesses intact, as they go together like “rama lama lama ka dinga da dinga dong.” But what happens to the networking business? Post restructuring the networking division might be a more attractive asset to buy because many of the things weighing it down, such as pensions and debt, won’t be an issue. Avaya could sell it, then use the money to make an acquisition that could bolster its UC and CC business.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
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Open letter to Avaya management: Don’t sell the networking business
The fate of Avaya has finally been determined. It’s not being broken up, shut down or having parts stripped off it in a fire sale. Instead, Avaya filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy to help shed the $6 billion debt load that is weighing the company down.The question for the company now is what happens next? Obviously the business will be restructured. I believe the management team will keep the call center and UC businesses intact, as they go together like “rama lama lama ka dinga da dinga dong.” But what happens to the networking business? Post restructuring the networking division might be a more attractive asset to buy because many of the things weighing it down, such as pensions and debt, won’t be an issue. Avaya could sell it, then use the money to make an acquisition that could bolster its UC and CC business.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
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Big Switch brings agility, scale to network packet brokers
Complexity in data centers has grown exponentially with the introduction of new technologies to scale IT infrastructure to keep pace with business demands. This dynamic has caused IT departments to seek out new tools to help manage and secure complex IT environments in modern data centers. The broad adoption of these tools has created new, arduous challenges, including the difficulty of managing various network connections and monitoring specific traffic flows at scale. Leading-edge IT organizations have started adopting software-based network packet broker (NPB) solutions to solve these complex IT challenges with increased agility and flexibility. To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
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Big Switch brings agility, scale to network packet brokers
Complexity in data centers has grown exponentially with the introduction of new technologies to scale IT infrastructure to keep pace with business demands. This dynamic has caused IT departments to seek out new tools to help manage and secure complex IT environments in modern data centers. The broad adoption of these tools has created new, arduous challenges, including the difficulty of managing various network connections and monitoring specific traffic flows at scale. Leading-edge IT organizations have started adopting software-based network packet broker (NPB) solutions to solve these complex IT challenges with increased agility and flexibility. To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
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Top 10 questions about Avaya’s networking business
The trials and tribulations of Avaya and the fate of its related businesses have been well documented in the press over the past six months. One of the business units I have been following most closely is the company’s networking business, as it has a differentiated product and could prove to be a significant asset to an acquirer. One of the challenges Avaya has had in networking is a lack of customer awareness into the product set or even the fact that Avaya is in networking. When I have brought the topic up with network engineers, I’ve received a number of questions about Avaya Networking. Below are the most common questions I have received: To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
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Top 10 questions about Avaya’s networking business
The trials and tribulations of Avaya and the fate of its related businesses have been well documented in the press over the past six months. One of the business units I have been following most closely is the company’s networking business, as it has a differentiated product and could prove to be a significant asset to an acquirer. One of the challenges Avaya has had in networking is a lack of customer awareness into the product set or even the fact that Avaya is in networking. When I have brought the topic up with network engineers, I’ve received a number of questions about Avaya Networking. Below are the most common questions I have received: To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
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Aruba President Dominic Orr retiring—Thanks for the memories
This week Aruba, a Hewlett Packard Enterprise company, announced its President, Dominic Orr, is retiring at the end of the month and turning the helm over to Aruba co-founder and CTO Keerti Melkote. This ends a 10-year run by Orr, who took over as CEO in 2006. During that time, Aruba has arguably been the technology leader in business Wi-Fi and has been one of the few vendors that have managed to not get trampled by Cisco despite numerous predictions that they would. This should be a smooth transition because in actuality, HPE Aruba has been co-run by both Melkote and Orr, as the company has been planning on Orr’s retirement from some time. To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
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EdgeConneX expands the edge of the internet with subsea connections
A couple of years ago I wrote about an innovative company called EdgeConneX that was focused on improving the internet experience by extending the internet’s edge into new markets.While there are many content delivery networks and internet optimization companies focused on this task, EdgeConneX’s approach has been to push the actual edge of the internet into new markets. All major U.S. cities, such as Los Angeles, New York and Chicago, are internet edge locations. EdgeConneX has expanded the edge to next tier cities such as Miami, Seattle and San Diego. Its customers are the content providers, media companies and fiber providers that deliver services to consumers and businesses. The vendors that leverage EdgeConneX are able to offer high-quality and faster services at a lower cost compared with backhauling traffic to the next closest point. To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
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EdgeConneX expands the edge of the internet with subsea connections
A couple of years ago I wrote about an innovative company called EdgeConneX that was focused on improving the internet experience by extending the internet’s edge into new markets.While there are many content delivery networks and internet optimization companies focused on this task, EdgeConneX’s approach has been to push the actual edge of the internet into new markets. All major U.S. cities, such as Los Angeles, New York and Chicago, are internet edge locations. EdgeConneX has expanded the edge to next tier cities such as Miami, Seattle and San Diego. Its customers are the content providers, media companies and fiber providers that deliver services to consumers and businesses. The vendors that leverage EdgeConneX are able to offer high-quality and faster services at a lower cost compared with backhauling traffic to the next closest point. To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
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Don’t play games with your data center: Shift from Intel CPUs to NVIDIA GPUs
Central processing units (CPUs) from vendors such as Intel and to a lesser extent AMD have been staples in the data center for decades. Both companies have done an outstanding job making CPUs faster and containing more cores so businesses can run computationally intensive processes on them. However, digital technologies such as deep learning, artificial intelligence (AI), virtual reality (VR), augmented reality (AR) and the Internet of Things (IoT) are driving the need for a new model of computing beyond the capabilities of CPUs.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
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Don’t play games with your data center: Shift from Intel CPUs to NVIDIA GPUs
Central processing units (CPUs) from vendors such as Intel and to a lesser extent AMD have been staples in the data center for decades. Both companies have done an outstanding job making CPUs faster and containing more cores so businesses can run computationally intensive processes on them. However, digital technologies such as deep learning, artificial intelligence (AI), virtual reality (VR), augmented reality (AR) and the Internet of Things (IoT) are driving the need for a new model of computing beyond the capabilities of CPUs.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
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Fortinet’s Michael Xie: How to secure the cloud
Last month I wrote a post highlighting the differences between a security fabric and platform. Of all the security vendors, for which there are literally hundreds, no one has evangelized the topic and value of a fabric more than Fortinet. One of the drivers of Fortinet’s security fabric has been to secure the cloud. To get a better understanding of what the challenges are and the role of the security fabric for cloud environments, I interviewed the founder, president and chief technology officer (CTO) of Fortinet, Michael Xie. To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
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Network predictions for 2017
It’s hard to believe the year is almost up. That means ‘tis the season to be jolly and to deck the halls. For analysts, it’s time to put on a Carnac the Magnificent hat and try and predict the future. I already did a couple of posts look at the strategies of Cisco and some of its key competitors, so I’ll stick to broader industry themes. 1. A repatriation holiday passes and stimulates some mergers and acquisitions.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
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Cisco ONE simplifies security purchasing
'Tis the season to be jolly, they say, which is true unless you’re involved with enterprise security. For those individuals, tis the season to be wary as the number of highly publicized breaches continues to grow, as does the complexity of trying adequately secure the business. One of the biggest challenges is the vendor landscape has exploded with hundreds of point products. In fact, the 2016 ZK Research Security Survey found that large enterprises have an average of 32 security vendors deployed. + Also on Network World: What to expect from Cisco in 2017 + More security vendors doesn’t make companies more secure. It just makes things more complex. Despite the number of point products, finding a breach still takes well over 100 days. Think of the damage that can happen in over three months. A persistent threat can make its way around the company network, map out the whole environment and provide a blueprint for hackers to take whatever data they want. To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
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Cisco ONE simplifies security purchasing
'Tis the season to be jolly, they say, which is true unless you’re involved with enterprise security. For those individuals, tis the season to be wary as the number of highly publicized breaches continues to grow, as does the complexity of trying adequately secure the business. One of the biggest challenges is the vendor landscape has exploded with hundreds of point products. In fact, the 2016 ZK Research Security Survey found that large enterprises have an average of 32 security vendors deployed. + Also on Network World: What to expect from Cisco in 2017 + More security vendors doesn’t make companies more secure. It just makes things more complex. Despite the number of point products, finding a breach still takes well over 100 days. Think of the damage that can happen in over three months. A persistent threat can make its way around the company network, map out the whole environment and provide a blueprint for hackers to take whatever data they want. To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
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10 game changing networking acquisitions of 2016
Game changers?Image by ThinkstockIn the networking industry, it seems that every year there’s a flurry of mergers and acquisitions. Turns out that 2016 was no different. Here are 10 that have the most game changing potential, since they have the potential to move the acquiring company into an entirely new market.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
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10 game changing networking acquisitions of 2016
Game changers?Image by ThinkstockIn the networking industry, it seems that every year there’s a flurry of mergers and acquisitions. Turns out that 2016 was no different. Here are 10 that have the most game changing potential, since they have the potential to move the acquiring company into an entirely new market.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
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What to expect from Cisco’s competitors in 2017
In my previous post, I previewed what we should expect to see from Cisco in 2017. While I think Cisco is in a strong position next year, I don’t expect Cisco’s competitors to sit around and let it take share. Below are the market segments where I think we’ll see the most activity and which vendors are likely to be the most disruptive.Collaboration Hard-charging Microsoft has turned its unified communications (UC) focus to the cloud with its Skype For Business Voice available as part of the Office 365 suite. One can argue who has better voice or video, but Microsoft’s real strength is in how easy it is to purchase and start using voice, including PSTN calling. Microsoft also announced its Team product, which directly competes with Cisco’s Spark product, so the collaboration battle will be drawn on many fronts. To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
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What to expect from Cisco’s competitors in 2017
In my previous post, I previewed what we should expect to see from Cisco in 2017. While I think Cisco is in a strong position next year, I don’t expect Cisco’s competitors to sit around and let it take share. Below are the market segments where I think we’ll see the most activity and which vendors are likely to be the most disruptive.Collaboration Hard-charging Microsoft has turned its unified communications (UC) focus to the cloud with its Skype For Business Voice available as part of the Office 365 suite. One can argue who has better voice or video, but Microsoft’s real strength is in how easy it is to purchase and start using voice, including PSTN calling. Microsoft also announced its Team product, which directly competes with Cisco’s Spark product, so the collaboration battle will be drawn on many fronts. To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here