The Lippis Report

March 10th, 2008

by the Farpoint Group

IEEE 802.11n is the only wireless-LAN (WLAN) technology that matters today. The outstanding improvements in rate, range, and price/performance now being seen in both residential/SOHO-class as well as enterprise-class products, as demonstrated by our own testing, have previously led us to conclude that the time to install .11n is now. The existence of a widely-implemented interim .11n specification from the Wi-Fi Alliance simply drops the last real barrier to adoption. A key consideration in the adoption of .11n, and the subject of this Tech Note, is whether .11n APs can be powered via IEEE 802.3af PoE. It’s one thing to upgrade Ethernet switches, but quite another if that switch or the IEEE 802.3af-compliant power injectors being used can't handle the power demands of a .11n AP.

March 10th, 2008

By enabling technologies

Unified Communications (UC) relies on open standards to deliver its promise of simplifying communications, improving productivity, and bringing the information worker closer to the frontline of the enterprise. No better enabler of UC's promise can be found than with the integration of Avaya Communication Manager with Microsoft Office Communications Server.

Avaya and Microsoft have partnered to develop a tight integration between an existing Avaya Communication Manager environment and a new OCS environment. It allows Microsoft Office Communicator clients to "˜click to communicate' and otherwise control calls on their Avaya desk phone, seamlessly, from their PC desktop. It also provides advanced presence, displaying the phone's on-hook/off-hook status on OCS users' buddy lists. This integration really delivers the sizzle of UC.

This white paper outlines the elegant way in which OCS can integrate into Avaya Communication Manager, describes the user experience, shows a reference architecture, and outlines the benefits.

March 10th, 2008

By Cisco Systems and Microsoft

Organizations spend a significant amount of time and money deploying and managing a complex set of IT infrastructure in distributed branch offices. This document describes the performance, agility and cost challenges faced by organizations with branch offices, and how Microsoft and Cisco® solutions can help organizations optimize application performance and IT service agility at their branch offices while minimizing total cost of ownership (TCO).

March 10th, 2008

By Cisco Systems

A change is occurring in the enterprise business model. The global scope of the enterprise is increasing, with many large enterprises now supporting worldwide, 24-hour operations. New types of content-rich applications are being deployed, as well as real- time collaborative services that incorporate voice and video. And with an increasingly mobile workforce, as well as the need to provide secure access to business partners and contractors, the traditional domain boundaries of the network are also beginning to shift. Nowhere in the network are these changes felt more acutely than on the WAN edge. As a result, the typical requirements placed on a WAN edge aggregation router have expanded and the WAN edge has become an increasingly complex infrastructure to manage and maintain. Formerly, the WAN edge router was seen as a place in the network where speed and scalability were the main criteria for success. Progressively, the role of the enterprise WAN edge router has evolved into a consolidated focal point for rich services such as voice, multimedia, and real-time collaboration and commerce.

March 10th, 2008

By Cisco Systems

Cisco® Unified WAN Services is an important extension to the Cisco architectural approach to systems deployment. It defines the fundamental requirements for a converged WAN edge solution that enterprise customers need to deploy to address their evolving business objectives. As implemented on the Cisco product line of routers and switches, Cisco Unified WAN Services provides a blueprint centered around realizing business success through high-performance services, integrated security, nonstop communications, WAN economic efficiency and application intelligence.

March 10th, 2008

By GreenSpring Partners

The lifespan of digital telephony systems averages 7 to 10 years. This is impressive when compared to other software-based applications that businesses upgrade every few years, such as Supply Chain Management or Accounting applications. Yet there are inevitable and predictable considerations for businesses with TDM systems that last underwent a major upgrade cycle during Y2K. Since they have worked so well in the past, the tendency is to hold on to them for just a little while longer. They are fully depreciated as an investment and for the most part are working well. What's more the choices for moving into the next generation of IP-based telephony systems appear to present risks to the operational stability that many businesses have experienced with their current platforms.

If your business finds itself with one or more aging digital PBXs, you are facing the challenge of deciding when a migration to a new telephony environment makes sense for your specific business situation and objectives. This white paper is intended to facilitate your understanding of the range and types of current risks that you face with that challenge. It will also suggest that delay in preparing for that migration and draining the last vestige of value out of your current system may ultimately prove to be more risky than moving forward.

March 10th, 2008

By Cisco Systems

In a university environment the need for security must be balanced with the need for academic freedom; those challenges are complex. The VCU network itself is far-flung and complex, stretching across two campuses, encompassing more than 140 buildings, 1800 network switches, more than 500 servers, and more than 42,000 users. Portions of the network connect with a large regional medical campus, meaning that many network segments must comply with strict data security regulations such as the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) and industry requirements such as protection of copyrighted materials. In addition, several areas of the university deal with credit card transactions and must meet Payment Card Industry (PCI) requirements. Although the university had long employed strong perimeter security, mitigating the risk from internal threats was a constant challenge.

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY VIRGINIA COMMONWEALTH UNIVERSITY

• Industry: Higher Education
• Location: Richmond, Virginia, United States
• Number of Users: 42,000

BUSINESS CHALLENGE

• Balance need for academic openness with need to protect information and assets
• Reduce attacks, infections, and malicious code
• Improve efficiency of IT security personnel

NETWORK SOLUTION

• Deployed Cisco security solutions that require all network end-points to comply with university security policies, and allow staff to rapidly identify and respond to threats

BUSINESS RESULTS

• Huge drop in infections on the network
• Dramatic reduction in time and resources required to respond to security issues
• Improved auditing and reporting capabilities streamline regulatory compliance

March 10th, 2008

By Cisco Systems

Cisco 3G interface card lets Balfour Beatty Rail quickly establish secure, mobile, high-speed Internet connection.

Balfour Beatty Rail was founded in 1909 and while rails have not changed much since that time, the technology for powering trains has. Today's electric trains require an electrification system that supplies power to the railway traction units and must be installed along the complete length of track. Balfour Beatty Rail GmbH is a leading supplier of railway electrification systems, with many major contracts such as a € 20 m order for the traction power supply system of the Marmaray commuter project now under construction in Istanbul, Turkey.

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY Balfour Beatty Rail GmbH

• Industry: Railway Infrastructure"”Design, Revamping, and Construction
• Location: Munich, Germany
• Number of employees: 1100 employees

Business Challenge

• Reduce time needed to provide network access to new construction sites
• Increase communications efficiency at construction sites
• Support network communication needs as construction sites move along rails

Network Solution

• Cisco 3G HWIC in Cisco Integrated Service Routers provides rapid, cost-effective wireless network deployment using terrestrial cellular technology

Business Results

• Faster network deployment lets crews at new construction sites meet shorter schedules
• Ability to rapidly provide Internet access to small job sites improves productivity and enables faster time to profitability
• Exchange of information between headquarters and remote sites helps maintain schedules

March 10th, 2008

by Cisco Systems

When Willamette Dental opened in 1970, it had one office in Portland, Oregon. Today, the full-service dentistry organization has more than 60 offices throughout Oregon, Washington, Idaho, and Nevada.

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY WILLAMETTE DENTAL

• Industry: Healthcare
• Location: Hillsboro, Oregon
• Number of Employees: 1,300

BUSINESS CHALLENGE

• Productivity of dental office staff was hampered by lack of adequate phone service
• Network capacity limited growth, and lack of redundancy put company at risk for business disruption
• Company lacked the capacity and resiliency to implement electronic dental records application
• Avoid the cost of a US$250,000 seven-year old PBX upgrade

NETWORK SOLUTION

• Cisco switches and routers reduce equipment needs while adding more capabilities and improving manageability
• Cisco IP phone system provides enhanced call features, a common phone system across the enterprise, and survivability in the event of outages

BUSINESS RESULTS

• Cisco phone system is saving more than US$85,000 a year in staff time previously spent checking messages and routing calls
• Monthly long-distance bill for enterprise has gone from US$13,000 to US$8,000
• Total monthly cost of the network has decreased by 15 percent, while providing triple the bandwidth to support growth

March 4th, 2008

Siemens Communications made the largest Unified Communications (UC) announcement of the year by launching OpenScape UC Server and a suite of UC applications. This is a huge software investment from Siemens taking one of, if not the, largest steps of any in the industry toward a software and services concern. Siemens is offering innovative UC software based upon open communications architecture while rooted in enterprise class voice communications capabilities. I discuss this announcement, industry dynamics, Siemens' relationships with Microsoft, IBM et al with Siemens' Mark Straton, SVP Global Marketing and Inderpreet Singh, Director of Emerging Technologies. If you're planning a UC project, then you have to listen to this podcast.