The Lippis Report

December 20th, 2011

In this Lippis Report Research Note 183, we provide our very popular annual top 10 2012 industry predictions that were provided by Andre Kindness, senior analyst at Forrester Research, Nick Lippis, CEO of Lippis Enterprises, and Zeus Kerravala, principal at ZK Research. We take a look into the year ahead and provide our view as to what will come to pass. This Research Note is based upon the “2012 Networking Industry Predictions” Lippis Report podcast.

The following are our top 10 2012 Networking Industry Predictions.

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December 20th, 2011

IBM System Network looks into its clients’ needs and extracted their top 10 predictions. The data center network is experiencing a major transformation to support server virtualization and cloud computing, convergence of data storage, application-to-application traffic and new high-performance applications. To address these needs, the data center network will become smarter and faster in 2012. Here are 10 reasons why:

December 20th, 2011

By Jim Metzler, Ashton Metzler & Associates

This white paper proposes a new approach to architecting and designing data center networks for current dynamic and highly virtualized data centers.

December 20th, 2011

By CIO Magazine

Feature-rich, next-generation networks help drive innovation and value to midsize companies and position them for competitive advantage. Next-generation networks give midsize companies a competitive advantage. By removing many of the operational headaches of running a network, Cisco’s solutions free up departments to focus on driving business value and innovation. Feature-rich, strategic networks built for today and tomorrow remove the barriers to growth and give midsize businesses the agility they require to lead their markets. Find out how by downloading this executive white paper.

December 20th, 2011

Andre Kindness, Senior Analyst at Forrester Research, joins Zeus Kerravala, principal at ZK Research, and I for our annual predictions podcast. We discuss Cisco, IBM Network Systems, Huawei, Juniper, Extreme, Arista, Nicira, Big Switch, Verizon, AT&T, HP Networking, Citrix, F5, Riverbed, Brocade, Broadcom, Meru, Aerohive, Ruckus, Meraki, Infoblox, Palo Alto Networks, Polycom, Embrane, et al, and what 2012 will bring for them and you. Enjoy, Nick

December 19th, 2011

Having a plan to transition to IPv6 has moved way up in the priority list of IT projects for IT leaders as 2011 was officially the year we ran out of IPv4 unallocated addresses and not having IPv6 could cut-off corporations and applications from accessing the internet. In addition employees en masse are “BYOD” or bring your own device meaning smartphone and tables to work increasing the number of devices on the network significantly. These devices and their applications are driving support of both IPv4 and IPv6 as many mobile devices are now set for IPv6 as the default. As dual stack IP v4/v6 is the best practice, the real challenge lies within the domain name service or DNS. Infloblox has developed a range of solutions to automate the transition to IPv6 by supporting both addressing schemes. Tom Coffeen, Chief IPv6 Evangelist at Infoblox talks about solutions to automate the transition to IPv6. It’s one of our best IPv6 discussions.

December 13th, 2011

The Inflobox plug-in module for VMware’s vCenter Orchestrator promises to bridge network and virtual IT team silos by enabling automated assignment of IP addresses to VMs. The Infloblox plug-in enables IP addresses to be automatically assigned to virtual machines in less than a minute and then constantly monitored and managed, which simplifies troubleshooting, accelerates time to value and offers greater flexibility for the virtual team. Steve Garrison, VP Marketing for Infoblox and I discuss the problems of networking in virtualized environments and how Infoblox’s vCenter plug-in solves them.

December 5th, 2011

The Fall 2011 Open Industry Network Performance and Power Test Report is now available. Since our Spring 2011 test, we added four products from three vendors to the 11 products from eight vendors already tested. We now have data on 15 data center switching products from nine vendors in the new report to be released after Thanksgiving. Our cloud networking test of 10 and 40GbE is now the industry benchmark for cloud networking. In fact, only those companies that are sure of their product(s) enter the test at Ixia’s iSimCity. We found that 40GbE is hard, and thus you have to give credit to the vendors that go through the testing—in this test, those vendors are Extreme Networks, Brocade and Alcatel-Lucent. These firms have high performance data center switching product that is Enterprise and Cloud service provider ready. In this Lippis Report Research Note, we share our the top 10 findings from this round of testing. Lippis Report subscribers can download the 125-page report here, free of charge.

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December 5th, 2011

By Zeus Kerravala, Senior Vice President and Distinguished Research Fellow

The enterprise data center has undergone several major transformations since the introduction of computing as a corporate resource. The computing platform has evolved from main frame computing, to client server, to Internet-based computing, and now we sit on the precipice of the next major data center transition—the evolution to a fully virtualized data center. Each transition saw the cost of computing driven down and the importance of the network elevated. Each phase allowed organizations to increase the efficiency of their data center operations and improve asset utilization, ultimately leading to a better experience for end-users. This white paper provides a perspective on the rise of network value as it acts as the backplane for the virtualized data center and provides design recommendations.

December 5th, 2011

By IBM

The cloud model isn’t about transforming IT. It’s about reinventing the way organizations do business. Organizations in every industry, regardless of size or geography, are embracing cloud computing as a way to reduce the complexity and costs associated with traditional IT approaches. Organizations that approach cloud in a tactical fashion risk adding complexity and inefficiency (not to mention security exposure) due to fragmentation, redundancy and operating silos. Conversely, organizations that embrace cloud strategically—from a business as well as IT perspective—can capture new business value through innovation, flexibility, speed, integrity and security—while reducing cost and complexity.

To deliver the cloud’s full business value, cloud-enabled data centers require speed, flexibility, cost-effective operation and scalability. This paper discusses the technical and business requirements of cloud computing, focusing on the networking layer of the cloud.

December 5th, 2011

By Cisco Systems

A new enterprise architecture for delivering policy-based services has become available. This document discusses the need for a policy-based architecture in today’s enterprise networks and presents “Policy-Governed Network” architecture as a pragmatic business solution. Building identity and context awareness into the network is critical to implementing an effective infrastructure.
Major topics include:

● What policies are and who implements them
● Changing network dynamics and problematic new technologies
● Important challenges to implementers
● Characteristics of a Policy-Governed Network architecture
● Policy-implementation platform: the Cisco® Identity Services Engine
● Scenarios showing how policies can address specific network issues
● How to begin transitioning to a Policy-Governed Network

December 5th, 2011

December 1st, 2011

While the Lippis Report test were being conducted of the Alcatel-Lucent OmniSwitchTM 6900-X40, Jean Luc Ronarch, Director Product Line Management Stackable Switches at Alcatel-Lucent Enterprise joined me to discuss the firm’s latest product investment. We talk cloud network architecture and what’s unique about the new OmniSwitchTM 6900-X40.

Download “Fall 2011 Open Industry Network Performance And Power Test Report” here.

December 1st, 2011

While the Lippis Report test were being conducted of the Brocade VDX™ 6730-32, Gautam Roy, Product Marketing Manager at Brocade joined me to discuss the firm’s latest product investment. We talk cloud network architecture, data center fabric and convergence with a focus on how the VDX™ 6730-32 Data Center Switch contributes and delivers on Brocade’s Ethernet fabric strategy.

Download “Fall 2011 Open Industry Network Performance And Power Test Report” here.