The Lippis Report

Modern corporate networks are under increasing pressure to support a wider variety of applications thanks to mobile and cloud computing, desktop virtualization plus video traffic having skyrocketed. Not only are bandwidth rates increasing from 1 to 10 to 40 GbE, but most importantly network services are needed to manage and support a different application portfolio mix and network access methods. Network services such as firewalls, WLANs, network diagnostics and monitoring plus application performance acceleration are needed to deliver a consistently excellent user experience. Cisco recently announced an upgrade to its popular Catalyst 6k with the availability of the Supervisor 2T that included re-vamped high performance service modules to deliver these network services. Goyal, product line manager at Cisco Systems joins me to discuss which network services need to be available in modern networks.

Download “A Comprehensive Testing of Cisco Systems Catalyst 6500 Sup2T” report here.

There are a growing number of options to make data center networking more flexible. One option is the use of Edge Virtual Bridging or EVB, which has been standardized in project IEEE 802.1Qbg and championed by IBM, HP, Brocade, QLogic, Emulex and many others. This approach extends the Virtual Ethernet Bridge or VEB sometime called Virtual Ethernet Switch (VES) used by hypervisors to connect VMs to the data center network. Renato Recio, IBM Fellow & System Networking CTO joins me to discuss IBM’s approach to virtual network infrastructure overlays and in particular its support for Edge Virtual Bridging.

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.

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.

Andre Kindness, Senior Analyst at Forrester Research and Zeus Kerravala, principal at ZK Research join me to discuss the shift-taking place in data center networking. Data Center networking is at an inflection point thanks to industry transitions driving new economics, technologies and IT delivery via mobile and cloud computing. These market transitions happen only once every decade or so and we detail its dynamics in this industry analyst round table. We discuss virtualization, merchant silicon, software defined networking, the rise of best of breed products, what network designs are working and which aren’t. We end with how IT business leaders can navigate an industry is transition.

In Cisco’s Data Center Fabric, it has delivered a set of features and innovations that solve some of the most difficult networking challenges found in virtualized infrastructure. IP address and VM mobility plus adapter and VM Fabric EXtenders (FEX) offer increased support for virtualized data center infrastructure, offering designers flexibility to move virtualized assets independent of location. These innovations are proposed by Cisco that promises virtualization aware networking, lower cost and increased performance. Omar Sultan, Senior Manager, Data Center Architecture at Cisco Systems, and I discuss Cisco’s new data center virtualization tools.

Massively scalable data centers have unique requirements such as low latency, high performance, non-stop operation, simplicity of design, workload mobility and storage transport support. To address these requirements Cisco launched FabricPath, which is a scalable multi-link and multipath technology allowing 2 to 48 Nexus 7000s to be configured in a large, non-blocking Ethernet switch fabric. This fabric, called a FabricPath Switching System or FSS, eliminates oversubscription and creates a two-tier fabric. In addition to FabricPath, Cisco launched its’ F-Series 10GbE module for the Nexus 7000, which offers 32 ports of auto-sensing 1/10GbE targeted at server access, aggregation and FCoE implementations solutions. Craig Griffin, Senior Director of Product Management for Cisco’s Nexus 7000 discusses new Ethernet innovations for the age of massively scalable data centers.

A white paper on the topic is available here:

There is huge growth in video traffic on corporate networks thanks primarily to on-demand video clips and increasingly video collaboration, TelePresence, video surveillance and Digital Signage. But how do IT business leaders support the various forms of video on their corporate networks before a video tsunami wreaks havoc to network performance?  Also how do IT business leaders deliver a good video experience to a wide range of endpoints such as low bandwidth remote offices, mobile smartphones, WiFi connected laptops etc?  Tere’ Bracco, Senior Marketing Manager for Network Systems and Security at Cisco, joins me to discuss Cisco’s Medianet technologies that offer an approach to managing and delivering video services over corporate IP networks. 

Find out by listening to this podcast.

WAN optimization products are central to delivering excellent application performance to employees in branch offices especially as applications continue to be centralized in data centers.  Another key attribute of WAN optimization is that these solutions reduce WAN bandwidth requirements thus spend.  At the heart of WAN optimization technology is cache architecture, or how device stores or caches data to minimize WAN transfers.  We dive into the two main cache architecture approaches; “per peer” and “universal” then ask the key question.  Does caching architectures and cache sizing affect WAN optimization performance or are there other more important aspects of WAN optimization that buyers should be concerned with as they undergo vendor selection”?  In this Lippis Report podcast, I talk with Baruch Deutsch, Senior Director of Product Marketing at Cisco Systems, to demystify WAN optimization. Enjoy, Nick

Power over Ethernet (PoE) powers IT endpoints like IP phones and WLAN Access points. But newer devices like IP video phones, IP surveillance cameras, thin client display, next Generation IP phones, 802.11n WLAN access points and Pan Tilt Zoom (PTZ) Surveillance cameras require more than 15W of power so the IEEE recently standardized a new 30W PoE standard called PoE Plus. Soon most, if not all, corporations will have a mix of end points that require old PoE and new PoE plus power. IT leaders can meet these requirements by leveraging the enhanced PoE and PoE Plus features offered by Cisco’s Catalyst 4500 E-Series product line. Moreover Cisco has announced two new Catalyst 4500 Series Line Cards with readiness for PoE Plus and inline power up to 30W per port. I talk with Sachin Gupta, Director and Product Manager at Cisco Systems about these new PoE design features and what new options are available to IT architects as they build out corporate collaborative solutions.

A panel of IT business leaders discusses their experience with Network Virtualization as we dive into motivations, design options, economics and business outcomes. On the panel is Marilyn Hay, Manager of the Network Management Centre at the University of British Columbia, Frank Hoonhout, Senior Lead Network Engineer at the State of Oregon’s State Data Center and Hasan Siraj, Director of Product Marketing at Cisco Systems. This is a podcast you surely want to listen to.

Find out the real world value and business outcome of investing in Network Virtualization by listening to this podcast.

In addition to desktop connectivity wiring closet switches now connect wireless access points, laptops, kiosks, netbooks, IP phones, printers, video desktop systems and more while also managing electrical power of the devices they connect. New PoE Plus standard 802.3at allow 30W per port to be delivered which has driven a change in wiring closet power management. I talk with Berna Devrim, Sr. Manager, Access Switching Marketing at Cisco Systems about the dynamics forcing a change in wiring closet switching and the new Cisco X and S series of edge switching products which represent progressive thinking in this space. Enjoy, Nick.

Cisco’s TrustSec is architecture with its implementation spread across client software, infrastructure (Catalyst & Nexus) and policy (Access Control System and NAC appliance). Cisco has expanded TrustSec to incorporate 802.1x clients allowing IT leaders to mix and match NAC and 802.1x endpoints. TrustSec organizes and simplifies authentication and policy schema allowing administrators to configure and maintain identity-based access to IT resources while identifying and applying policy based on a user roles in the organization. TrustSec also provides encrypted links at the switch port level. Steven Song Security Business Manager in the Network Systems & Security group at Cisco Systems joins me to discuss TrustSec and how Cisco is expanding its services and importance for IT business leaders.

The Web is increasingly being used as the threat vector of choice by hackers and cybercriminals to distribute malware and perpetuate identity theft, financial fraud, and corporate espionage. Is exploit sophistication and complexity evolving beyond traditional end-point anti-virus mitigation? Is a network centric model a faster and more accurate approach to zero day threat defense where massive cloud computing resources are put to work identifying and mitigating complex, polymorphic threats designed to evade anti-virus software and are mitigated before they reach desktop or mobile end-points? Mark Guntrip, Product Manager at Cisco Systems joins me to discuss Cisco ScanSafe, a Cloud Web Security Offering and debate client- versus network-based zero day threat defense.