The Lippis Report

July 13th, 2010

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

July 1st, 2010

By Nick Lippis, the Lippis Report

A number of independent trends are driving a new age of massively scalable data centers. One of these trends include a new IT delivery model based upon cloud computing, where large hosting facilities provide a range of IT services to corporations and governments. Further, high performance computing (HPC) facilities built via server clusters on the order of thousands to tens of thousands of servers and more has ushered in new favorable economics, thanks to its use of x86 commodity hardware. The growth of public hosting and HPC facilities will only continue as efficient data center economics point to a fewer number of highly dense sites. It is this data center market segment, where the number of servers per facility is greater than 5,000, that we focus this white paper from a perspective of fabric, connecting servers and storage to internet/intranet via high performance Ethernet networking. For IT architects and designers of high-end data centers, this is the most important network design paper you will read this year.

Download this white paper now

June 30th, 2010

By Cisco Systems

We work, live, play, and learn in a world that has no boundaries and knows no borders. We expect to connect to anyone, anywhere, using any device, to any resource—securely, reliably, transparently. That is the promise of borderless networks. To fully deliver on this promise, Cisco is advancing along three critical fronts: workplace transformation, technology leadership, and operational excellence.

June 14th, 2010

By Irwin Lazar Vice President, Communications Research, Nemertes Research

SIP, the Session Initiation Protocol, offers the potential to reduce telecom operational cost and complexity, take advantage of new hosted services, and integrate disparate applications via unified communications to improve collaboration. The introduction of SIP session management offers the potential to simplify communications system and policy management by fundamentally rethinking the way organizations deploy and integrate disparate communications applications.

But implementing SIP is not without challenges. IT architects must leverage solid ROI case studies to build tangible business cases to justify investment. They must also address training and interoperability concerns to ensure a successful deployment. Those organizations that meet these challenges stand to reap the benefits of SIP via delivery of new services and/or reduced operating costs.

Find out how to use SIP by downloading this white paper.

June 14th, 2010

By Cisco Systems

This paper provides a brief introduction to common security threats on IPv6 campus access networks and will explain the value of using First Hop Security (FHS) technology in mitigating these threats. An overview of the operational principle of FHS is provided together with some examples on how to enable FHS on Catalyst® 6500, 4500, and 3750 Series Switches. The target audience for this paper are network architects and network operation engineers.

Find out about FHS by downloading this Cisco whitepaper.

June 14th, 2010

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.

May 31st, 2010

By Arista Networks

For many years, networks have been oversubscribed. Such oversubscription was tolerable in enterprise networks as the applications were not bandwidth intensive, but not anymore. In a datacenter, the primary reason for this oversubscription is insufficient uplink bandwidth from each rack. Each top-of-rack switch is typically connected to two aggregation switches for redundancy. However, half the uplinks are blocked by spanning tree to avoid loops in the network; this reduces the available bandwidth between the rack and aggregation layer of the network by 50%. Arista’s Multi-Chassis Link Aggregation (MLAG) feature removes this bottleneck and allows the utilization of all interconnects.

To learn how, download this paper from Arista Networks.

May 31st, 2010

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.

May 31st, 2010

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.

May 31st, 2010

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.

May 17th, 2010

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.

May 17th, 2010

By Cisco Systems

Virtualization is rapidly becoming an essential tool for more fully harnessing and managing the power of today’s data center servers. In only a few years, standard x86 server technology has increased in performance and density so that today, multisocket, quad-core systems with 32 or more gigabytes of memory, are the norm. The combination of multicore computing and virtualization software such as VMware Virtual Infrastructure has enabled IT departments to bring server sprawl under control by running multiple independent workloads on a smaller number of servers. Today, fewer servers are required to do the same work, and their utilization levels have increased — both factors that contribute to greater energy efficiency and lower power and cooling costs.

As IT departments have discovered the benefits of server consolidation, they have also found that virtualization solves an even broader set of problems. Business continuity plans based on virtualization can make disaster-recovery solutions simple, reliable, and more cost effective. Virtual desktop environments can use centralized servers and thin clients to support large numbers of users with standard PC configurations that help to lower both capital and operating costs. Virtualization allows development, test, and production environments to coexist on the same servers, and it helps decouple application deployment from server purchasing decisions. New applications can be deployed in virtual environments and scaled on demand to accommodate the evolving needs of
the business.

May 17th, 2010

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.