The Lippis Report

IT leaders are not comfortable with mobile computing security. And they do have a lot to be concerned about as securing a plethora of different devices accessing both corporate and SaaS applications from a vast array of locations and network access methods is a challenge. Traditional VPN methods are too cumbersome for users and don’t factor the huge growth in SaaS application use. A new model for securing remote and mobile access is needed and Cisco has delivered one. Cisco just launched AnyConnect Secure Mobility Client that offers a simple use model for mobile workers that leverages Cisco’s ASA, IronPort Web Security Appliance, ScanSafe, and SIO to wrap a corporate perimeter around its mobile workforce. Kevin Kennedy, Product Marketing Manager at Cisco Systems discusses a new approach to securing mobile computing.

Hear how virtualization has spread beyond the data center into the core network to increase utilization, security, and functionality.

Listen to the podcast here

By Cisco

The adoption of cloud-based computing and applications promises to improve the agility, efficiency, and cost effectiveness of IT operations required to provision, scale, and deliver applications to the enterprise. However, as with other new technology trends, delivering applications from the cloud to the remote sites creates additional challenges in application performance, availability, and security. This document discusses some cloud deployment scenarios and shows how Cisco WAAS solves application-delivery challenges for customers.
To understand how cloud-based application-delivery challenges can be overcome download this white paper.

Garter has moved Cisco up to the Leaders Quadrant in its Magic Quadrant for 2009 Secure Web Gateways. Gartner reflected in their analysis that Cisco’s long-term focus on innovation and quality has resulted in market leadership. Garter identifies the following Cisco strengths.

On-Premise
* On-box malware prevention
* Performance & scalability
* DLP
* Real-time categorization

Cloud
* Simple management interface
* Reporting
* Ease-of-deployment
* Real-time categorization

Gartner has recognized Cisco as a Leader in the 2009 Magic Quadrant for SSL VPNs. Cisco has made the move from Visionary Quadrant last year to the Leaders Quadrant on the strength of its innovative AnyConnect VPN technology and direction. Here are a few items Gartner highlights in the report:

* Cisco is the only vendor to move from a non-leader position into
the Leaders’ Quadrant

* Cisco is forging the path as 10 of the surveyed vendors consider
Cisco a major competitive threat

* Cisco exceeded all other vendors in the number of new concurrent
SSL VPN seats in the period

* Gartner clients report that feedback and satisfaction with the
Cisco SSL VPN product have improved significantly

By Cisco Systems

The Cisco Annual Security Report provides an overview of the combined security intelligence of the entire Cisco organization. The report encompasses threat information and trends collected between January and December 2009. It also provides a snapshot of the state of security for that period, with special attention paid to key security trends expected for 2010.

How we do IT is fundamentally changing. Applications are increasingly being accessed from mobile devices while cloud computing offers a new approach to application delivery. Case in point, the iPhone adoption rate is 8 times faster than AOL was! As a result corporate application portfolios are shifting in their mix of total IT manager control to partial control to none. IT leaders are finding that the largest application growth in their corporation is coming from outside of their traditional perimeter/firewall with no control knobs. In essence applications and networks are becoming borderless and as a result a new flexible security model is needed to reestablish boundaries. To address this industry concern, I talk with Fred Kost, Director Security Solutions for Cisco Systems about a new approach to securing networks without borders.

By Cisco Systems

Cisco IT is transforming its data centers with solutions that help to realize the company’s Data Center 3.0 vision, which employs a unified network fabric to connect servers and storage devices in a way that is resilient, scalable, and easy to manage. The transformation occurs in three stages: 1) Consolidating I/O and increasing throughput by implementing unified I/O running on 10 Gigabit Ethernet (current stage); 2) Increasing the power available to compute resources by reducing the power consumed by the network infrastructure and; 3) Making applications location-independent, which will simplify changes and possibly eliminate the need for change requests

Learn how Cisco is deploying consolidated I/O in their data center by downloading this paper.

By Cisco Systems

Coca-Cola Bottling Company adopted 10 Gb Ethernet, consolidating from 80 servers to 4 and reducing cabling costs. Coca-Cola Bottling Company Consolidated is the second largest Coca-Cola bottler in the United States, with territories in 11 states and serving more than 18 million consumers. The company makes, sells, and delivers carbonated and non-carbonated beverages. Low-cost servers, used for applications such as sales force automation and workgroup collaboration, had contributed to server sprawl, causing the data center to outgrow available power and cooling capacity. Server virtualization helped but had begun to slow network performance. “We wanted 10 Gigabit Ethernet connectivity without the expense of building a new data center,” says Rory Regan, network and telecom manager of Coca-Cola Bottling Company Consolidated. “We decided to build a new data center network that would continue to work with our existing servers and storage as we gradually migrated to a unified fabric.”

Find out how Rory exploited 10Gb Ethernet to scale up its Data Center Virtualization project by downloading this paper.

By Cisco Systems

This security report from Cisco has become one of the industry’s more important views into security threats that are confronting the industry. The report also provides trend lines for specific threats which IT leaders need to develop mitigation strategies. The Cisco Mid-year Security Report presents an overview of Cisco security intelligence, highlighting threat information and trends from the first half of 2009. The report also includes recommendations from Cisco security experts and predictions on how identified trends will evolve.

Find out the largest security threats confronting IT leaders by downloading this paper.

By Cisco Systems

Mobility has become a business expectation. IT is coming face to face with an increasingly savvy user community which is demanding the wireless performance required to deliver a ubiquitous computing experience. Wireless technologies are striving to keep up, and the ratification of 802.11n promises to unleash the true power of mobility. This checklist provides prescriptive guidance on how IT can harness the value of 802.11n, while avoiding the pitfalls.
To integrate 802.11n into your enterprise network, follow these steps.

By Cisco Systems
Networks and related network standards have come a very long way over the last few decades. Could you imagine a world without ethernet? Or the Internet? Or wireless? Could you imagine the not-so-distant past in which your work location, user device, communications path, destination computer, and application/information access were defined by the network and not by you? In the present, imagine not being able to collaborate across locations or across company boundaries because of mismatched networks. Flash forward and imagine not being able to take advantage of developing cloud computing services because of connection and exchange barriers between your infrastructure and the cloud—any cloud. Hard to imagine, given the connected world within which we all work, live, play, and learn.
Find out how standards-based networking is opening up borderless networks.

There has been huge interest in Borderless Networks since Lippis Report 134. The following are links to Cisco’s site which cover Borderless Networks and its ISR G2 announcement. There is content here from other industry analysts and of course from Cisco as well.

Borderless Networks Experience – The World is Your Workspace
See business innovation in action as Cisco customers and executives discuss how Borderless Networks enables greater productivity, collaboration and efficiency.

Borderless Networks Experience

Borderless Networks

Building Tomorrow’s Borderless Business
Enable a new borderless workspace experience at remote offices with Cisco Integrated Services Router Generation 2

Integrated Services Routers

By Nick Lippis

A new era in Enterprise IT is emerging. It’s an era born out of systemic business efficiency planning prompted by the efforts of business leaders to reduce corporate spending as revenues declined during the market crash of 2008. To reduce operational spend, get closer to customers, automate new streamlined business processes and position their firms for the current economic recovery, IT leaders are reviewing IT solutions, particularly data center consolidation, virtualization, cloud computing and branch offices. In this white paper we describe the macro trends taking shape in business and explore how these trends are creating a new era in branch office IT fueled by cost reduction and improved customer experience. We review next generation branch office IT attributes and best practices to leverage their value.