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.

During the week of October 31, 2011, the Lippis Report tested Cisco System’s new Catalyst 6500 with Supervisor 2T or Sup2T for performance, upgradability, control and scalability at Ixia’s modern iSimCity laboratory in Santa Clara CA. By all counts, Cisco’s upgrade of the Catalyst 6500 via its new Sup2T, is its most ambitious and thoughtful yet for the venerable platform. The Sup2T is a major upgrade to the most widely-deployed switching platform in campus and data center networking. It’s the new Catalyst 6500’s network services that deliver most of the value, which is partially found in the Sup2T’s Policy Feature Card or PFC that increases NetFlow monitoring and a new TCAM design offering improved Access Control (ACL), Quality of Service design options, encryption security and many other features. This Lippis Report test verifies many of Cisco’s performance and upgradability claims. While it’s impossible to test all of the Catalyst 6500’s new 200-plus features with the Sup2T, we rather focus on a select few that will have the widest impact on IT business leaders’ product acquisition decision process.

To create a seamless collaboration environment for mobile and remote workers, Avaya has fully embraced mobile computing by integrating Android, iOS, BlackBerry and Symbian mobile endpoints plus Windows and Mac computing into its Aura core infrastructure. In this podcast Avaya’s VP of Unified Communications Product Marketing, Nancy Maluso, discusses Avaya’s UC mobile collaboration strategy and how IT business leaders can put this technology to work in their corporation.

To create a seamless collaboration environment for mobile and remote workers, Avaya has fully embraced mobile computing by integrating Android, iOS, BlackBerry and Symbian mobile endpoints plus Windows and Mac computing into its Aura core infrastructure. In this podcast Avaya’s VP of Unified Communications Product Marketing, Nancy Maluso, discusses Avaya’s UC mobile collaboration strategy and how IT business leaders can put this technology to work in their corporation.

The Web Malware Pandemic

Just as the Internet, the Web, and the information age have revolutionized our businesses and our lives, these developments have also radically changed the face of crime. Computer and Internet crime are no exception. Today, computers factor in nearly every form of crime – from crimes facilitated by computers (credit card theft, for example), to crimes, which are specifically computer-to-computer (malware, for example), and to crimes in which computers play an incidental supporting role (i.e. an illegal gambling bookie that keeps computerized records). This paper addresses one single facet of cybercrime – the manipulation of Web content and Web technologies for criminal and/or for illicit gains

Find out how to defend Web traffic from cybercrime by downloading this paper

THE WORLD’S LARGEST SECURITY ANALYSIS OF REAL-WORLD WEB TRAFFIC
By Cisco Systems

The ScanSafe Global Threat Report is an analysis of more than a trillion Web requests processed in 2009 by the ScanSafe Threat Center on behalf of the company’s corporate clients in over 80 countries across five continents. Our leading position of providing security in-the-cloud provides unparalleled insight in the real-world Web threats faced by the today’s enterprise; this report represents the world’s largest security analysis of real- world Web traffic.

Download it now here.

by Cisco Systems

Every manager faces the prospect of an operations breakdown. That is the risk of doing business in an uncertain world. But business resiliency implies more than successfully coping with disasters and disruptions when they occur. Managers need to give their employees the knowledge, means and confidence to overcome, and even take advantage of, the potential risks that pervade the business environment. A successful business resiliency program involves anticipating and preparing for the major disruptive threat exposures that any company faces, while taking a risk-adjusted, capital-allocation-based approach to managing risks. With foresight and proper planning, organizations can develop a level of resilience that allows them to withstand any emergency that could put their people and business in jeopardy.
Find out how by downloading this white paper.

Unified Communications (UC) as an integrated launch point to multiple communications applications will swiftly fade as UC is integrated into corporate social networking and collaboration applications. This is the impression I walked away with after the Orlando VoiceCon industry event. The implication of this is systemic, sending change throughout the industry from suppliers, buyers, and even industry event organizers. What I mean is that UC as a standalone desktop application has limited value. IT and business leaders are pressing suppliers to improve user experience and in the process productivity.

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By Siemens Enterprise Communications

This paper defines different telecommuting models and shows how companies are telecommuting across the globe. Lastly, it will demonstrate how Siemens Enterprise Communications Group has significantly cut expenses by adopting green telecommuting and how you can do the same.

Download this white paper to find out how to reduce cost by leveraging telecommuting.

By Foundry Networks

Multi-Protocol Label Switching (MPLS) as a technology has been around for over a decade and has been used extensively in several service provider networks world-wide. Over the last few years, the standardization of applications such as VPN technologies over MPLS has opened the door for this technology to be used in an enterprise network. This paper explores the use of MPLS in an enterprise network and its associated benefits of lower cost and increased security.

Find out how to use MLPS in your enterprise WAN by downloading this paper.

By Ruckus Wireless

Faced with a population of over 16,000 students, limited resources and WiFi-enabled devices of all shapes and sizes, the Delta School District (Delta) recognized it was time to take action in finding a simple, streamlined solution to their growing wireless needs. Delta needed to deploy a reliable wireless infrastructure in each of its schools to accommodate a variety of applications, such as supporting small-footprint laptops provided to special need students, video surveillance, tablet computers, mobile computing carts equipped with laptops, back-office applications and even the ability to control school heating, ventilation and air conditioning (HVAC) systems.

By Cisco Systems and The City of Dublin, Ohio

The city of Dublin, Ohio is home to more than 3,000 businesses, and continually strives to create an attractive economic environment. Information technology plays an important role in Dublin's efforts to bring the best and most promising businesses to the city, and it was important to provide access anytime, anywhere. "œA major emphasis has always been enhancing economic development and establishing a significant tax base that will take us into the future," says Mayor Marilee Chinnici-Zuercher. "œAccess to technology is a key element of our strategy, because we have a lot of small businesses that are global in their missions and purposes." Adds Jane Brautigam, City Manager, "œWe believe that providing better access to the Internet, via our network infrastructure, will bring companies to the city, and encourage them to grow their business here."

The Cisco mobility group has always had the broadest view and product portfolio for mobility solutions. Their definition of mobility expands beyond wireless LANs to include cellular, VPNs, and location services. But last week the Cisco mobility group elevated their value proposition beyond physical and geographic independent networked computing with the launch of Cisco Motion. Cisco Motion offers the broadest technical and business architecture for mobile networks and communications positioning Cisco far from its smaller WLAN competitors such as Aruba, Meru, Trapeze, et al.

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By Ruckus Wireless

Businesses are struggling with the complexity and cost of installing and managing large-scale WLANs. Wi-Fi meshing is a solution to this problem. An enterprise mesh WLAN is made up of a group of cooperating APs, only some of which are directly attached to Ethernet. The APs form a wireless topology to route client traffic between any member of the mesh and the wired network. Meshing greatly reduces, if not eliminates, WLAN cabling costs and delays as well as AP placement constraints. But despite these compelling benefits, most enterprises have not overcome their concerns over the performance, reliability and complexity of mesh WLANs to take advantage of it on a broad scale.