The Lippis Report

September 27th, 2010

Contact center technology is being virtualized at the agent desktop and server levels offering favorable economics, agent flexibility and a centralized data center deployment design. For Siemens Enterprise Communications, a leader in the Contact Center market, its OpenScape Contact Center V8 software runs on top of a VMware hypervisor. In addition to efficient server deployment V8 adds powerful agent features such as a Web-based agent, supervisor and management desktops making it easier to deploy home-based or remote agents virtually at multiple locations. George Despinic, Global Contact Center Marketing Manager for Siemens Enterprise Communications is my guest as we discuss the company’s OpenScape Contact Center V8 that puts contact center functionality in a virtualized data center offering new design and economic options for contact center deployments.

September 22nd, 2010

Major IT Delivery Transitions IT Business Leaders Are Managing
Application owners and developers have been deploying and writing applications as if networks had no boundaries or were borderless. By “application owners” I mean IT departments chartered with IT application delivery and management. By “application developers” I mean in-house corporate software developers, independent software vendors (or ISVs) and software companies. There has always been a disconnect between applications and network architects where developers write applications to run over a network as long as there is connectivity. In addition, service-oriented architecture (SOA) based applications call for greater application componentization, which increases messaging between application components, resulting in the network having a direct impact on application performance. In essence, application owners, developers and application standard bodies assume that networks are borderless as the industry is organized around the OSI model where knowledge and skills at one layer, e.g., the network is not necessarily taken into account at another layer, i.e., the application. Therefore, the normal state of affairs is that network designers have been tasked to optimize applications to improve user experience especially when the application was not written to run over a particular kind of network. This status quo does not scale and needs to be re-thought.

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September 22nd, 2010

By Cisco Systems

The broad parameters and urgency of the Comprehensive National Cybersecurity Initiative (CNCI) require IT triage using risk management and leading technology practices. Some investments must occur earlier and more systemically than others. This white paper helps senior government staff understand the need to embed identity- and policy-based controls throughout essential infrastructure. The critical steps outlined in this paper will improve the government’s front line of defense and boost situational awareness to combat immediate threats. The same actions infuse identity, policy enforcement and intelligence-based security throughout the network, helping to strengthen the future cybersecurity environment.

Find out how by downloading this paper.

September 22nd, 2010

By Arista Networks

VM Tracer offers the tightest integration between virtual machines and network infrastructure. Visibility in to virtualized infrastructure is key for management and operations of mobile and virtual environments.

Find out how by downloading this white paper.

September 22nd, 2010

By Arista Networks

The increase in utilization of virtual machines and increasingly virtualized resources in the data center has caused a reduction in network visibility into the virtual infrastructure. VM Tracer provides the visibility necessary for the network team to support virtual environments and the automation necessary for server administrators to be effective and efficient.

Find out how by downloading this paper.

September 13th, 2010

I interview Marius Haas, Senior Vice President and World Wide General Manager of the HP Networking Business. I asked him

• How HP will compete in the highly competitive networking market,
• What is its salient value proposition,
• Why is HP so focused on networking now, and
• Why should IT business leaders consider HP Networking.
His responses had a ring of market truth to them. As such, any IT business leader worth his/her salt needs to listen to this podcast.

Enjoy, Nick

September 9th, 2010

Networking is entering a new phase or era. During the 1990s, new networking markets opened up, creating multi-billion dollar opportunities for the vendor community and corporate cost savings for IT business leaders. First, it was shared LANs and routing, then switched LANs, then Frame Relay to speed up WANs, then SNA over IP, then remote access via dial-up and VPN, then MPLS, then IP telephony, then Wireless LANs etc… and now, it’s video and cloud networking. You get the picture. But what we didn’t realize as we build these networks is that they are silos with disparate management systems and unique access methods resulting in operational cost overlap and, most importantly, user frustration as they transition application use from desktop, to mobile end point, to remote endpoint. In short, we built boundaries around applications in the form of networks and it is the dismantling of these borders that vendors are now starting to deliver and differentiate upon. It’s not just Cisco that communicates borderless networks, but HP Networking, Juniper, Brocade, Extreme, Avaya, Force10 and others too. Why is the industry entering a new age of borderless networking and what’s in it for IT business leaders, is explained in this Lippis Report Research Note.
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September 9th, 2010

By Infonetics

In this white paper, Matthias Machowinski of Infonectics Research describes how network borders came to be. He then describes Borderless Networking and its associated attributes plus benefits. A checklist to aid in the implementation of a borderless network is then provided.

Download this white paper now and learn how to get started with borderless networking.