The Lippis Report » Unified Communication

Debunking Security Concerns with CloudContact Centers

nicholaslippis — Mon, 14 May 2012 21:30:30 +0000

By Siemens Enterprise Communications

The contact center landscape is experiencing significant changes, both in the business model itself and its underlying technology. The ability to access telephony and applications over the Internet has increased the flexibility of the contact center workforce, introducing a new trend: the work-at-home agent. Driven by a greater need for both flexibility and cost control, cloud contact center solutions (also known as hosted contact centers) are seeing double-digit growth rates. Cloud contact centers provide a number of business benefits: improved business agility, decreased capital expense, and lower total cost of ownership (TCO). This white paper provides a best practices for exploiting cloud base contact centers securely, with compliance controls and built-in disaster recovery.

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OpenScape Unified Communications Interworking with, complementing, and extending the value of Microsoft products

nicholaslippis — Tue, 01 May 2012 01:25:27 +0000

By Siemens

Siemens Enterprise Communications (SEN) enhances the value of existing Microsoft investments, by combining communications tools, from SEN and Microsoft, and others into a single, manageable interface, and simplifying the way users communicate and share information. By integrating with current Microsoft application ecosystem, knowledge works can continue to use familiar user interfaces with the added benefits of rich, user-centric presence and click-to-contact/click-to-conference. The bottom line is, SEN can unify all communications together into one, simple, seamless experience and deliver innovative business solutions that integrate, complement, and extend the value of Microsoft products.

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Your World Has Changed Is It time to Think about Unified Communications?

nicholaslippis — Tue, 28 Feb 2012 18:58:54 +0000

By Siemens Enterprise Communications, Inc.

Until recently, technologies such as unified communications (UC) might have seemed strictly the domain of big business. Now, though, UC goes straight to the heart of many of the SMB challenges you face.

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Infoblox plug-in for VMware vCenter Orchestrator Automates Network Changes in Virtualized Infrastructure

nicholaslippis — Tue, 13 Dec 2011 21:17:42 +0000

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.

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Building Cloud-Scale Networks Using Open Fabric Architectures

nicholaslippis — Mon, 26 Sep 2011 22:04:10 +0000

By Extreme Networks

Several technology inflection points are coming together that are fundamentally changing the way networks are architected, deployed and operated, both in the public and private cloud. From performance, to scale, to virtualization support and automation to simplified orchestration, the requirements are rapidly changing and driving new approaches to building data center networks. This white paper does an excellent job at articulating cloud-scale network architecture via an open fabric that accounts for all major industry trends.

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Improving Productivity in the Connected Enterprise through Collaboration

nicholaslippis — Tue, 26 Jul 2011 02:36:28 +0000

By (IDC)

The consumerization of IT is helping to drive a shift towards collaborative applications convergence. Employees want to plug their consumer technology experiences into their daily work lives. Particularly, IDC believes the industry is on a trend to combine key technologies, such as email, instant messaging (IM), team workspaces, video, voice, Web conferencing and social features into a single “superset” user environment. This Technology Spotlight discusses collaborative applications and explores the role that Avaya plays in this increasingly important market.

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Online Higher Education Institution Prepares for Growth

nicholaslippis — Mon, 11 Jul 2011 23:02:28 +0000

By Cisco Systems

The Apollo Group, owner of the University of Phoenix and other educational properties doubled the size of its network without an increase in IT staff, lowered per-port switching cost while increasing port volume and freed up several rows of space in its data centers. This white paper describes how the Apollo Group achieved this transformation.

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Open Cloud Networking: Unlocking the Full Potential of Cloud Computing

nicholaslippis — Tue, 21 Jun 2011 02:34:06 +0000

by Force10 Networks

Cloud computing is an emerging computing model that promises a new era of flexibility and control in providing data center resources. In the cloud model, data center managers can mix and match computing, storage, and networking resources to provide an agile and highly flexible resource for customer applications. To realize the full potential, this paradigm requires open, standardized interfaces between data center layers of compute resources, the network, and storage elements. While the industry has moved toward open computing and storage layers over the past few years, networking has remained largely proprietary. Force10’s Open Cloud NetworkingSM framework is intended to unlock the network layer so data center operators can get the most out of their data center architectures and, in turn, get the most out of their cloud deployments.

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EVALUATING AVAYA & MICROSOFT UNIFIED COMMUNICATIONS OFFERINGS

nicholaslippis — Wed, 08 Jun 2011 02:44:15 +0000

By Evangelyze Communications, LLC

With a broad series of new Unified Communications (UC) and collaboration offerings by Avaya and Microsoft, IT organizations have been prompted to evaluate their UC strategy. Microsoft promises to lower the overall Total Cost of Ownership (TCO) of a UC platform by leveraging an all-encompassing software powered communications environment integrated with its Microsoft Office™ suite through the release of Microsoft Lync, while Avaya introduces its newly released UC platform through Avaya Aura.

The purpose of this whitepaper is to clearly identify the comparisons between both provider’s UC offerings through a process of evaluating value that matter to IT organizations in selecting the right UC platform.

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Real-World IP Telephony: A Look at What Midsize and Large Companies Really Spend

nicholaslippis — Wed, 08 Jun 2011 02:41:40 +0000

By Robin Gareiss Nemertes Research

Although line shipments for IP telephony have outstripped TDM for some time, many organizations have not yet fully replaced their TDM phones. In fact, only 17% of companies have fully deployed the technology, and the bulk of those are small and midsize businesses. Larger organizations have rolled out the technology in a spotty manner where the TDM system is end-of-life, or other tactical reasons. IT organizations are evaluating the economics, plus desktop IP phones investment when people increasingly rely on mobile devices and soft clients.

Many others are re-evaluating the market as they solidify unified-communications plans and once again contemplate go-forward strategy for IPT. Will they use the same vendor(s)? Will they shift to a hosted- or managed-services model? And what is the true business case? Understanding the true costs is crucial to a successful business case—and a cost-effective implementation.

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Optimizing Mobility for the Enterprise

nicholaslippis — Tue, 03 May 2011 00:20:10 +0000

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.

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OpenScape Cloud Defines New UCaaS Market

nicholaslippis — Mon, 11 Apr 2011 23:22:07 +0000

The UC market is rapidly moving toward a cloud service for the small to medium business (SMB) market, thanks to Siemens Enterprise Communications and others offering powerful communications and office productivity software delivered as a service. Cloud services offer the SMB market with some of the same IT services that large enterprises enjoy, but without the complexity and cost. For example, Siemens has been working with Google to offer its OpenScape Cloud Service that integrates features into Google applications, like click to call/conference, etc. In this Lippis Report podcast, I talk with Paul McMillan, Director UC Technical Vision & Strategy at Siemens Enterprise Communications, about the SMB market and how its OpenScape Cloud Services is offering new, innovative solutions that allows these firms to be more competitive and agile.

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Cisco Unified Network Services: Overcome Obstacles to Cloud-Ready Deployments

nicholaslippis — Tue, 01 Mar 2011 00:04:30 +0000

By Cisco Systems

Deploying network services in virtual data centers is extremely challenging. Traditionally, such Layer 4 through 7 services relied on intrusive, inline deployment and static network topologies. They were thus completely at odds with highly scalable virtual data center designs with mobile workloads, on-demand virtual machine (VM) provisioning, and strict service-level agreements (SLAs).

Cisco® Unified Network Services (UNS) addresses all of these problems by creating a framework for multiple services that can be configured and provisioned on demand, dynamically, to suit the service needs of enterprise applications and cloud users. This dramatically reduces network management overhead, allowing for a much more agile data center and business while providing improved application performance and a secure infrastructure. Cisco UNS comprises Cisco’s industry-leading solutions for virtual data centers that deliver.

● Load balancing and application controllers
● WAN acceleration
● Network security
● Network analysis and monitoring

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Announcing New 10/40GbE DC Industry Evaluation: Spring 2011

nicholaslippis — Wed, 23 Feb 2011 02:31:57 +0000

I am happy to announce the availability of our second round of industry data center switching performance and power consumption test evaluating 10/40GbE fabrics.   

Test week is scheduled for April 4-8, 2011. Equipment suppliers have until end of day PT March 11, 2011 to signup, but don’t wait until then, as test slots will be gone. There are only a few test spots available as we have received a number of commitments already.   

The test prospectus can be downloaded HERE detailing logistics, test methodology, schedule, test result promotion and FAQs.     

The Spring 2011 test report license agreement is available too. Please request a copy by sending email to nick@lippis.com with “license agreement” in the subject.

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Cisco Re-defines Networking with Its Unified Network Services

nicholaslippis — Tue, 01 Feb 2011 02:01:38 +0000

Adding new applications in a data center has become highly complex thanks to routing paths set-up to provide connectivity/reach of Layer 4-7 network services and their associated configuration and policy set-up for specific applications. Then, once the application is operational it’s hard to virtualize it and move it via v-motion while keeping set-up and policies intact especially routing paths. This is a difficult problem riddled with complexity and associated cross-administrative operational cost limiting the number of applications that can be virtualized. A fundamental new approach to networking is needed to solve this and Cisco has been thinking about it for some time now. In this Lippis Report podcast I talk with Gary Kinghorn Product Marketing Manager Data Center Solutions Marketing at Cisco Systems as we discuss Cisco’s Unified Network Services strategy.

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You’re Invited To View The Lippis/Ixia Test Results Scheduled Feb 1, at noon ET in HD Live Internet Video

nicholaslippis — Wed, 19 Jan 2011 16:39:26 +0000

Due to larger than expected demand we have exceeded the capacity of the HD internet video system and have to move the event to a WebEx web conferencing system. My apologies but you will have to re-register with WebEx PLEASE CLICK HERE

An Industry Network Performance and Power Consumption Evaluation of 10 GbE Data Center Fabric Switches

Testing week was December 6-10th. Since then we’ve been analyzing data, graphing and writing the report in an effort to bring you the results. Mark your calendar for February 1, 2011, at high noon ET, but register here http://bit.ly/ibQ9vW now to view the test results in live HD video streamed over the internet. Register now to see Nick Lippis present the results of the industry’s first open Network Performance and Power Consumption Evaluation of 10 GbE Data Center Fabric Switches. You don’t want to buy data center switching equipment until you have seen the results.

Included in the presentation are Lippis Report test data from the Ixia iSimCity lab in Santa Clara, CA, on the following products:

Alcatel-Lucent OmniSwitch 10K
Arista 7504 Series Data Center Switch
IBM BNT RackSwitch G8124
IBM BNT RackSwitch G8264
Force10 S-Series S4810
Hitachi Cable Apresia 15000-64XL-PSR
Juniper Network EX Series EX8216 Ethernet Switch
Voltaire® Vantage 6048

This is the first time these products have been tested in a public evaluation. It is our hope that we can remove performance, power consumption and latency concerns from the purchase decision, allowing IT business leaders to focus on other purchase considerations in their data center switching procurements.

See you there, Nick

Event Registration Online for 10GbE Private/Public Data Center Cloud Network Fabric Test Results

Hitachi Cable’s Apresia 15000-64XL-PSR 10GbE Switch At The Lippis/Ixia iSimCity Evaluation

nicholaslippis — Tue, 18 Jan 2011 04:47:43 +0000

Hitachi Cable’s brings its first ever-public tested Apresia 15000-64XL-PSR 10GbE switch to the Lippis/Ixia test at iSimCity were we test all 64 10GbE links for performance and power consumption. The Apresia 15000 series was developed under the new BoxCore concept for improving network efficiency by using box switches as Core switches to fulfill customers’ satisfaction. Nick Lippis interviews Junpei Watanabe, Manager Marketing and Business Development for Hitachi Cable on data center switching and cloud network design with Hitachi Cable’s Apresia 15000-64XL-PSR 10GbE switch. Go here to download the Lippis/Ixia Test Report of the Apresia 15000-64XL-PSR Switch.

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Nick Lippis and Michael Githens Explain The Lippis Report Test Methodology

nicholaslippis — Tue, 18 Jan 2011 04:29:26 +0000

Michael Githens, Lab Program Manager at Ixia and Nick Lippis Industry Analyst/Consultant and publisher of the Lippis Report discuss the Lippis Report Test Methodology used to develop the industry’s Data Center Switching Benchmarks.

THE LIPPIS REPORT AND IXIA STAGE OPEN NETWORKING PERFORMANCE AND POWER TESTS FOR PUBLIC AND PRIVATE DATA CENTER CLOUDS

nicholaslippis — Thu, 02 Dec 2010 15:44:12 +0000

Ixia’s iSimCity hosts Lippis Report series of 10 GE tests to provide first comparative data on 10 GEswitch performance and power consumption

Calabasas, CA, December 02, 2010 –Ixia (NASDAQ: XXIA), a leading, global provider of converged IP network test solutions, today announced that it has teamed with Nick Lippis of the Lippis Report to sponsor a series of open industry data center network performance and power consumption tests. The goal of the tests is to provide the industry with comparative performance and power consumption data across several 10Gigabit Ethernet (GE) switch providers using Ixia’s breakthrough Xcellon-Flex™ load modules.
This test will be the first of its kind, as it will provide network stakeholders with real-world data that compares and contrasts different 10 GE equipment manufacturer products for data center fabrics.Several network equipment manufacturers will participate in this industry-first demonstration, including Alcatel-Lucent, Apresia, Arista, BLADE Network Technologies, Force 10 Networks,Juniper Networks, and Voltaire. The testing,which is taking place at Ixia’s iSimCity location in Santa Clara,will use Ixia’s Xcellon-Flex load modules to evaluate the performance of the participating vendors’ top-of-the-line 10 GE data center devices.
The networking industry is ramping up to build private and public cloud infrastructure, but IT architects do not currently have comparative 10 GEswitch performance information to assist them in product differentiation and critical purchase decisions. Today’s data center Ethernet fabric network design implementationsrequire lowlatency, high performance under north-south andeast-west flows, low power consumption,with theminimum number of network tiers. There are currently no broad industry 10 GE comparative modular switch performance results to ensure these specifications are met. The joint Lippis and Ixia test with the participating vendors providesan industry benchmark.
This series of tests will be the first to adhere to the Alliance for Telecommunications Industry Solutions (ATIS) telecommunications energy efficiency ratio (TEER) standards. The ATIS TEER standardisa uniform methodology to measure equipment power, and specifies energy efficient ratios for telecommunications equipment. The TEER rating considers the equipment’s type, network location, and classification (such as core, transport or access). This comprehensive assessment provides a more precise measurement of equipment’s energy efficiency.
Ixia’sXcellon-Flex product line utilizes multi-core CPUs and substantial amounts of high speed memory, providing flexible processing power to meet the challenges of testing today’s and tomorrow’s ultra-high scale network equipment. Xcellon-Flex, combined with Ixia’s XM12 chassis, provides the industry’s highest port density for testing data center technologies.
In 2008, Ixia opened its executive briefing center and proof-of-concept (PoC) lab, adjacent to its sales and services offices in Santa Clara, California. iSimCity was designed from the ground up to serve multiple functions for customers and visitors.iSimCity’s goal is to help enterprise, equipment vendors and carriers use extreme scale test beds to validate scaled equipment performance and deployment models. Ixia helps by making available expertise, methodologies and hardware to lessen the demands on in-house resources.

Resources:

• For more on Ixia’s test solutions, see their solutions page.
• For more on Ixia’s Xcellon™ family of load modules, see the Xcellon product page.
• For more information on the Lippis Report, see http://lippisreport.com/.
• The test prospectus can be downloaded here, and details logistics, test methodology, schedule, test result promotion, and FAQs.

About Ixia
Ixia is a leading provider of converged IP performance test systems and service verification platforms for wireless and wired infrastructures and services. Ixia’s test systems are used by network and telephony equipment manufacturers, semiconductor manufacturers, service providers, governments and enterprises to validate the performance and reliability of complex networks, devices and applications. Ixia’s multiplay test systems address the growing need to test voice, video and data services and network capability under real-world conditions.

About the Lippis Report
Mr. Nick Lippis is a world-renowned authority on corporate computer networking. He has designed some for the largest computer networks in the world. He has advised many Global 2000 firms on network strategy, architecture, equipment, services and implementation including Hughes Aerospace, Barclays Bank, Kaiser Permanente, Eastman Kodak Company, Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC), Liberty Mutual, Schering-Plough, Sprint, Cisco Systems, Avaya and a wide range of other equipment suppliers and service providers.

Ixia and the Ixia four-petal logo are registered trademarks or trademarks of Ixia. Other trademarks are the property of their respective owners.

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Access Control Security Best Practices for the HP Wired Infrastructure

nicholaslippis — Mon, 01 Nov 2010 22:44:21 +0000

By HP Networking

Securing your LAN network infrastructure is challenging. Factors such as cost, network instability, risk of breach and ease of implementation all play an equal part in making the right decision to retrofit an insecure, albeit functional, LAN. This white paper outlines approaches to securing the network that we, at HP, know work, in addition to providing information about what we know does not work. Getting all of the correct pieces to fit together is not so easy, so we have also provided the necessary configuration specifics to help with securing some of those devices connected to your network that you may have forgotten about, such as network printers, VoIP phones and security cameras.

Find out how by downloading this white paper:

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Extreme’s Next Generation Gigabit Ethernet Switches Offer New Network Design Options

nicholaslippis — Tue, 26 Oct 2010 18:15:26 +0000

Gigabit Ethernet networking has expanded to desktop connections in campus networking and to dense server connectivity in data centers. In short gigabit Ethernet has become mainstream with multiple use cases driving its growth. But a new generation of gigabit Ethernet switches is needed to satisfy market demands with attributes such as PoE-Plus, stacking, data center cooling, power efficiency and more. It’s these attributes and more that Extreme is delivering with its new Summit X460 Gigabit Ethernet switch. I talk with Darius Goodall, Senior Manager Product Marketing at Extreme Networks about the Summit X460 and the new network designs it enables.

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An Open Industry Network Performance Test Evaluating 10 Gigabit Ethernet Switching Prospectus

nicholaslippis — Tue, 12 Oct 2010 20:41:43 +0000

Our industry is ramping up to build private and public cloud infrastructure, but IT architects do not have comparative 10Gigabit Ethernet Switch performance information to assist them in purchase decisions and product differentiation. New data center Ethernet fabric network design requires low latency, high performance under north-south plus east-west flows, low power consumption and minimum number of network tiers. During past industry cycles open industry tests contributed to growing the network market by shortening sales cycles due to the elimination of IT departments conducting internal performance test. In addition, performance question obstacles were eliminated during the sales cycle thanks to reliable industry data being available, speeding up market adoption. This was true in the LAN plus bridge/router industry battles as well as every major Ethernet switch evolution. There is no broad industry comparative 10GE modular switch performance test available.

Lippis Enterprises has developed a series of open industry performance tests and teamed with Ixia for their execution. The goal of the test is to provide the industry with comparative performance test data across all 10Gigabit Ethernet switch providers. While the main test is focused on modular switching products, fixed configuration switches are welcome too. The final test report will profile each supplier and segment products based upon modular or fixed configuration.

Download the prospectus now and sign up while there’s still room

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XMediusFAX & Microsoft Exchange Server Integration

nicholaslippis — Tue, 05 Oct 2010 12:28:13 +0000

By Sagemcom

This paper focuses on FAX within Microsoft environments, specifically Exchange UM—a key application within the larger sphere of UC. We clarify how faxing is implemented in environments where Microsoft infrastructure solutions including Exchange, UM and OCS are involved. Although Microsoft OCS provides users with a rich set of UC functions such as presence, chat, e-mail, voice mail and other capabilities, the sending and receiving of faxes using T.38 is currently not supported. This document provides guidelines to circumvent this known limitation.

Find out how by downloading this paper.

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HP’s Networking Vision

nicholaslippis — Tue, 05 Oct 2010 12:23:01 +0000

Before HP purchased 3Com it would seldom engage in discussion about the future of networking. It was product focused. But now in an exclusive interview with Mr. Saar Gillai, Vice President of Advanced Technology Group & CTO of HP Networking, HP opens up and talks freely about industry trends it’s watching and most importantly influencing. These trends are guiding HP investment in networking with hopes of market share gain, thought leadership and increased industry influence. It’s a fascinating interview into the mind of HP Networking.

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HP’s Intensified Networking & Communications Focus Explained

nicholaslippis — Mon, 13 Sep 2010 14:10:45 +0000

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

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How Direct Attach from Extreme Networks Reduces Tiers in the Data Center

nicholaslippis — Tue, 24 Aug 2010 16:56:42 +0000

By Extreme Networks

A typical “non-virtualized” data center has three network layers, Top-of-Rack, End-of-Row and Core switches. But virtualized infrastructure adds two additional layers; the virtual switch and blade switch, raising the number of tiers from 3 to 5. This significantly increases latency plus the number of network elements within the data center resulting in increased data center management complexity.

Extreme Networks® Direct AttachTM eliminates the virtual switch layer, simplifying the network and improving performance. Extreme Networks high density BlackDiamond® 8800 series switches with 8900-series modules further enable data center simplification by utilizing high density blades and cabling to eliminate the blade switch, thereby reducing the number of tiers in the data center from 5 to 3.

Find out how by downloading this white paper:

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Moving to IP Saves Costs, Boosts Productivity

nicholaslippis — Tue, 13 Jul 2010 23:50:17 +0000

By Cisco Systems

The Cisco® Unified Communications Manager Session Management Edition integrates multivendor private branch exchanges into one network and centralizes applications. The Cisco Unified Border Element works with it to route traffic on secure cost-saving Session Initiation Protocol trunks. Together they help workers around the world achieve higher productivity through high-performance collaboration tools.

Find out how by downloading this white paper

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A Modern Approach To FAX Management Via Unified Communications

nicholaslippis — Thu, 01 Jul 2010 01:21:55 +0000

Unified communications is becoming an integration point for traditional dial tone, FAX, video and messaging as it adds increased access and functionality to these important forms of communications. Sagemcom is by far the industry leader in IP FAX, having successfully integrated FAX capability into Cisco, Avaya, Alcatel-Lucent and Microsoft’s UC platforms. Its’ XmediusFAX has proven to reduced cost, increase access and security of FAX communications. In this Lippis Report podcast, I talk with Bob Wood, Executive Director at Sagemcom, about how FAX communications can be integrated into the UC platform of your choice and the business outcomes it delivers.

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Siemens Changes UC Market with OpenScape UC Server 2010

nicholaslippis — Tue, 15 Jun 2010 01:17:00 +0000

The Unified Communications (UC) market is changing significantly in terms of how solutions are deployed, services are packaged and systems procured. Siemens addressed all of these areas in one fell swoop with the recently released OpenScape UC Server 2010. Siemens announced new licensing options for endpoints and integrated UC endpoint services in packaged solutions including social media plug-ins such as Twitter. Kathy Heilmann, Director, Large Enterprise Voice and UC Solutions Marketing at Siemens Enterprise Communications joined me to talk about the new rules of UC procurement and its value to IT business leaders.

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Unified Communications: Unleashing Transformation, Efficiency, Collaboration and Compliance

nicholaslippis — Mon, 31 May 2010 22:18:05 +0000

By Aberdeen Group

With so many potential points of contact: desk phones, soft phones, voice messaging, e-mail, video conferencing, texting, social media, mobile devices etc., how can we ever actually be reached within a reasonable timeframe? How does UC transform an organization’s communications infrastructure, improve efficiency, optimize work processes, and provide for business continuity and compliance? To find out, in February and March 2010, Aberdeen Group surveyed 184 organizations in more then 28 countries around the world. This paper is the result of that effort.

Find out what Aberdeen learned by downloading this whitepaper.

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Managing The Transition To Software Centric Communications

nicholaslippis — Mon, 31 May 2010 22:14:07 +0000

By GreenSpring Partners

New communications capabilities have been introduced over the past decade which permit the integration of multi-modal communications (voice, fax, email, and instant messaging, to name a few) within the fabric of modern corporations. Specifically, the opportunities for integration have come in three waves. The first, which is well under way, is the replacement of stand -alone digital voice systems with new communications systems that integrate voice traffic into the IP corporate network. The second wave is the integration of diverse communication applications into a unified communications framework. Formerly, stand -alone applications can integrate with each other and permit users to tap the productivity enhancements of staying connected no matter which device or which communication mode is being used. The third wave is to take advantage of standards based communications applications and interfaces to integrate communication applications into core business processes and applications.

This White Paper reviews the growing risks associated with staying in the digital communications environment, and the opportunities and services support available for making the migration to converged IP Network unified communications. Download it now.

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Meet the Challenge of Scaling Application Performance for the Global Organization

nicholaslippis — Mon, 31 May 2010 22:10:11 +0000

By Cisco Systems

Typically, data centers have been built over time, with servers added as they are needed. This process has resulted in server sprawl, increasing power and cooling costs, and created challenges in management and security. To meet their requirements, organizations are employing virtualization on a broad scale on servers centralized in the data center. However, server platform and virtualization address only one part of the problem for the global organization. Not only does application complexity put a burden on the server resources, but applications increase the burden on the WAN. With a widely distributed user base, organizations must address the challenge of WAN performance if they are to deliver applications to remote users with an acceptable user experience. To meet this challenge, Cisco provides a solution to host applications and deliver them over the WAN while helping ensure the highest levels of scale and performance, enabling organizations to achieve their business initiatives.
Find out how by downloading this Cisco whitepaper.

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Siemens Delivers Virtualized Unified Communications with OpenScape UC Server 2010

nicholaslippis — Mon, 31 May 2010 22:02:51 +0000

In their recently released OpenScape UC Server 2010, Siemens has incorporated application virtualization allowing UC applications such as OpenScape Voice, OpenScape Branch, OpenScape Media Server etc., to load on standard compute hardware avoiding the installation, configuration and maintenance of running multiple complex software stacks, operating systems and applications. Paul McMillan, Director UC Technical Vision & Strategy at Siemens Enterprise Communications, joins me to talk about what virtualization in a UC environment delivers to IT business leaders as we dive into the details of UC Server 2010.
Find out by listening to this podcast.

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Unified Communications: A TECHNOLOGY AUDIT

nicholaslippis — Mon, 17 May 2010 21:52:11 +0000

By Butler Group

The Avaya Unified Communications portfolio brings together real-time and near-time communication mechanisms in a secure, intuitive, reliable environment, which enables employees to communicate more effectively using speech, IM, video, e-mail, voicemail, mobile, and portal. Butler Group particularly likes the industry-standard approach, which is crucial in this area, along with the scalability and robustness of the solution, enabling the solution to exploit the existing IT landscape, as well as integrate with existing desktop environments and enterprise applications. Unified Communications can benefit any size of company, with the offering scaling from 20 employees upwards. A key strength is the scalability and resilience of Avaya’s products, which make them particularly suitable for organizations that require enterprise-class solutions.

To learn more, download this paper from Butler Group.

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Virtualization for OpenScape UC Server 2010 and OpenScape UC Suite

nicholaslippis — Mon, 17 May 2010 21:46:02 +0000

By Siemens Enterprise Communications

This White Paper provides a comprehensive overview of the Virtualization plans for the Siemens Enterprise Communications OpenScape UC Server 2010 and for OpenScape UC Suite. Virtualization takes yet another step in our evolution to a pure software architecture and to match current and emerging strategies in the IT industry.
Siemens Enterprise continues to pursue Open Solutions for our customers and is using Open Virtualization Format (OVF) and Virtual-Appliance software-solution approach for platform-independent virtualization of all the products, and to deliver on our message of Open Communications. Siemens Enterprise continues to lead the evolution of real-time UC-based communications by delivering innovative and customer-centric solutions with measurable financial benefits.

Find out how by downloading this Siemens whitepaper.

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Avaya AuraTM New Architecture for Multimodal Self- Service and Routing

nicholaslippis — Tue, 04 May 2010 02:34:37 +0000

By opusresearch

Disparate modes call for disparate measures. Avaya’s new unified communications architecture, Avaya Aura, supports self-service (based on the Voice Portal) and intelligent routing over IP and hybrid networks. Cross-channel interactions are coordinated by a new “Session Manager” function. This white paper provides an analyst view of Avaya’s Aura architecture.

Read it now by downloading this paper.

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Cisco Medianet Readiness Assessment (MRA) Service

nicholaslippis — Mon, 19 Apr 2010 23:27:52 +0000

By Cisco Systems

The last decade has witnessed a rapid development of data and voice convergence over a common IP infrastructure. Now video is converging with data and voice traffic over a common IP network. Converging video with data and voice is more complex than converging data and voice: it demands more considerations, and it imposes stricter requirements on the underlying IP network. This paper reviews high-level requirements of a media-ready network and presents a high-level framework and systematic methodology to perform Medianet Readiness Assessment (MRA) on your enterprise network. It goes into detail on the methodology and process it takes to perform the assessment.

Find out how by downloading this paper

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A New SMB Market Phoenix Is Rising

nicholaslippis — Mon, 19 Apr 2010 23:22:39 +0000

By Forrester

History shows that small and medium-size businesses (SMBs) suffer less and recover faster from recessions than their large enterprise counterparts. This recession will prove to be no different. However, the small businesses that help catalyze the recovery this time around will be started by tech-savvy professionals who start their businesses with technology investments and a Millennial workforce that has grown up on mobile phones and social networks. Technology vendors that tap the emerging tech- savvy small-business market will come out of this recession much faster than those that follow historical patterns of relying mainly on spotty spending by large enterprise customers.

Find out how by downloading this paper.

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What is Holding UC Back?

nicholaslippis — Sun, 18 Apr 2010 21:45:16 +0000

This is the question that Zeus Kerravala, SVP of the Yankee Group and I address in the Lippis Report podcast. Here’s a hint, lack of standards and the vendor community’s lack of interest of embracing the ones we have. Post your ideas on twitter with the following hash mark #UCINTEROP.

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The End of the Overlay: Unified Networks Arrive

nicholaslippis — Mon, 05 Apr 2010 22:39:53 +0000

By Farpoint Group

Unified Networking is identified as one of the most important trends in enterprise networks, specifically, the eventual merger of wired and wireless LANs into simply the LAN. This tight integration of the wired and wireless LAN through integrated hardware, common operating system and unified management delivers compelling benefits to the enterprise, including lower TCO (Capex and Opex) through the elimination of redundant infrastructure, operational efficiency in the forms of increased uptime, visibility and improved security and finally a reduction in network administration, education and training costs.

To learn more, download the 3Com whitepaper.

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How Customer Intelligence Can Help Small Businesses Deliver Results

nicholaslippis — Mon, 22 Mar 2010 16:07:11 +0000

By Yankee Group

IP communications not only helps small- and mid-size businesses (SMBs) grow their business by providing easy-to-access customer intelligence, but it also reduces the cost of operations by helping businesses uncover critical data and act upon it. This is the biggest priority for SMBs over the next year, according to Yankee Group’s Anywhere Enterprise—SMB: 2009 U.S. Transforming Infrastructure and Transforming Applications Survey. Even in difficult economic climates, SMBs recognize the value that a deeper understanding of their customers and interactions between employees and customers can provide. It is all about how actionable customer intelligence can create a positive change for their business. Consequently, when SMBs are asked to name the biggest priority for their organization over the next year, the top three responses are: operational efficiencies, more customer focus and automating business processes, in that order. These priorities demand a new way of doing business, a new way to interact with customers and a new foundation.

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FAX Survivability Solutions

nicholaslippis — Mon, 22 Mar 2010 16:06:17 +0000

By Sagemcom

In today’s highly competitive and dynamic global business world, communication speed is critical to success as organizations must cost-efficiently process contracts, invoices, purchase orders, and other legally binding, mission-critical documents. Indeed, this is where the fundamental business value of fax is clear with its well-established wide ranging benefits including low costs, format insensitivity, ubiquity and global standardization as well as transport velocity, security, and general robustness. Any downtime associated with efficient fax communications can potentially adversely impact employee productivity, revenue, customer service, compliance processes, and even corporate reputation. In fact, according to Gartner, “the kinds of documents sent over fax servers are, if anything, even more mission-critical than ever”. This highlights the need for IT/network administrators, architects and business leaders to better understand the tradeoffs associated with different fax survivability solutions.

Find out how by downloading this white paper

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Scaling-out Ethernet for the Data Center

nicholaslippis — Mon, 15 Mar 2010 16:43:18 +0000

By Voltaire

Applying the scalability, effciency, and fabric virtualization capabilities of InfniBand to Converged Enhanced Ethernet (CEE).

These trends have signifcant impact on the fabric architecture of the data center. Fabrics must now support larger-scale Layer 2 (L2) networks since server virtualization and mobility, new storage protocols, and low latency messaging must reside on the same L2 domain. The new data center infrustracture must also be set to overcome the management complexity and address virtualization from the ground up.

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Cisco Launches AnyConnect Secure Mobility Solution

nicholaslippis — Wed, 10 Mar 2010 03:02:48 +0000

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.

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Real Security for Virtual Networks and Data Centers

nicholaslippis — Wed, 10 Mar 2010 02:50:27 +0000

By 3Com/H3C/TippingPoint

The same general benefits that enterprises derive from server and application virtualization—more efficient resource utilization, driving down deployment and management costs, and reducing network complexity— can also be realized through virtual networks. Additionally, network security components such as Intrusion Prevention Systems (IPSs) and firewalls can provide more sophisticated policy enforcement in the network fabric. Most enterprises have by now at least started to take advantage of data center virtualization to drive down the cost of application deployment and more efficiently use server resources. While the first step of virtualization usually happens in the application server, enterprises should also be thinking about ways to reduce hardware costs and management complexity by taking advantage of the same virtualization concepts in the design of their data center and campus networks.

Find out how by downloading this white paper.

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Avaya Announces Nortel Integration Road Map: Nortel Customers Protected, Nortel Channel Embraced

nicholaslippis — Wed, 10 Feb 2010 19:51:26 +0000

By IDC

This IDC Flash examines Avaya’s January 19, 2010, announcement of the road map for integration of Nortel into the Avaya portfolio of products and services. Avaya’s customers, and more especially those from Nortel Enterprise Solutions, have been anxiously — and in some cases fearfully — awaiting Avaya’s integration plans of the Nortel assets it purchased. To customers’ delight, Avaya has quickly laid out a comprehensive investment protection plan for legacy Nortel customers that ensures six years of support following any end-of-sale product. Its road map is consistent and clearly defined for each of its four business units (Unified Communications [UC], Contact Center, SME, and Data) as well as its services organization. The swiftness of completing these tasks, while necessary, is commendable and demonstrates to the market that Avaya’s “Protect, Extend, Grow” strategy is not a bait and switch tactic. The three-pronged approach is open standards driven and strives to allow customers on any legacy equipment — Nortel or otherwise — to evolve at their own pace.

Download IDC’s take on the Avaya roadmaps here.

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The Importance of Service and Support for Your Enterprise Network

nicholaslippis — Mon, 01 Feb 2010 23:51:06 +0000

3com offers a global support network for its customers that are staffed around the world. Their hallmark is flexibility in engagement arrangement and customization of support needs. Vendor transition and product support are two key aspects offered by 3Com so that risk of vendor transition is transferred to 3Com and not the customer. Service and support is needed more now then ever as data center and enterprise network design and deployments have become complex thanks to a plethora of new technologies and options. I discuss the Importance of service and support in enterprise networking with Imran Khan Vice President of Global Services at 3Com. Enjoy, Nick

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Sorry this paper is no longer available.

nicholaslippis — Tue, 15 Dec 2009 16:52:07 +0000

Borderless Networks Links

nicholaslippis — Mon, 02 Nov 2009 22:36:42 +0000

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

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3Com Extends Value Proposition to Large Enterprise Market With China Out Strategy

nicholaslippis — Mon, 02 Nov 2009 22:08:08 +0000

We decided to re-run this podcast interview with Ron Sege in light of HP’s intent to acquire 3Com.
Ron Sege, President and Chief Operating Officer of 3Com discusses its worldwide strategy, value proposition and how it plans to gain share and compete in the large enterprise market. 3Com has an entirely refreshed product line that spans switching, routing, security, wireless and unified communications and has been tested in large enterprise customers. 3Com is differentiating this product with cost advantage, total cost of ownership and services. Ron explains how 3Com survived the crash and is positioned to lead in the recovery as IT leaders’ buying patterns have shifted. It’s a fascinating discussion, enjoy. Nick

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A New Era in Branch Office Experience Emerges: Are You Ready?

Nick Lippis — Tue, 20 Oct 2009 01:36:48 +0000

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.

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Lippis on Borderless Networks

nicholaslippis — Tue, 20 Oct 2009 00:03:51 +0000

This short Lippis Vidcast is on Cisco’s Borderless Networks architecture and its ISR G2 launch.

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Virtualizing UC: Reaping the Benefits and Understanding the Issues for Real-Time Communications

nicholaslippis — Mon, 19 Oct 2009 22:56:12 +0000

By IDC

Virtualization and UC application migration onto the datacenter are happening side by side and create an interesting and challenging dilemma. Virtualization today is primarily being applied to traditional server-based applications with flexible minimum response times, low utilization rates, and low input/output requirements. The requirements are quite the opposite for real-time communications where application delay is not permitted. A disadvantage of virtualization has been that application efficiencies can be lost as the virtual machine accesses the hardware indirectly. This IDC white paper addresses the question: Can virtualization support real-time communications?

Find the answer by downloading this white paper.

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Cisco Launches A New Era In Borderless Branch Office IT

nicholaslippis — Mon, 19 Oct 2009 22:50:33 +0000

As businesses grow across borders, a new era in branch office IT is emerging, 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 assist business and IT leaders in reducing operational spend, get closer to customers, automate new streamlined business processes and position their firms for the current economic recovery, Cisco has launched the second generation of Integrated Services Routers (ISR G2), their flagship branch office solution for Borderless Networks. Shashi Kiran, Senior Manager Network Systems and Security of Cisco Systems discusses macro business trends and explores how these trends are creating a new era in enterprise networks.

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The Post Great Recession IT Industry Structure

nicholaslippis — Mon, 28 Sep 2009 23:19:57 +0000

Zeus Kerravala of Yankee joins me to discuss the post Great Recession IT industry structure. Our industry has dramatically consolidated over the past year and as the economy improves a new concentrated order is emerging filled with winners, losers and dark horses. Layer on top of macro economic caused shifts is new IT buying patters plus a new technology wave of virtualization and cloud computing which promises to alter IT delivery. We discuss Cisco, Nortel, Avaya, 3Com, Siemens, HP, IBM, Juniper, Force 10, Brocade, Arista Networks, Alcatel Lucent, Ruckus Wireless, Enterasys the potentially new JV between Cisco and EMC plus many others in this jam packed extended edition podcast. You may want to load this onto your ipod and listen to it coming or going to work. Enjoy.

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A Cloud based UC Model Emerges

Nick Lippis — Mon, 27 Apr 2009 17:10:41 +0000

In late March of 2009 Siemens Enterprise Communication announced a UC cloud service where it has placed its OpenScape Voice and UC applications on Amazon’s EC2 cloud infrastructure. This is significant and important as it’s the first time that a UC application is available in the cloud and offered in a SaaS model. This represents a new and fundamentally different channel to address the SMB market. The hope is that UC delivered as a SaaS offers a radically different delivery and price model and may very well be the model enterprises have been waiting for to consume UC on a massive scale. Paul McMillan Director of UC Technical Vision & Strategy at Siemens Communications is my guest as we talk about UC in the cloud and offered as a SaaS.

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Lippis Report 124: Re-thinking Wide Area Network Design

Nick Lippis — Tue, 21 Apr 2009 21:08:48 +0000

There are multiple business and technology trends that are now interacting and forcing IT planners to rethink their wide area network (WAN) design. The macroeconomic downturn has proven once and for all that business and its processes are global. With economic globalization and the current turbulence people are required to collaborate more closely, more frequently and across greater distances, more so than at any other point in time. At the same time IT leaders have been consolidating IT service delivery into data centers as well as consolidating their number of data centers. Data center consolidation offers large economic efficiency but places greater distance between data, applications and end-users, putting great strain on application performance. Corporate green initiatives have driven up the number of home and mobile workers to the point that 15% of traffic flows to and from mobile workers and data centers. Adding more pressure, WANs have historically been designed in a piecemeal fashion with little to no regard for delivering consistent WAN Services among sites.

How Unified Communications Can Help You Achieve HARD Dollar Savings in a Difficult Economy

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Add heightened security plus compliance requirements to new applications such as web 2.0, video conferencing, mobility, etc., and the result is unprecedented demands on the WAN to keep a corporation productive. At a time when WAN performance needs to be optimized and tuned as carefully as Local Area Networks (LANs) performance, it is unfortunately more difficult than ever to accomplish. These trends, if not addressed, will invariably negatively impact application performance and corporate productivity, especially among WAN-connected branch offices, larger corporate sites and data centers as 41% of network traffic now flows to and from branch offices.

Cisco’s WAN Advantage

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Increased traffic load, application load, collaboration, distance, separation of data and applications and security/compliance requirements are all dynamics that are completely altering the design requirements for the WAN. To address these dynamics, IT leaders need to deploy consistent WAN Services so that tuning/controlling/optimizing of WAN Services and applications across all sites connected via the WAN are performed uniformly, saving both time and money while increasing corporate value. Having consistency in application optimization, collaboration, and security allows WAN services among corporate sites, large and small, to combine to form a WAN Advantage that enables business and IT leaders to boost collaboration throughout their business, strengthen security, speed access to data and ideas, optimize application performance end-to-end, and ultimately cut operating costs. In this Research Note we focus on the WAN Edge that connects branches to larger sites and datacenters; however the concepts and subsequent principles can be applied to other corporate WAN areas.

Optimizing Branch Office Network Infrastructure Total Cost of Ownership with Cisco Integrated Services Routers

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WANs Slow To Keep Pace

Wide area bandwidth has not kept pace with the rapid advance of LAN bandwidth and application demand where wide area connections are often at least one to two orders of magnitude (10 to 100 times) slower than the LANs they connect. This bandwidth mismatch is the root cause of slow application response time and poor voice and video user experience. In addition to WAN bandwidth, WAN Service delivery has also been slow to keep pace. To defend against security breaches, optimize application performance plus gain the benefits of unified communications and collaboration IT leaders have been forced to deploy a series of appliances in each branch office thanks to a lack of common WAN Service delivery options. Deficits in WAN bandwidth and service delivery increase complexity, which drives up life-cycle management cost and makes IT service delivery difficult.

ROI Success Story: Siemens Drives Cost Efficiencies & Employee Productivity Up With OpenScape Unified Communications Solution

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Nowhere is the deficit in WAN bandwidth and services more acute than in connecting branch offices to larger corporate sites and datacenters, as the complexity it creates is magnified. This magnification is due to the fact that branches are widely distributed over large geographic areas resulting in a lack of WAN bandwidth consistency, meaning that some branch offices may connect at broadband speeds while others use frame relay; still others use MPLS or private lines, etc., while WAN Service appliances pile up in each branch. While IT leaders have limited control over WAN bandwidth provisioned by telecom service providers they do have total control over WAN Service delivery, which in turn exploits and manages WAN bandwidth. In short, WAN Service management is the key to complexity reduction and the basis for new thinking in WAN design.

WAN Advantage: New Thinking in Branch Office and WAN Edge Design plus Services

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Essential WAN Services

WAN design thinking is focusing on a set of common WAN Services available in both branch office and WAN aggregation routers, which are typically located within data center and larger corporate sites. This consistency in the WAN Services phase is akin to LAN evolution, maturity and value.

Thanks to WAN Services, WAN performance can approach that of LANs. There may not be a single WAN physical service such as ethernet any time soon but just as multi-protocol routing simplified LANs so too will WAN Services as it manages and masks the inconsistencies in different wide area facilities and injects value. In short WAN Services provide a set of logical components that rationalize a messy WAN world and replace it with user experience consistency and uniformed IT management and security.

How Should an Enterprise Move Toward Unified Communications?

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To bring the discussion down to product level, it’s Cisco’s ISR and ASR 1000, 3Com’s 5000 and 6000, Juniper’s J and M Series, HP ProCurve’s 7000dl Series and others which offer the promise of consistent WAN Services. Of the above list only a few offer routers, which deliver consistent WAN Services at the branch office and the Enterprise WAN edge/aggregation respectively, thanks to a shared common software code enabling these routers to collaborate via protocol exchanges across the wide area. Part of this common WAN Services software code is based upon standards such as IPSec, SSL, MPLS, SIP (Session Initiation Protocol), Real Time Protocol (RTP), etc., while other aspects are company specific such as Cisco’s GET-VPN which simplifies the provisioning and management of VPN.

While there are a growing number of WAN Services we’ll focus on the three most important or essential ones, those being security, unified communications and WAN optimization that support the above WAN requirements.

Network/IT Security: To readily adapt to new business requirements, reduce qualification time for new deployments, proactively monitor and provide pervasive integrated security services, meet and comply with federal or industry regulations requiring confidential communications, ASR 1000, for example, can be deployed as a Secure WAN Aggregation router with integrated firewall, IPsec encryption and a wide range of VPN termination options.

Unified Communications Video and Telepresence: The WAN requires increased collaboration frequency over larger distances to support unified communication (UC) plus video, and telepresence services. There are specific WAN Services that ensure the user UC and video experience remains excellent even while other applications compete for WAN resources and/or during network disruption such as backhoe fade, etc.

WAN Optimization: WAN optimization is a WAN Service that is embedded as a series of application optimization features/functions within branch and WAN aggregation routers that strive to deliver local drive response time to applications that are delivered over the WAN. WAN optimization services include WAN optimization and traffic classification.

There are more WAN Services such as mobility and others to come over the next business cycle. The value WAN Services delivers is rooted in the fact that WAN Services are logical components embedded into the wide area simplifying IT operations, accelerating the absorption of innovation and delivering end-user performance consistently independent of their physical location.

The New WAN Advantage

Old World WAN

Traditionally, connecting branch offices to larger corporate facilities and data centers has been implemented in a piecemeal fashion, meaning that most IT organizations have not architected or designed the WAN Edge as a holistic solution. For these firms, branch office WAN connections are a mixture of disparate transport services, their routers have little to no WAN Service consistent with headquarter and data center aggregation routers while the branch offices are populated with special purpose WAN Services appliances. This lack of planning results in much higher IT capital and operational spend. But more troubling is that poor business performance results, thanks to inconsistent application performance and branch IT delivery difficulty especially of new collaboration services and tools.

New World WAN Advantage

The new approach to WAN design is based upon business initiatives and user experience expectations independent of geographic location. This shift from piecemeal to end-to-end design considers secure access to corporate data, applications, people, ideas, etc., from anywhere. This approach requires a comprehensive, cohesive WAN design with end-to-end support for services because after all, a network delivers applications and application performance governs a user’s experience and productivity.

The new WAN delivers a consistent user experience in the same way as LANs do, by switches and routers offering a common set of LAN services. For the new WAN, considerations of WAN bandwidth plus a common set of WAN Services between branch and aggregation routers delivered end-to-end can result in consistent user experience. This is primarily achieved through a common set of tools that provide network operations with access to tune/tweak/optimization/configure/etc., WAN Services throughout branch offices and aggregation sites so that a user’s experience is the same, independent of location, LAN and/or WAN. With well over 6 million Cisco ISRs in production and most firms running sophisticated applications and services in the branch, it’s only logical that these ISRs be terminated at an aggregation router over the WAN equipped with common WAN Services to achieve a WAN Advantage.

Recommendations

The following recommendations are offered which focus specifically on WAN Services at the WAN Edge. Consider the following:

Nonstop Forwarding To Boost Redundancy/Availability: Consider redundancy and fail-over capability across switching, routing, tunneling, WAN access, etc. With new services such as UC and video being massively adopted, convergence time or the time to recover from a WAN transport outage needs to occur within tens of milliseconds.
Consistent WAN Optimization and Performance Routing: Consider the consistent implementation of WAN optimization and performance routing between branch and aggregation routing.
VPN and WAN Scalability: Consider scale when designing a WAN that connects a large number of branch offices into a set of aggregation routers. Scale such as bandwidth and VPN support can be limiting factors. Aggregation router VPN service in particular should scale up toward 20,000 tunnels to support multiple VPNs per branch as well as mobile users.
Consider Integrated Management: Consider network management that integrates WAN Services configuration, troubleshooting, fault isolation as well as security management including threat reporting and compliance reporting. Management that provides constant audits to ensure QoS should be considered as well, as a means to monitor application performance.
Consistent Application of QoS/Encryption/Security Across Routers and Tunnels: Consider consistency of services across different branches especially with QoS, security, routing and switching. Ensure that security policy enforcement is the same at headquarters, data centers and branch levels.
Confidentiality And Integrity: As aggregation routers support widely geographically distributed branch offices and mobile users, confidentiality and integrity are important security attributes to be considered as part of the WAN security service. Confidentiality ensures that only authorized individuals, processes, or systems have access to information. Identification, authentication, and authorization through access controls maintain information confidentiality. Encrypting information also supports confidentiality by limiting information usability in the event it is viewed while encrypted. Integrity means that information should be protected from intentional, unauthorized, or accidental changes.

How Should an Enterprise Move Toward Unified Communications?

Nick Lippis — Tue, 21 Apr 2009 20:54:33 +0000

By Avaya

There is no single strategy to ensure that enterprises will move forward with unified communications since each customer has a unique set of needs and existing infrastructure. Avaya understands this and moves customers toward unified communications to support complex and flexible work environments. The consultative process begins with a business assessment to understand the communication patterns within the organization, and to identify where business processes slow or bog down. To identify opportunities for unified communications, business processes should be evaluated to identify where latencies exist due to human interaction and communication.

This white paper offers proven strategies for UC implementation that are business process driven. Find out how by downloading this paper.

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ROI Success Story: Siemens Drives Cost Efficiencies & Employee Productivity Up With OpenScape Unified Communications Solution

Nick Lippis — Tue, 21 Apr 2009 20:52:06 +0000

By Mainstay Partners

In 2007 Siemens Enterprise Communications deployed its OpenScape UC Server at its own offices to both reap its benefits and measure costs. Siemens commissioned an internal business case analysis, which concluded that the project could cut communications costs by up to 30%, saving millions each year. In less than six months Siemens deployed OpenScape UC Server at its North American operations, linking 21 offices and connecting more than 1,900 employees, including some 500 home-based teleworkers. To quantify the benefits post deployment, Siemens asked independent advisory firm Mainstay Partners to conduct a financial assessment of the project.

This white paper contains Mainstay’s findings of $35.5m in cost savings and productivity gain. Download it now.

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WAN Advantage: New Thinking in Branch Office and WAN Edge Design plus Services

Nick Lippis — Tue, 21 Apr 2009 20:50:58 +0000

By Nick Lippis, Lippis Consulting

Along with a turbulent macroeconomic cycle comes business rationalization and in networking the wide area offers a unique opportunity to deliver value both in terms of operational efficiency and business initiative alignment. Advances in network-embedded, software-based WAN Services such as security, unified communications (UC) and WAN optimization are starting to deliver the same type of application experience and management tools to control application performance that was once only available over the LAN. But the wide area network has been pieced together usually site by site without a comprehensive plan. This lack of planning is most acute in branch-office-to-WAN and data center connections as geographically distributed branches are connected with inconsistent WAN Services and indigenous WAN transport. IT planners are being offered an opportunity to implement a common set of WAN Services embedded within routers such as UC, WAN optimization, security etc., between branch, headquarter and data center sites which promises to lower operational spend, align business initiatives and policy while delivering Local Area Networks (LANs) like application performance. This paper presents a strategy for common WAN Services embedded in routers connecting branch offices to data centers and larger corporate sites that speed up workflow and business process for all employees independent of geographic location.

Learn about UC architecture by downloading this white paper.

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Lippis Report 123: The Future of UC Is In Social & Collaboration Applications

Nick Lippis — Tue, 07 Apr 2009 20:30:45 +0000

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.

What’s Next For Unified Communications?

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It wasn’t too long ago that UC was touted as a better way to access a broad range of communication applications such as voice, IM, video, email, etc. Vendors such as Microsoft’s Office Communicator, Cisco’s Unified Personal Communicator, Avaya’s One-X, Siemens OpenScape Desktop Client et al., will be of increasingly little use as standalone products. Even as these UC clients go mobile they will fall short of user experience expectations. As communications is now firmly in the grips of Moore’s Law and software economics, the rate of change and level of integration is accelerating at a frantic pace.

Force10 Expands Its Data Center Networking Portfolio

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There are multiple trends building upon each other with such force as to morph UC into social networking and collaboration Web 2.0 applications. Social networking tools such as Facebook and Twitter have jumped from consumer internet services to business tools. There is a cottage industry of start-ups that are creating innovative approaches to capturing an individual’s social grid and interface it into contact centers so as to better up- and cross-sell. Yes there are interesting Facebook, Google and/or LinkedIn pop-ups that extend caller ID to a screen pop, complete with a caller’s profile and even search your email for relevant past exchanges with the caller, all aimed at increasing user experience.

Communications in a Difficult Economy

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Then there are corporate-based social networking platforms such as SocialText which add security and journaling to social media tools. Whether UC is added to consumer social and collaboration tools or to enterprise grade applications is irrelevant; both are occurring and both activities will only accelerate. The growth and level of communications enabled by social networking and collaboration tools is unparalleled and represents a new approach to human interaction that needs to be captured and put to work within enterprises. We are in the midst of a great experimental phase of how best to achieve this integration. The meeting at VoiceCon offered only a glimpse of this progress.

Mobility Without Complexity: Four Tips to Prepare Your LAN for 802.11n

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Collaboration platforms such as IBM Lotus Sametime is very popular and its growth has not waned during the economic downturn. In fact IBM’s LotusLive cloud collaboration for inter-company collaboration is one of the fastest growing IBM products. Sametime is a great example of how a UC has been integrated into a collaboration suite and improves the user experience. IBM’s mash-up hub application lets users create their own mash-ups with a Sametime call widget, again increasing the user experience and control over that experience.

Accelerating Unified Communications with an Enterprise-Wide Architecture

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Siemens is in an interesting position as its OpenScape is an integral part of IBM’s Sametime. Siemens introduced its Cloud UC service built upon Amazon’s Elastic Compute Cloud (EC2) to offer the SMB market UC in a SaaS model. One can imagine that with OpenScape and Sametime in the Amazon cloud a SMB would have access to the same tools and user experience that only large firms could once afford. Therein lies the beauty of UC being integrated into collaboration suites and offered as a cloud service. Price points are smashed along with a total disruption of the SMB channel to market.

Can Collaboration Deliver a $100 Billion Stimulus Package in 2009?

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Cisco has been busy integrating UC into a wide range of collaboration tools too. It has integrated its unified personal communicator client into its Unified MeetingPlace and WebEx platforms. I expect to see UC integrated into its recently acquired Jabber IM service and Telepresence platform too.

Avaya introduced its Aura™ platform, which seeks to clean up and rationalize legacy voice and VoIP communications into a SIP platform. Two important aspects of Aura™ are that 1) it’s a new design that takes cost out of communications by reducing WAN, equipment and operational spend; and 2) it offers a UC integration into applications platforms. In short Aura™ should pay for itself within twelve months and pay dividends as communications is embedded into applications, especially social networking and collaboration applications.

But the above examples are just snapshots of a broader and bigger vision of how UC will be integrated into Web 2.0-based social and collaboration tools.

Zeus Kerravala, Yankee Group SVP discusses the benefits of Avaya Aura™ with Avaya Vice President, Jorge Blanco

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Envision a corporate Facebook-like user interface that is self populated with an employee’s profile, complete with past and current projects, their skills and relationships to both internal and external resources. Employees can join groups modeled after traditional organizational lines of command such as finance, HR, manufacturing, engineering, sales, etc. But more importantly, imagine these groups being cross-functional and based upon projects or product development where sales, engineering, marketing, manufacturing, etc., collaborate to move a product through its phase review process. Employees would populate the groups with work product, placing a huge body of work or information into the collaboration space. So imagine that over time three entities would emerge: people, groups and information, all cross-referenced through TAGs. All IT offers is the collaboration and social networking platform; profiles, group membership and information are populated by employees. The collaboration between these entities of people, information and groups would enable work to move faster throughout an organization and employees to self-organize around projects. Now inject real-time UC and video into this platform and you have the basis for a new approach to how work gets done.

The above scenario is not just my vision; it’s the direction our industry is heading after numerous NDA briefings with a wide range of IT suppliers. The intersection between social networking, collaboration and UC, thanks to Web 2.0 techniques will usher in a new model for productivity improvement through improved user experience and in its wake will change the IT industry and IT organizational design. This new collaboration model will emerge as the global economy recovers. As capital spending recovers it’s becoming clear that IT and business leaders will not fund the same old projects but will invest their capital spend into new innovative approaches to corporate productivity such as the UC and social collaboration platform discussed above.

For IT organizations a re-design is needed. UC has been sold to networking and telecom professionals while social networking and collaboration tools are sold to those who manage applications. These two groups are clearly stakeholders in the solution they eventually deploy and thus need to work together. Here too the economic downturn has a positive effect in that many of the past organizational barriers have fallen as IT is focused on operational cost reduction and project delivery.

As the application and networking groups seek a new working relationship so too do IT suppliers. For example, Adobe, Citrix, HP, et al who have for the most part been absent in social networking, collaboration or UC will partner up or acquire others to engage in this new industry sector. Look for one of the above to make a huge announcement at Interop.

Just as IT organizations and suppliers re-align and position for the Web 2.0-enabled collaboration market so too will the industry venues. VoiceCon for example attracts the telecom manager, but not the networking, application, or collaboration buyer. At the same time VoiceCon was taking place so too was Web 2.0 expo. Look for a new venue to emerge that is virtual and uses the tools of social, collaboration and UC to address this new market.

UC as a standalone desktop application has limited value. IT and business leaders should focus on collaboration platforms that are Web 2.0-based, and incorporate social media and UC as the path toward greater use experience and productivity.

Accelerating Unified Communications with an Enterprise-Wide Architecture

Nick Lippis — Tue, 07 Apr 2009 20:11:30 +0000

By Zeus Kerravala, Yankee Group

The communications industry has touted Voice Over IP (VoIP) and unified communications (UC) as technologies that can transform the way workers collaborate and raise the bar on workers’ productivity. However, despite much industry hype, the majority of UC applications deployed revolves around basic conferencing services and unified messaging. More strategic UC applications, such as presence and mobile integration, remain near the bottom of the list of already-deployed UC applications. This raises the question: If UC has so much corporate value, why has technology adoption struggled?

The answer lies in the underlying architecture used to support UC. To meet the needs of today’s work force and support many of today’s business challenges, a new architecture for communications is required. This report defines UC and the business needs that drive UC, raise awareness of the challenges associated with UC deployment, and then defines what a new architecture should look like. Finally, it will provide the reader with insight into how to choose a solutions vendor and pursue the next steps in UC deployment.

Learn about UC architecture by downloading this white paper.

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What’s Next For Unified Communications?

Nick Lippis — Wed, 01 Apr 2009 03:31:58 +0000

Avaya has launched a new architecture for Unified Communications (UC) with its new software product Avaya Aura™. This enterprise-wide SIP architecture connects users, UC devices, disparate legacy voice and IP systems plus UC applications, creating a holistic UC services delivery system. That is, a centrally managed Avaya Aura™ can disseminate common UC services to every corner of the enterprise independent of locations and multivendor systems, across all kinds of SIP endpoint. Avaya Aura™ promises to significantly reduce communications and management costs, using a single multivendor dial-plan, common user profiles and by simplifying SIP trunking, while offering federated presence and application integration software to integrate UC into enterprise applications. To understand Avaya Aura™ and what’s next for UC, Lawrence Byrd, Director of Unified Communications Architecture for Avaya, is my guest.

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Lippis Report 122: Cisco’s Unified Computing System: Opportunities and Challenges

Nick Lippis — Tue, 24 Mar 2009 15:21:57 +0000

It’s been over a week since Cisco launched its Unified Computing System (UCS) initiative. I’ve reviewed all the presentations, documents, financial analyst research notes, twitter and Facebook chatter as well as talked to a dozen or so IT leaders and in this Lippis Report Research Note I provide my assessment. There’s so much to consider with the UCS launch, the technology, the data center value, go to market strategy, competitive responses, etc. But I have a one important observation. This is the first time in the history of IT that a networking company has entered the computing industry. My first job in 1984 was at Digital Equipment Corporation, where networking was always an accessory, or stepchild, to computing. And yes, a lot has transpired since then but the sheer fact that a networking company has grown to the size of Cisco and that it can stand up and say “Hey IBM and HP, I’m entering your core market and there’s nothing you can do about it” is a remarkable occurrence. Anyone who has spent his or her career in networking and has worked within DEC, IBM or HP networking groups knows how it feels to be tangential to corporate strategy. For this group, UCS was a moment that tipped networking technology and networking professionals to a higher level of importance and influence in the IT industry. In this Lippis Report Research Note we review UCS and Cisco’s opportunities and challenges.

Pressure is Building to Deploy IPv6 to Avoid Another Y2K

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Let’s start with what the problem is that Cisco is attempting to solve with UCS. The key issue UCS addresses is scaling virtualized data centers. While there has been much hype associated with virtualized data centers, its market penetration is only 15% among the 28 million x86 world-wide installed servers, thanks in large part to the lack of support for legacy applications to be hosted on virtualized machines (VM). As VMware represents some 70% of the virtualized data center market it only makes sense to focus there when asking why more applications have not been virtualized. The absence of widespread virtualization adoption includes the lack of a true real-time failover, immature management tools, a lack of VM visibility and security questions about virtual environments. VMware’s vSphere (VI 4.0) scheduled for release 2Q09 does much to address many of these existing issues and will be a catalyst for increased virtualization projects as legacy applications will become increasingly virtualized.

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vSphere will span up to eight cores from 4, address up to 256 GB of memory, allow users to change the amount of RAM allocated to VMs without rebooting and increase its maximum RAM limit to 1 TB. vSphere will now be able to virtualize larger, more mission-critical applications, such as Oracle, SAP and large Microsoft Exchange implementations. Some have estimated that VMware will be able to virtualize more than 99% of applications in existence with this release.

Communications in a Difficult Economy

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What Cisco sees is a market transition to massive virtualization implementations that current data center providers do not address. UCS does not go after the non-virtualized blade servers but participates in the growth market of virtualization that will lead to private cloud implementations, and then inter-cloud (private/public) projects.

Why Now?

Why is the network so important now? In an ideal virtualized data center IT resources, those being compute, storage and networking, would be pooled, with services dynamically drawing from the pools to meet demand. Virtualization techniques have enabled processes to be moved between computers, but network constraints create barriers that prevent elasticity such as static network assignment via VLANs, ACLs, broadcast domains, fragmentation of resources thanks to load balancers, service-specific network engineering and poor server-to-server connections, etc. In addition virtualization adds significant load to data center networks and this load is only going to increase significantly. Networks traditionally move data between client, server and storage devices. But as applications become more mobile-enabled by vSphere, networks will need to move entire application, OS and driver bundles if applications are going to spin up and down based upon demand. The additional network load is huge as the file size of a single VM image is typically 16 GB, but can be up to 2 TB, which will move over the network for “just in time” application provisioning.

It seems that Cisco seeks to eliminate network barriers to virtualization, increase data center network bandwidth and compute resources while simplifying data center architecture and its associated cost. Key to the last point is consolidated I/O thanks to Fibre Channel over Ethernet (FCoE) support within the Nexus 5000 which Cisco believes will require fewer switches, adapters and cables, reducing management points and thus streamlining operations. Its not-yet-available VN-Link or Nexus 1000v hopes to enable management of the virtual environment in the same way as the physical environment and break the boundary between server and network. Its recently introduced fabric extender in the Nexus 2000 promised to scale server connections without increasing management points and streamlines cabling.

Unified Computing Overview

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Unified Computing System

But UCS is a system with integrated management, networking and consolidated storage/network access. UCS unites network, compute, and virtualization resources into a single system consisting of:

UCS Manager: Integrated system-level device management

UCS Fabric Interconnect: Line-rate 10 GbE, DCE & FCoE fabric

UCS Fabric Extender: I/O fabric extension, cut-through architecture

UCS Blade Server Enclosure: Optimized for energy efficiency

UCS Blade Server: Patented memory expansion, based upon new Intel Xeons large memory capacity unified fabric

UCS Virtual Adapter: Scalable virtual HBA & NIC resources

A Framework for Deploying Unified Communications

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Support for the following 3rd party software solutions were announced on March 16th:

Hypervisor: VMware ESX & Microsoft Hyper-V

OS: Microsoft Windows Server, RHEL & SLES

Management: BMC BladeLogic, Microsoft System Center & EMC Smarts

Application: Microsoft SQL Server, Oracle DB & Oracle RAC

Cisco Unified Computing System – An Executive Video Overview

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UCS is based on a standard set of components with which most IT staff are familiar. The intelligence for managing the overall system is based on a Nuova-class processor that Cisco has embedded in the UCS Fabric Interconnect. The UCS Manager software that manages the entire system communicates with firmware embedded in every device in the system. Note that UCS provides three adapters: a standard 10GB Ethernet adapter, a 10GB FCoE adapter, and most important, the adapter which supports the virtualization of network connections.

UCS looks like a standard rack of servers, but the wiring of the components is much simpler and easier to manage, track and deploy. This approach creates a cleaner, simpler model for managing data center assets that stands in sharp contrast to existing PC architectures. As a result, IT organizations should find it easier to set and maintain hardware policies. They will also be able to better physically secure the environment. The overall environment supports 63 percent more airflow than traditional servers, which leads to substantially less heating and cooling costs. UCS Manager can manage each component of the system to the point where specific power and cooling thresholds can be set. UCS also provides easier access to disks residing on each server blade. Power supplies are hot swappable. Each UCS should have two Fabric Extenders to maximize availability. Taken all together, the UCS should greatly reduce all the points of management compared to traditional blade server environments.

Cisco believes that it can drastically reduce data center total cost of ownership with UCS thanks to its ability to consolidate data center infrastructure through fewer switches, servers and management points, driving down both cap and op ex cost while delivering faster time to new server deployment.

Cisco Unified Computing System

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Cisco’s Opportunities

UCS is innovative on multiple levels including leveraging Intel’s next generation of silicon, significantly expanding available memory, timing UCS to be ready for VMware’s vSphere VI 4.0, simpler cabling, easier management and provisioning and consolidating I/O. As networking speeds increase to 10Gb, 40Gb, 100Gb and beyond, computing will increasingly become hollowed and distributed through the network. By integrating computing, networking and virtualization Cisco has developed a platform that enables this re-distribution of computing and applications to occur along with its associated benefits of lower cost and increased utility of IT resources.

At the same time UCS is offered, the world economy has fallen into recession. One impact of this has been that the barriers between IT administrative domains of storage, applications, networking and compute have fallen too. The requirement to focus on service delivery and cost efficiency within IT has been dramatic over the past 9 months with much of the previous IT organizational distractions and friction being swept away. As a result, Cisco will find a welcome reception within executive IT to learn about UCS and how it may benefit their corporation.

Cisco’s Challenges

Cisco will find this adjacent market entry much more difficult than its previous entries into IBM’s SNA, voice communications, security, etc. In short it’s competing with a different class of competitors, going head on with HP and IBM, who have expected calendar year 2009 revenues of $110B and $100B. HP in particular is not a stranger to virtualization as it’s the number one provider of such services and products to market, providing VMWare and Microsoft virtualization software. Cisco hopes that it will be able to ride the virtualization transition much faster than HP and IBM. And while this was true for Cisco in the past, there is no evidence that IBM or HP will be slow to respond to the virtualization and cloud computing industry initiatives. Further, most IT leaders buy based upon market share. Cisco enjoys this preference in the networking space while HP and IBM do the same in the blade server market. Cisco will have to overcome this preference and time will tell if UCS innovation tips the preference scale.

As organizations look to transform data centers, strategic system integration may be a key area of focus. IBM and HP derive approximately $58B and $37B in revenues from IT services; that is one of the largest challenges Cisco faces. HP recently acquired EDS while IBM global services are massive. Cisco has a partnership with Accenture and Tata. While there is no rule that Cisco needs to have a large professional services organization, it clearly has served HP and IBM well.

Margins will decide if UCS is successful. As I wrote in Lippis Report 119 HP operates happily on 25-30% margins while Cisco enjoys 65-75% margins. Even if Cisco does generate $1B at 30% GM that’s $300M profit, but they could lose $1B and $650M of profit too in switching. It’s unclear what the margin contribution of UCS is and until that is known, it’s not possible to judge if Cisco’s bet will pay off.

A Framework for Deploying Unified Communications

Nick Lippis — Tue, 24 Mar 2009 15:16:05 +0000

By Wainhouse Research sponsored by Avaya

This white paper describes a four-step framework for moving unified communications from an ad hoc, deployment scenario, which has resulted in many of the companies interviewed having a siloed implementation, to a managed process, tying the technology to an organization’s people, processes, and business objectives.

Find out how by downloading this white paper.

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Unified Computing Overview

Nick Lippis — Tue, 24 Mar 2009 15:09:58 +0000

By Cisco Systems

Virtualization has created a market transition in which IT departments are trying to reduce costs and increase flexibility. Despite this, IT organizations are constantly working against existing rigid, inflexible hardware platforms. As a consequence, data center administrators have had to spend significant time on manual procedures for basic tasks instead of focusing on more strategic, proactive initiatives. This document highlights crucial issues in today’s data center and introduces Cisco’s vision for resolving existing challenges and setting data center operating practices on a more scalable and sustainable path: a unified computing system.

Learn about Cisco’s Unified Computing System by downloading this white paper.

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Cisco Unified Computing System

Nick Lippis — Tue, 24 Mar 2009 15:07:43 +0000

By Cisco Systems

This flash-based presentation delivers an overview of Cisco’s recently announced Unified Computing System. The presentation discusses the value of united data center technologies with the Cisco Unified Computing System. Follow the link above to see the presentation.

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Why Investing In Unified Communications Now Makes Sense

Nick Lippis — Wed, 18 Feb 2009 16:36:08 +0000

Clearly the economic news over the past five months has been disturbing and at many times scary. So the question we ask is why invest in Unified Communications (UC) now and not wait until the recovery? The answer is straightforward, as UC not only pays for itself with a rapid payback measured in months, and at times as short as six weeks, but most importantly it reduces corporate operational cost by streamlining business processes. Steve Hardy Director Global Product and Solutions Marketing for Avaya joins me to discuss investing in UC now during a challenging macro economic climate. For any executive seeking both IT and corporate cost cutting projects, you need to listen to this podcast.

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Avaya Unified Communications: The Business Value of Unifying Communications

Nick Lippis — Tue, 10 Feb 2009 22:00:44 +0000

This paper provides an overview of the business value related to the joint Unified Communications solutions offered by Avaya and Microsoft. Readers will understand the elements and steps involved in making a Unified Communications deployment decision and cover success factors. Also included is a section covering the factors IT leaders should consider when calculating a return on investment (ROI) of their Unified Communications solution.

Find out how by downloading this white paper.

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Alcatel-Lucent Bridges IT and Networks as the Network Integrator

Nick Lippis — Tue, 10 Feb 2009 21:53:02 +0000

The future of IT is a networked model. Value creation and innovation is found in content that flows freely throughout networks. Cloud computing, Web 2.0, mobile applications, unified communications, video on-demand, social networking, etc are the result of the networked IT model. But IT and networks can be more tightly integrated with an applications enablement layer offered by service providers, which provide Over the Top suppliers with reliability, privacy, billing and security services. To link and simplify IT and networks in the most complex environments the industry needs a Network Integrator. I talk with Avedis Menechian, Chief Marketing Officer for Alcatel-Lucent about Alcatel-Lucent’s role as the Network Integrator of Choice.

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Extending Unified Communications To In-Building Nomads

Nick Lippis — Mon, 03 Nov 2008 18:56:44 +0000

Unified Communications (UC) suppliers have been busy extending their software to work on mobile endpoints, such as the Apple Iphone, blackberry, smartphones etc. But there has been little focus on solutions that extend UC to address in-building roaming applications. This is a huge area that has been overlooked with requirements in nearly every industry such as gaming, education, retail, financial services, transportation, etc. Most business and IT leaders look toward a few technologies to solve the in-building UC roaming problem including Voice Over WLAN, IP DECT, Dual Mode endpoints, reliance on the cellular network and, in the extreme, deploying their own cellular antenna to improve coverage. To sort this all out, I invited Shane Yu Director of Unified Communications Consulting at Avaya where we’ll review these options and provide guidance as to which approach may work best for your corporation. If you’re looking to extend UC to in-building nomads, then you need to listen to this podcast

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How Safe Is Your IT Budget?

Nick Lippis — Mon, 27 Oct 2008 16:53:03 +0000

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American Century Investments Invests In Cisco Virtual Office Solution

Nick Lippis — Mon, 22 Sep 2008 20:31:21 +0000

Mr. Michael Whaley, Network Engineering Specialist at American Century Investments is my quest as we discuss American Century Investment’s teleworking strategy and solution. American Century Investments was looking to reduce the operational burden of supporting a large teleworking population while delivering an office IT experience to those working from home. Mr. Whaley describes how American Century Investments paid for a new teleworking solution with wide area facilities cost savings while increasing security, employee productivity and reducing IT management’s operational spend. It’s a fascinating podcast, if you’re developing a teleworking plan, then you need to listen in.

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Mindwave Reduces Cost, Increases Productivity, Is Greener Too Thanks to an Avaya Teleworker Solution

Nick Lippis — Wed, 17 Sep 2008 20:24:08 +0000

Mindwave Research recently changed its operational model to reduce facilities cost, improve productivity, gain access to a broader labor pool, increase customer service and be a greener company. At the heart of this operational change was the shift toward teleworking. By deploying a teleworker solution, Mindwave reduced its facilities cost by over 80%. They are leveraging IM, video conferencing and other unified communication services to keep employees connected and working together while they telecommute. Jason Snook, IT Director at Mindwave is my quest as he discusses the realized increased productivity and drastic reduction in commute travel time and CO2 emissions its employees would otherwise emit into the atmosphere.

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Increasing Corporate Value Through Integrated Networks and Applications: A New Approach to IT Service Delivery Emerges for Branch Office Operations

Nick Lippis — Wed, 10 Sep 2008 14:16:01 +0000

By Nick Lippis

Enterprise networks, especially branch office networks, have experienced a level of service integration over the past five years that has delivered lower acquisition and operational cost while increasing the number of services available to branch office employees. Branch office routers now include switching, WLANs, PoE, network security, WAN Optimization, VPN, unified communications and advanced routing which increase application performance over thin wide area network links. In this white paper we explain the next generation of branch office optimization, which is the integration of applications into the network fabric. The networking industry has started to open up its software in the form of SDKs and APIs. Cisco, Juniper, Extreme, 3Com and the open source routing initiatives are all allowing developers to write to defined router software interfaces. We explore its value proposition in detail and provide guidance to business and IT leaders who wish to exploit this new model for value creation and improved service delivering in branch office operations.

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H.I.G puts Cisco’s AXP to Work and Creates Business Value in the Process

Nick Lippis — Tue, 19 Aug 2008 23:45:33 +0000

Luis Suarez Director of IT at H.I.G. Capital is my guest as we talk about how H.I.G created value and optimized its remote office operations through a new Cisco business platform, which tightly links applications and networks. In previous Lippis Report podcasts we reviewed Cisco’s ISR-based Application eXtension Platform or AXP. Here Luis explains how HIG used AXP along with Sagem-Interstar’s XMediusFAX application to displace both an old world analog fax network plus web based fax services, while integrating fax services into UC extending it to all H.I.G endpoints and in the process speeding up business process and deal flow. If you are looking to reduce TCO and simplify fax services by integrating it into a UC environment, then you have to listen to this podcast.

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Workspace Ready Networks With A Single Networks and Communications Supplier

Nick Lippis — Mon, 11 Aug 2008 20:36:16 +0000

We all have multiple workspaces where we deliver value to our corporations. Workspaces span from your office to your home and every place in-between. The devices we use may be desktop and laptop computers, fixed, mobile and soft phones. The bottom line is that our communications conveniences that being directory, presence, messaging, call logs, click-to-call, click-to-conference, etc should be extended across all these workspaces. The question we ask in this podcast is can a workspace ready network be implemented with different network and communications suppliers or are their compelling attributes to build workspace ready network with a single vendor? Sanket Amberkar, Manager Solutions Marketing of Network Systems & Security for Cisco Systems is my guest as we discuss workspace ready networks and how they increase corporate value while simultaneously reducing IT operational cost. If you're planning a UC deployment then you need to listen to this podcast.

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Leveraging Contact Centers To Increase Corporate Value During Down Markets

Nick Lippis — Mon, 30 Jun 2008 19:54:53 +0000

It's a fact that the global economy has slowed, prompting contact center managers and IT leaders to explore strategies for maintaining efficiency and meeting revenue targets with fewer resources and constrained budgets. But within a contact center environment, there are many opportunities, sometimes hidden, to actually maximize efficiency and still control and possibly reduce costs. With an expert, holistic examination of operations and identification of areas of improvement, management can be proactive in identifying and implementing strategies that not only help their businesses navigate through a potential economic downturn, but accomplish business results that remain beneficial after the economy recovers. Eddie Jenkins, Vice President, Customer Service Practice for the Professional Services business at Avaya, joins me to discuss leveraging contact centers for strategic corporate value, which means increasing revenues, corporate productivity and gaining market share during down markets.

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PCI Currents: Staying Afloat

Nick Lippis — Mon, 16 Jun 2008 19:17:25 +0000

By Darrik Cupps, Securestate

The PCI Currents: Staying Afloat presentation provides information on the need for PCI, case studies, PCI defined, PCI best practices and strategies for compliance. It's a presentation that gets one up to speed on PCI, the threats it mitigates and how to get into compliance.

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Accor North America

Nick Lippis — Mon, 16 Jun 2008 19:09:27 +0000

By RSA

When consumers think about hotel security, they often think about door locks and safes. In general, consumers don't think about how crucial it is for hotel operators to protect the credit card information they're given. As a critical security requirement for hotel operators, Accor North America selected RSAÂ® Key Manager with Application Encryption which is designed to centralize the provisioning and lifecycle management of encryption keys and enable end-to-end encryption. According to Harvey Ewing, Senior Director of Information Technology Security, "œOne of my primary responsibilities is to make sure Accor North America complies with Payment Card Industry (PCI) requirements for protecting consumer information".

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New Data Center Network Design Options

Nick Lippis — Tue, 10 Jun 2008 14:15:46 +0000

Data centers are the largest single IT investment CIOs and business leaders appropriate. Data center networking is leading edge by default and where high-speed links and new approaches are first deployed. While data centers are consolidating and becoming increasingly virtualized, networking requirements are fundamentally changing. High performance end-of-row and top-of-rack network switches are uniquely positioned to increase network throughput and reduce operational spend. I talk with Doug Murray VP/GM of Extreme Networks about new data center design options thanks to its Summit X650 high end Ethernet switch. If you're designing a data center network, then you need to listen to this podcast.

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Internet Content Provider Safeguards Customer Networks and Services

Nick Lippis — Tue, 27 May 2008 17:25:19 +0000

By Cisco and Synacor

Synacor used Cisco network infrastructure and security solutions to enhance network protection and streamline compliance. Fast-growing Internet businesses cannot afford network failures or security breaches. This is especially true for Synacor, a leading technology company that advances the delivery of meaningful content and technology solutions for multiple system operators (MSOs), telecommunication companies, and Internet service providers (ISPs) around the globe. Through Synacor's private label portals, subscribers can access a broad range of published and premium content, including entertainment, education, and family-oriented offerings from their homepages.

Today, through its service providers, Synacor's products and services reach more than 20 million broadband subscribers worldwide. With Synacor's business built around Internet products and services, network security is essential. The company must meet strict service uptime agreements and cannot afford to have its back-office assets or production networks disabled by a network attack. Additionally, as the company's business evolves, its security exposure has evolved as well.

"œAs we move to higher band-width media, movies, and especially gaming services, we are opening ourselves up to more threats," says Adam Howell, Director of Network Engineering and Systems Operations for Synacor. "œOne of our new accounts launching in 2007 will support more than one million subscribers right out of the gate and host a million e-mail accounts at our headquarters. We need to help ensure that there is no disruption or service degradation because of an attack on our network."

Synacor has heightened internal compliance standards. The company continues to be indirectly and directly involved in content sales, and with this enhanced activity maintains the protection of credit card information and complies with the Payment Card Industry (PCI) data security standard. As the company and systems grow and develop, Synacor's IT team is committed to making the technical infrastructure compliant with the U.S. Sarbanes-Oxley Act governing financial and accounting disclosure.

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Wiring Closet Switches Enable New Applications and IT Services: Intelligence Enters Network Access

Nick Lippis — Mon, 19 May 2008 19:45:53 +0000

By Nicholas John Lippis III

Wiring closet switches are undergoing a renaissance of sorts. Once thought of as commoditized simple network connectivity devices, they are now central to network security, mobility, Power over Ethernet (PoE) distribution, IP phone and UC connection devices, et al. Wiring closet switches are pervasive as they connect all end-points into an enterprise network, distributing network services throughout a corporation. Previously acquisition cost might have been the primary criteria for wiring closet vendor selection. IT leaders are now rethinking their decision criteria as network intelligence and services have shifted toward network access, enabling unified communications, integrated security, wireless LAN access, application delivery, and high availability to support real time applications and much more. Total Cost of Ownership (TCO) of these switches break down as 20%/80% capital/operational spend resulting in switch design, network management plus reliability and serviceability features possessing a demonstrable effect toward lowering TCO. In addition to this network intelligence shift, previous IT purchase decisions, which deployed multiple vendor products for network access, are being reviewed as operational cost has soared thanks to inconsistent management and operations. This white paper documents the dynamics forcing a change in wiring closet switching with recommendations and guidelines for business and IT leaders to assist them in fixed switch vendor selection. We review products from Cisco, ProCurve Networking by HP, 3Com, Nortel and Juniper Networks.

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Creating Efficient Business Processes with CEBP

Nick Lippis — Mon, 19 May 2008 17:56:55 +0000

By Hurwirtz and Associates

Communications-Enabled Business Processes (CEBP) is an important innovation in the automation of human communications within business applications. Until now, such automation has largely been confined to providing Call Center systems and to unified communications products that target the productivity of individual users by integrating the use of voice communications, instant messaging, email and other collaborative capabilities.

CEBP goes much further than this, enabling the communications and workflow aspects of a business process to be integrated with the underlying software applications that serve the business process. The importance of CEBP is in its ability to automate and manage the many ad hoc activities that are part and parcel of a business process.

In this paper we discuss CEBP from a business applications perspective, focusing on three distinct evolutionary steps for business software:

The traditional environment of legacy business applications
The more modern and increasingly popular Service Oriented Architecture (SOA) environment
The newly emergent Event Driven Architecture (EDA) environment

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OpenScape Video: Bringing HD Videoconferencing to Unified Communications

Nick Lippis — Mon, 19 May 2008 17:55:03 +0000

By Siemens Enterprise Communications

Enterprise Unified Communications (UC) value is being increased with the addition of high definition videoconferencing. UC videoconferencing is rapidly growing in popularity thanks to it being affordable and easy to use, and because it includes end-points from desktops to large meeting rooms. It is based on open standards such as SIP, and often includes high-definition video and audio to enrich the user experience. Siemens OpenScape Video is the first single-vendor, unified videoconferencing solution for everyone in the enterprise by providing a complete end-to-end videoconferencing solution as an integral part of enterprise UC. By integrating high definition video, PC-based video and voice only end-points into a UC network, OpenScape Video enhances enterprise-wide collaboration and increases employee productivity while reducing travel costs and carbon emissions.

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You’re Invited to a Live Webinar: Putting Unified Communications: Conferencing and Collaboration to Work In Your Company: Questions and Answers

Nick Lippis — Sun, 18 May 2008 20:02:01 +0000

Join us on June 4th at 1:00pm EDT were you’ll get the inside scoop on the state of unified communications market and where it’s headed from industry consultant and Publisher of the The Lippis Report, Nick Lippis. Plus, you’ll learn from Greg Brophy, director of product management for Avaya’s Unified Communications Division, how you can be more competitive and productive with the latest conferencing and collaboration solutions.

Learn more and register here.

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Application and Content Delivery Networks Converge Into New Industry Offering

Nick Lippis — Mon, 05 May 2008 20:48:10 +0000

Many IT leaders have build private application delivery networks while outsourcing content delivery network needs to improve the performance of video, music downloads, and rich media. These two separate networks are now converging into one physical but logically separate networks with unique attributes for the traffic, which flows through them. Two experts in the field from Internap; Phil Kaplan Chief Strategy Officer and Tim Sullivan Chief Technology Officer join me to discuss how these two network clouds are beginning to drift together and what this will mean to IT operations and business. Internap's approach to service delivery is software based and relies upon backbone router vendors such as Foundry Network's NetIron XMR and its ServerIron to deliver the services it offers. If you have built an application delivery network and outsource content delivery to a service provider then you need to listen to this podcast.

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Productivity Success Factors for the Mid-Market: How to gain competitive advantage using the latest conferencing and collaboration technologies.

Nick Lippis — Mon, 21 Apr 2008 21:20:47 +0000

By Blair Pleasant UCStrategies

Unified Communications (UC) technologies such as conferencing and collaboration have been providing significant benefits including enhanced productivity to large enterprises for several years, but the mid-market "“ those companies with between 100 and 1000 employees "“ are just now embracing these technologies for competitive advantage. The mid-market faces unique challenges that unified communications and related technologies can help address. New products and services are being introduced, aimed at the mid-market, to help this segment realize the benefits of improved communications. Mid-market companies focused on improving worker productivity and business results can implement conferencing and collaboration technologies to help workers better communicate with customers, partners, and co-workers. These conferencing and collaboration technologies and tools are helping mid-market companies solve their business problems while making their business processes more efficient and effective.

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Securing the Unified Communications-Enabled Enterprise

Nick Lippis — Tue, 08 Apr 2008 13:30:29 +0000

By Cisco Systems

Integrated communications systems are inherently more secure than traditional stand-alone phone and messaging systems. In todayÂ´s global economy, traditional time and geographical boundaries are vanishing. Many businesses have adopted a 24-hours-a-day approach to serving customers, who may be located anywhere in the world, in any time zone. For businesses, government agencies, and academic organizations to thrive in this dynamic market, personnel must remain accessible to colleagues and customers worldwide. Employees who, like the customers they serve, are geographically distributed and mobile require the capability to securely obtain information from wherever they are to help their organizations compete successfully.

Research reveals a significant negative business effect when workgroups experience delays in reaching primary decision makers. Delays are exacerbated when organizations run multiple, stand-alone systems that do not provide employees with an integrated and secure way to conduct and manage their many forms of communication.

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Lippis Report Issue 103: Wiring Closet Switches Gain Strategic IT Value Label

Nick Lippis — Mon, 07 Apr 2008 23:28:12 +0000

The edge or access of a network connects all end-points into an enterprise network infrastructure. The network edge is made up of wiring closet switches, which are usually fixed Ethernet switching devices. The market for wiring closet switches is evolving.

In the previous decade IT organizations had traditionally pursued an edge network that utilized shared hubs and switches to provide connectivity to end-points. The primary buying criteria was price per port with low price being paramount. These switching devices possessed few network services such as layer 2 forwarding, Virtual Local Area Networking (VLAN), Routing Information Protocol (RIP) and a configuration tool as their primary network management capabilities. In short the old network access model provided best effort connectivity services with little to no operational control.

As a result of these past decisions, edge/access security was limited, with Layer 2 security measures often implemented haphazardly. Multiple VLANs were relied upon to maintain separation of user traffic and provided limited access control. Most switches relied on RIP as an interior gateway routing protocol but limitations in its algorithm could lead to sporadic outages that would render the network unusable.

From Commodity to Strategic

IT departments saw wiring closet switches as commoditized networking equipment, with little differentiation between vendors. As a result, purchasing decisions were typically made solely on the basis of upfront acquisition cost with little regard for the increased lifecycle costs these purchases incurred on operations. Large organizations that focused their decisions on acquisition costs had soon assembled an enterprise network made up of equipment from different vendors throughout their wiring closets, distribution and core. Equipment from multiple vendors made effective management difficult and the multiple management systems required that these organizations keep a large staff with diverse skills to maintain network functionality.
Wiring closet switch manufacturers have been driven to deliver increased network services in their products due to changing enterprise network demands, discussed below. As a result wiring closet switches and the network edge in particular have transitioned from being a commodity connectivity service to a strategic enabler of new IT applications and services while being the first level of defense to mitigate against internal network threats and attacks. This is a fundamental change in enterprise network design upon which business and IT leaders need to assess and review their infrastructure.
A new category of wiring closet switches has recently begun to appear on the market. These switches are not to be viewed as commodities. Instead, these switches offer a host of new features that allow vendors to compete on multiple different fronts beyond traditional price per port metrics. It is important for executives responsible for purchasing decisions to understand this new basis of competition and to take into account not just their organization's current needs but also heretofore unconsidered future needs before selecting wiring closet switches and designing the next generation edge network.

Enterprise Trends

A new set of enterprise trends are forcing IT executives to review projects, programs and priorities as they seek to drive down Total Cost of Ownership (TCO) while extracting additional value from their enterprise network. Business executives expect their IT departments to meet continually growing demands for an increased number of networked applications and associated performance without significant year over year network expenditures. To manage this requirement IT leaders seek to purchase network switches that possess more forward-looking designs and significant upgradability than what was provided by the previous generation of equipment.

IT Application Infrastructure Changes: There are fundamental changes taking place with IT applications and communications, which are forcing new network edge requirements into the market. New applications, communications and data center strategies are creating a new dynamic in mixed traffic patterns and increased desktop bandwidth requirements.

A New Era in Communications Has Emerged: IP telephony and now Unified Communications (UC) offer strong economic advantages, prompting business and IT leaders to adopt this technology.

Power Over Ethernet (PoE) Distribution: The demands on the network continue to grow as additional devices are deployed throughout the enterprise. WLAN access points, video surveillance, IP phones, specialty devices such as health care instrumentation, point of sale devices and soon even laptops will require power distribution from the edge of the network.

The Network Edge Is The First Level of Defense: All prior generations of wiring closet switches are less secure than today's devices. Network Access Control (NAC) and application policing has increased in importance for organizations committed to protecting the integrity of their network, the privacy of their data and providing compliance to various government and industry regulations.

Total Cost of Ownership: The network edge and wiring closet switches in particular have a total cost of ownership break down of 20% capital spend and 80% operational spend according to Gartner Group. While new wiring closet switches may be more expensive from a capital acquisition point of view, their operational cost is lower and the total dollar spend over a three-year period will also be lower while delivering increased value to the enterprise.

A New Class of Wiring Closet Switches Emerges

Wiring closet switch suppliers have recognized the above enterprise trends and responded to the growing needs of their customers with a new type of wiring closet switch that adds significant functionality over and above previous switch generations. These suppliers are succeeding at delivering increased value to IT organizations and in the process transforming the commoditized network edge into a strategic IT asset. These new switches build upon the capabilities of the previous generation and enable a host of new applications such as UC, enterprise-wide mobility and enhanced security features that provide a new degree of protection against internal security threats.

Intelligence and network services are being distributed to the network edge or access, allowing wiring closet switches to support enterprise transitions in IT application infrastructure and communications, adding business value in the process. This new class of wiring closet switches includes the following characteristics:

Quality of Service: New wiring closet switches tag applications at access to guarantee priority throughout an internal network and active monitoring.

Power over Ethernet (PoE): Power is distributed over Ethernet cables, enabling new classes of devices to emerge and operate in environments that lack electrical infrastructure.

Integrated Security: Both integrated security features and the support of security appliances implement strong access control and application-policing, bolstering internal threat defenses.

Wireless Local Area Networking: WLAN integration, which includes access point PoE and controller support, increases WLAN coverage. Further common network management interfaces streamline operational support for both wired and wireless networks.

Unified Communication (UC): UC support via PoE to power IP phones and UC end-points plus unique UC configuration profiles to ensure reliable and stable UC operation.

Application Intelligence: Application intelligence or the categorizing of applications as they enter the wiring closet and either mark them with QoS or discard the application, affording application policing at the network edge.

Layer 3: Full layer 3 forwarding enabling all the value associating with routing including segmentation and aggregation are now included in some wiring closet switches.

In addition to the above network services, wiring closet switches have become more powerful from a performance point of view, while engineers have increased switch reliability, availability and manageability designs. Power supplies are more efficient and serviceable, reducing power consumption and service outage. Bandwidth and packet processing performance have increased to support higher densities of 1 and 10 Gbs Ethernet while offering clever approaches to ease the transition to higher LAN speeds.

The New Basis of Competition Emerges

This new category of switches has redefined the basis of competition among switch vendors. These advanced features allow for a degree of differentiation that was not possible for the previous generation. Organizations must assess their needs and begin making decisions based on a host of new factors besides initial acquisition cost. The following nine items are the new basis of competition among wiring closet switch suppliers.

Future Proofing: Future proofing is found in backward and forward migration strategies to utilize past investment as part of upgrades. Another aspect of future proofing is acquiring wiring closet switches with more than enough packet processing performance to meet existing requirements and those unforeseen demands.

Transitioning From 1Gb Ethernet to 10Gbs Ethernet: 10Gbs Ethernet is the future of networking, with more than 1 million 10Gbs capable ports shipped in 2007. If the past is a guide to the future, then over time more and more 1 Gbs Ethernet ports will upgrade to 10 Gbs placing strain on wiring closet packet processing performance while driving up 10Gbs port density requirements plus downstream distribution and core switch capabilities.

Power over Ethernet (PoE): PoE is a standard wiring closet requirement as it enables a wide range of devices to exist in areas that are not wired for electrical power in addition to being convenient and an efficient power distribution method.

High Reliability and Availability: High availability switch features ensure that the network edge does not suffer downtime. Some wiring closet switches implement a stacking feature to increase port density when needed, avoiding larger than needed capital acquisitions. This is an effective approach to scale and in some cases availability; however care must be applied when researching the stacking mechanism.

High Performance: As an ever-increasing amount of traffic is placed upon the network, performance remains an important differentiator between switches. The ability of this latest generation of switches to handle the load imposed by voice and video traffic in addition to the standard application demands is critical.

Reduced / Contained Operational Costs: To reduce the largest and most expensive component of the network edge's TCO, switch features that minimize operational impact should be exploited.

Consistent Network Management: Consistent network management means leveraging the same supplier for the network edge, distribution and core.

True Layer 3 Support: To support all the above-mentioned trends and unforeseen applications, wiring closet switches are required to support full layer 3 forwarding.

Support of UC, Mobility and Security: This basis of competition is one of the most important attributes to the new network edge. Wiring closet switches need to support both standard interfaces and services for UC, mobility and security so that mixed vendor solutions may occur.

The new basis of competition among wiring closet switch suppliers is based upon switch attributes, scale, and features which reduce operational requirements and spend plus possess the ability to not only support but add value to UC, mobility and security. In the upcoming Lippis Report “Wiring Closet Switches Enable New Applications And IT Services: Intelligence Enters Network Access” we review various suppliers against the above basis of competition.

Securing the Unified Communications"“Enabled Enterprise

Nick Lippis — Mon, 07 Apr 2008 23:20:09 +0000

By Cisco Systems

Integrated communications systems are inherently more secure than traditional stand-alone phone and messaging systems. In today's global economy, traditional time and geographical boundaries are vanishing. Many businesses have adopted a 24-hours-a-day approach to serving customers, who may be located anywhere in the world, in any time zone. For businesses, government agencies, and academic organizations to thrive in this dynamic market, personnel must remain accessible to colleagues and customers worldwide. Employees who, like the customers they serve, are geographically distributed and mobile require the capability to securely obtain information from wherever they are to help their organizations compete successfully.

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Extend the Value of Microsoft Office Applications with Avaya Unified Communications: A step-by-step guide for IT leaders on the considerations, options and benefits of unifying communications

Nick Lippis — Mon, 07 Apr 2008 23:15:14 +0000

By Microsoft and Avaya

To realize the value of unified communications, most IT leaders will have to integrate new communications solutions within existing infrastructures. In doing so, business and IT leaders will want to assess the breadth of integration options and the depth of integration. Options should encompass all communications applications that can be unified: telephony, messaging, mobility, presence and conferencing. Microsoft and Avaya have leveraged their considerable individual technologies, platforms and roadmaps to create a combined vision to make real-time and non-real-time collaboration a reality for enterprises. The mantra of anytime-and-anywhere communications is now being united with "œany-way". Learn how IT leaders can now increase productivity in measurable ways by allowing:

“click-to-communicate” from familiar desktop interfaces; integration of in-house audio and Web conferencing to reduce expense and make meetings more effective; integration of e-mail, voice mail and calendars into a single client; reduction in total cost of ownership on server management; extension of functionality to mobile and remote workers;

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Demystifying 802.11n: Questions and Answers

Nick Lippis — Wed, 02 Apr 2008 19:07:42 +0000

Join Nick Lippis and Bill Kish, CTO of Ruckus Wireless on Wednesday April 23rd at 10 a.m. PDT / 1 p.m. EDT for a live conversation about 802.11n over the web. We’ll address the hard questions about 802.11n installations, provide best practices and answer your questions to ease your next generation WLAN deployment. RSVP today for this live and interactive conversation.

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Cisco Redefines Intelligence in Wiring Closet Switches – A Must For UC, Integrated Security and Mobility

Nick Lippis — Thu, 27 Mar 2008 22:54:05 +0000

Wiring closet switches are undergoing a renaissance of sorts. Once thought of as simple network connectivity devices, they are now central to network security, mobility, PoE distribution, IP phone and UC connection devices etc. Wiring closet switches are pervasive as they connect all end points into an enterprise network distributing network services throughout a corporation. TCO of these switches breakdown as 20/80% capital/operational spend resulting in switch design, network management plus reliability and serviceability features possessing a demonstrable effect toward lowering TCO. I talk with Ish Limkakeng Senior Director of Marketing for the Desktop Switching unit at Cisco Systems about wiring closet switches and the new basis of competition and buying criteria that has emerged.

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Lippis Report Issue 102: Is UC Innovation Accelerating Faster Than The Market Can Absorb?

Nick Lippis — Tue, 25 Mar 2008 02:57:22 +0000

Communications or I should say dial tone did not change much in over 100 years. But since 1996 when Cisco, 3Com, ShoreTel, et al launched the IP telephony industry, change has been enormous. IP telephony brings communications into Moore's Law, accelerating it at the pace of computing and semiconductor density advances. This rapidly reduced cost, and in less than ten years IP telephony solutions offer a lower acquisition and operational cost model than TDM telephony. But in only the past eighteen months, IP telephony has transformed into unified communications (UC) being wrapped into software economics which has allowed Avaya, Siemens, et al to announce UC feature-rich packages that cost as low as fifteen cents a day. While Moore's Law is an innovation accelerator, software economics is proving to be a multiplier to this accelerator. All this innovation and competition is usually good, but for UC I'm finding that business and IT leaders are thinking that innovation is moving faster than they can absorb it into their organizations.

The enterprise communications market finds itself in a precarious position in that communications innovation is accelerating much faster than business and IT leaders can absorb it, creating an increasing gap between innovation and adoption. Layer the alleged coming recession on top of this adoption lag and you have the makings of a potential slow down.

Just this past week at an industry conference and exhibition there were a flurry of announcements and new products that increased UC functionality. For example, Cisco announced its 3200 Telepresence system increasing the number of people who can participate in a Telepresence session. Avaya announced packaged UC offerings, an intelligent branch office solution and most importantly its Integrated Presence Server (IPS). IPS aggregates presence information from multiple communication platforms such as Microsoft's OCS, IBM's Sametime, Google, Yahoo, AIM, Avaya One-X, etc., and bi-directionally presents a single view of presence for all contacts into a user's presence client, be it OCS, One-X, Sametime, etc. Siemens totally transformed its product line into software economics with its UC Server and UC applications and ushered in hi-def video conferencing. Microsoft demonstrated click-to-conference capabilities within OCS to Tandberge and Polycom conferencing products. Mitel has integrated in leaps and bounds with its Inter-Tel acquisition, demonstrating interoperability and integration. Even Nortel and Microsoft's ICA showed integration progress.

Now the above announcements are becoming routine; every six months there is a major UC industry announcement with UC just being eighteen months old. But even though the industry has just entered the UC software economic phase, many suppliers are communicating next generation capabilities. Many firms are aggressively developing Communications Enabled Business Processes (CEBP) products and roadmaps. The thinking here is that business processes can benefit by injecting communications into them so that delays both human and system can be reduced, speeding up business, be it workflow, supply chain or the agility of an organization to respond to events. The key aspect of CEBP is the exposure of communication features to .net and web services-based developers which number in the millions. Think about the innovation that will occur when CEBP is unleashed upon millions of developers who can now shape and model communications to address specific business processes. Other industry players are painting a communication vision that links collaboration with social networking to deliver enterprise value. The thinking here is that collaboration is at the heart of modern enterprise communications and that social networking is the next generation of IT applications to be unleashed upon the economy. Linking social networking with UC collaboration will drive the economy to the next level of productivity.

Both models are valid and could and will co-exist. But what I hear more often is that business and IT leaders are growing increasingly confused over the direction of communications and how to integrate it into their operations. At the center of this complexity is the fact that communications is evolving from a product selection process to a platform investment. The IP telephony products which an IT executive acquires will dictate to a large degree that executive's UC and forward strategy. As such, UC vendor selection weighs heavily on the minds of IT; thus the market is starting to take its time in choosing. At the above-mentioned conference last week a view of the exhibit floor provided a peek into market dynamics. All major supplier exhibits were packed with potential buyers. There was no dominant player; all were equally being probed, meaning that the market is in exploration mode trying to learn the array of options available from each supplier.

This is an important time for the vendor community. No vendor currently communicates an enterprise communications value proposition that includes IP telephony, UC and beyond that is wrapped around a technical and business architecture that the industry can understand and most importantly invest in. Not Cisco, nor Microsoft, IBM, Avaya, Siemens, Nortel, ShoreTel, Mitel, etc. Not one, yet.

For business and IT leaders now is the time to develop a comprehensive UC network architecture and evolution plan. With a plan in hand, IT leaders can sort through the waves of innovation more easily with a simple test: does this innovation benefit my corporation and what is the level of difficulty to absorb it? A UC architecture needs to be business requirement driven, integrating line of business needs. These needs can then be prioritized and mapped into UC requirements. These requirements drive the architecture, which specifies networks, communications and application development protocols and interfaces. Equipped with a UC architecture IT leaders can then develop an evolution plan that dictates the pace of innovation adoption. There may be economic or organizational constraints that should be factored into the evolution plan too. For example, Kent School District does not have capital budget to spend on a UC roll-out, so they are deploying UC one building at a time and funding this evolution by the elimination of the existing PBX maintenance contract. Others who do have a capital budget, such as Bank of America are rolling out a 150,000 IP phone UC deployment.

The most important aspect of a UC evolution plan is to develop a set of principles which guide procurement and are based upon the architecture so that as UC innovation is absorbed and implemented into the corporation it moves closer and closer to the target architecture. If architecture is the bridge between business strategy and UC evolution, then principles are the sign posts that get you over the bridge. For example, a principle may be that all UC end-points will be SIP-based. Another principle may be that all UC servers and applications will be accessible via .net and/or web services/SOA IT developers. Another could be that UC applications are network agnostic, meaning that they can be extended over WLAN/LAN/WAN and mobile networks.

As mentioned above there are two drivers to a potential slowdown which defers UC acquisition: one being the innovation absorption lag and the second being the potential US recession. If both these drivers interact to deliver the potential slowdown then what can we expect? First during slowdowns many business and IT leaders become introspective, analyzing business processes, customer relationships, projects, product development and their timing, etc. This may very well be a good development, since it will provide business and IT leaders with time to develop a UC architecture that is tightly linked to their business needs. It may also bifurcate industries into firms who adopt UC based upon a business plan and those that either defer deployment or don't adopt until the recession passes, creating competitive differentiation, market share gain, and overall better positioning as the economy improves for those who act now. For the vendor community it affords time to develop a value proposition rooted in a technical and business architecture that will last over the next two plus business cycles.

There is no mistaking the fact that communications is in the midst of its most significant change since Alexander Graham Bell said, “Mr. Watson "” Come here "” I want to see you.” Software economics is not only lowering acquisition cost but it's making communications accessible to IT programmers who will use this access to innovate at a pace few can imagine. If the slowdown to occur, then perhaps this slight pause is needed for the industry to collectively gather its breath before it ushers in the next communications-based productivity revolution.

Top 5 Considerations for Cisco Unified Communications Deployments for Telecommuters

Nick Lippis — Tue, 25 Mar 2008 02:53:28 +0000

By Cisco Systems

Organizations are seeking to take full advantage of their unified communications deployments by extending these services to remote locations and to telecommuters. Working from home provides benefits to both employees and businesses, including flexible working, better work-life balance for employees, and helping to lower the carbon footprint of the organization. This white paper provides the top 5 considerations when making decisions about extending a unified communications system to support telecommuting.

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Intelligent Branch Office Communication Strategies

Nick Lippis — Mon, 17 Mar 2008 15:11:38 +0000

Customers demand personalized and relevant brand interaction at every touch point be it on the web, call centers, online and particularly in-branch. The brand experience must flow consistently across these channels. Smart multi-channel retailers "“ especially those with traditional branch marketers like department stores, home improvement, retail banking services – even branch-delivered healthcare are realizing the value creation possible by investing in communications innovation of their core brick and mortar investments. This alignment of the customer experience across channels ensures consistently good customer interaction, increased productivity and ultimately – brand loyalty and increased revenues. Avaya's Craig Wilson, Principle Business Communications consultant and Bruce Mazza, Intelligent Branch Solutions Manager join me to discuss discuss value creation within Branch Offices though intelligent communication solutions.

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Lippis Report Issue 101: Economic Recession? Which IT Projects Will Get Cut? For Networks and Communications, Not Many.

Nick Lippis — Mon, 10 Mar 2008 18:47:18 +0000

The US recession forecasted by economists and government agencies became real on March 7th when the Labor Department estimated that the nation lost 63,000 jobs in February. Like plotting the coordinates on a hurricane chart as the storm heads toward you, this consumer-led downturn is beginning to concern business and IT leaders. Perhaps the worst fear is that this downturn is similar to Japan's 1990s real estate-led crisis, which resulted in a decade of economic malaise. But the only similarity between the 1990s Japanese and the current US downturn is the source of the disturbance. US banks are quick to write down bad debt; the federal government responded quickly with a stimulus package while the Fed continues to reduce interest rates, none of which Japan did. In IT while there are no hard signs that the US economic slow down has impacted current projects, business and IT leaders have a steady-as-she-goes attitude with a tint of caution. I predict that IT will weather this storm with only a slight percentage of spending growth lost while some projects such as UC, virtualized data centers and application delivery accelerate their adoption and growth.

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The Year of the Branch Office: Interview with Inbar Lasser-Raab Senior Dir Marketing Cisco Enterprise Routing/switching

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Siemens Challenges Microsoft OCS with new UC Server

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According to a recent report from the U.S. Census Bureau released on Thursday, March 6th 2008, "œU.S. businesses spent $250.7 billion on information and communication technology equipment and computer software in 2006, an increase of 6.3 percent from 2005". IT spending will still grow in 2008, but perhaps not as fast as it had between 2005-2006 and 2006-2007. While IT projects currently funded are not impacted by the slowdown, it's the summer and fall quarters which may be impacted and I say may be for the following reasons:

Been Here Before

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The tech bubble burst of 2001 trained this generation of business and IT leaders to be financially responsible. IT spending was scrutinized under a microscope by executive management, in particular the Chief Financial Officer, Chief Operating Officer, Chief Executive Officer and Chief Information Officer. During this period financial ROI and TCO guidelines were put in place for most corporations, which have not been relaxed. IT vendors were also trained to produce products and services that solve business requirements which are justified under these strict lowering TCO and quicker ROI guidelines. These controls and practices eliminated G Wiz tech spending for rational IT business planning and deployment.

Consumer-Led Slow Down

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This slow down is consumer-led, impacting real estate, retailers, hospitality, and other consumer focused businesses the hardest. Other industry segments such as energy, finance and insurance, health care and manufacturing, etc., have yet to significantly slow their IT capital budgets.

In the current economic climate many IT projects that adhere to fundamental corporate justifications such as short ROI times and lower TCO guidelines will not be affected but in fact will be accelerated. In particular data center consolidation and virtualization, unified communications (UC), application delivery and branch office networking, network infrastructure upgrades and network security projects will not be negatively impacted if a mild recession occurs lasting as long as twelve months.

Data Center Consolidation and Virtualization

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Data center consolidation and virtualization projects are by definition designed to reduce cost while increasing efficiency and performance. During challenging economic times these IT projects accelerate due to their favorable ROI and TCO benefits. In addition data centers are the largest consumers of IT energy, thus bringing another important and tangible benefit to these products, reduced energy consumption and cost.

Unified Communications

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There are two kinds of UC projects. There are UC engagements where CIOs seek to reduce cost by displacing their TDM-based enterprise voice communication system. The cost savings advantages of UC are well documented and usually fall into the 30-50% range when compared against TDM systems. UC was born out of the tech bubble burst offering corporations a new feature rich with lower cost option to traditional TDM. These projects are very popular now due to their cost/benefit value proposition, but most importantly to some, their economic return is solid. These kinds of IT projects accelerate during weak economic times, thanks to their favorable return on investment cycle which is usually less than twenty four months and is typically eighteen months. The only caveat is that if the US economy enters into a long protracted downturn that significantly slows capital spending then some will delay or defer UC projects and keep to their antiquated and legacy TDM systems until the economy improves.

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But UC is also on a trajectory of software economics, which will radically reduce its acquisition cost to a small fraction of comparable TDM-based voice systems. For example, Siemens Communications made the largest UC announcement of the year by launching its OpenScape UC Server and a suite of UC applications. This is a huge software investment from Siemens taking one of, if not the, largest steps of any in the industry toward a software and services concern. With OpenScape UC server running on industry standard computing hardware IT leaders can deliver Siemens OpenScape Voice Application, UC application and its video collaboration suite of solutions. UC savings are found in acquisition and total cost comparisons including wide area services, operations and capital spend. But there is also the value and reduced cost of doing business that is achieved with UC which is a benefit not calculated during acquisition. For example, according to Forrester Research, Siemens UC Server with video showed "œsignificant benefits by integrating video into its UC strategy yielding quarterly team meetings dropped by 97%, reducing cost from $35,000 to ~$1,000."

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While half of UC projects are cost reduction in nature, the other half are strategic offering corporations competitive advantages when they need it the most, during difficult economic times. For example, 24% of retail customers leave a store without the item they entered to purchase, costing retailers some $98 billion annually. Some of the reasons for this lost sale are that the item has not been shelved yet but is still in the back of the store in storage, or the item can be shipped to them if out of stock, etc. Intelligent branch and retail stores equipped with UC link retail store employees with inventory systems, contact center agents and corporate knowledge experts so that retail clerks can address a customer's need and close the sale. Other UC deployments increase the number of products and services offered by retailers or branch offices through "œdigital signage", increasing customer choice, service and revenue per store. For certain these kinds of IT projects take real business and IT leadership during downward cycles but their returns are usually huge as competitive advantage is gained while competitors defer investments and fall behind. This is the time to win market share.

Network Infrastructure Upgrades

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While there is no evidence of this yet, the $20 + billion Y2K Infrastructure upgrade and refresh cycles currently underway could be deferred or delayed if capital spending is significantly reduced. This is unlikely as network infrastructure is linked tightly to application delivery thanks to new network services. Services such as application intelligence, network security, network virtualization, power distribution thanks to PoE, unified communications, etc., is required by communication and corporate applications. Network infrastructure does not simply provide a connectivity service but has become a business platform integral to application performance and delivery, which equates to improved business processes and workflow. New network infrastructure projects especially in wide area networks where aggregation of links deliver economic efficiency and increased bandwidth will accelerate during a slowdown. Of significant note is Cisco's new ASR 1000 series of routers where unified WAN services are enabled. Unified WAN services trades off high cost WAN expense for low cost capital expenditure resulting in overall lower TCO with increased performance. These types of network infrastructure upgrades will occur independent of economic conduction.

Application Delivery and Branch Office Empowerment

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While application delivery and branch office empowerment can be argued as a network infrastructure upgrade, I separate it out here as it solves a unique business requirement. Thanks to the last economic downturn headquarter facilities have increasingly been hollowed out as business leaders shift human and corporate assets to data centers and branch offices in an effort to be closer to customers. The resulting application delivery and branch office empowerment markets have boomed and I see slow down now in its trajectory. The branch office empowerment market is dominated by Cisco with their over 3 million ISRs installed. Cisco is increasingly adding application delivery features such as its WAAS, PfR, ACE et al to its branch office and application delivery solution.

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For branch office networks there are three distinct WAN optimization technologies: 1) TCP optimization for non real-time applications such as Microsoft Exchange which is led by Riverbed; 2) QoS for UDP optimization for real-time applications such as Voice over IP which is led by Packeteer; and 3) Content Delivery Networks (CDN) for web and static application accelerate which is led by Bluecoat. There are many other firms in the application delivery market such as F5, Foundry, Certeon, Exinda, Silverpeak, Juniper et al, providing choice to IT leaders. These IT projects enable branch office employees to have the same set of business tools and resources at the same performance levels as if they were in a fully equipped headquarter facility. Application delivery and branch office empowerment enables the re-allocation of corporate and human resource deployment into branch offices to be successful. Without application delivery and branch office empowerment this corporate strategy would not succeed. That is why these IT projects will continue to be funded during weak economic times.

Network Security

Network security spending seems independent of economic climate. Securing data and communications is a cost of doing business and its budget is increasingly being allocated out of corporate compliance allocations. Network security IT projects will not be cut.

Economic downturns bring many things, not all of which are bad. IT suppliers will invariably repackage offerings to address short term economic uncertainty, reducing barrier of entry. Economic downturns are often accompanied by introspection of business strategy, initiatives and processes, which drive new innovations. These innovations then drive new requirements which open up new markets; the branch office market was created out of the tech bubble burst. The advantage of acquisition pricing negotiation swings toward buyers, yielding leverage. Large IT companies get larger during these times too, as IT leaders grow more cautionary with smaller players. The fact that networks and communications solutions are entrenched in justification through economic prudence will serve this industry well during what may be an unenviable economic recession. Let's just hope that if we are in recession it's a short one.

The Year of the Branch Office: Interview with Inbar Lasser-Raab Senior Dir Marketing Cisco Enterprise Routing/switching

Nick Lippis — Mon, 10 Mar 2008 18:45:05 +0000

This is the year of the Branch Office. Business and IT leaders are re-distributing corporate assets and allocating significant investments in data center and branch office assets. There is strong business, economic, demographic and technical drivers' shaping this trend. The IT industry has responded by offering many new network design options to business and IT leaders who seek to add value to their branch offices. In this podcast I discuss this global trend with Inbar Lasser-Raab Senior Director of Marketing for Enterprise Routing and Switching at Cisco as we dive into the details of Cisco's latest branch office innovations. If adding value to your branch offices is a corporate initiative, then you need to listen to this podcast.

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OpenScape Unified Communications Server

Nick Lippis — Mon, 10 Mar 2008 18:31:39 +0000

by Siemens Enterprise Communications

See the same presentation that industry analysts saw when Siemens Communications made the largest UC announcement of the year by launching its OpenScape UC Server and a suite of UC applications. By viewing this presentation you’ll be more up to date with Siemens’ UC products and plan than you will be from any other source.

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