Category Archives: Cisco

Cisco, data analytics, IBM, Internet of Things, IoT, Network Edge, News & Analysis

IBM and Cisco combine to deliver IoT insight on the network edge

Oil and gas platform in the gulf or the sea, The world energy, OIBM and Cisco have extended a long-standing partnership to enable real-time IoT analytics and insight at the point of data collection.

The partnership will focus on combining the cognitive computing capabilities of IBM’s Watson with Cisco’s analytics competencies to support data action and insight at the point of collection. The team are targeting companies who operate in remote environments or on the network edge, for example oil rigs, where time is of the essence but access to the network can be limited or disruptive.

The long promise of IoT has been to increase the amount of data organizations can collect, which once analysed can be used to gain a greater understanding of a customer, environment or asset. Cloud computing offers organizations an opportunity to realize the potential of real-time insight, but for those with remote assets where access to high bandwidth connectivity is not a given, the promise has always been out of reach.

“The way we experience and interact with the physical world is being transformed by the power of cloud computing and the Internet of Things,” said Harriet Green, GM for IBM Watson IoT Commerce & Education. “For an oil rig in a remote location or a factory where critical decisions have to be taken immediately, uploading all data to the cloud is not always the best option.

“By coming together, IBM and Cisco are taking these powerful IoT technologies the last mile, extending Watson IoT from the cloud to the edge of computer networks, helping to make these strong analytics capabilities available virtually everywhere, always.”

IoT insight at the point of collection has been an area of interest to enterprise for a number of reasons. Firstly, by decreasing the quantity of data which has to be moved transmission costs and latency are reduced and the quality of service is improved. Secondly, the bottleneck of traffic at the network core can potentially be removed, reducing the likelihood of failure. And finally, the ability to virtualize on the network edge can extend the scalability of an organization.

ABI Research has estimated 90% of data which is collected through IoT connected devices are stored or processed locally, making it inaccessible for real-time analytics, therefore it must be transferred to another location for analysis. As the number of these devices increases, the quantity of data which must be transferred to another location, stored and analysed also increases. The cost of data transmission and storage could soon prohibit some organizations from achieving the goal of IoT. The new team are hoping the combination of Cisco’s edge analytics capabilities and the Watson cognitive solutions will enable real-time analysis at the scene, thus removing a number of the challenges faced.

“Together, Cisco and IBM are positioned to help organizations make real-time informed decisions based on business-critical data that was often previously undetected and overlooked,” said Mala Anand, SVP of the Cisco Data & Analytics Platforms Group. “With the vast amount of data being created at the edge of the network, using existing Cisco infrastructure to perform streaming analytics is the perfect way to cost-effectively obtain real-time insights. Our powerful technology provides customers with the flexibility to combine this edge processing with the cognitive computing power of the IBM Watson IoT Platform.”

Cisco, Collaboration, data centre, Financial Results, IoT, News & Analysis, software

Cisco reports 3% growth for Q3 and sets targets on IoT market

Cisco corporateCisco has reported 3% year-on-year growth for Q3, topping $12 billion for the quarter, with its security business leading the charge, though the team have reconfirmed IOT, software cloud and collaboration markets are priorities for the future.

The security portfolio demonstrated revenue growth of 17% while deferred revenue grew 31% driven by the ongoing shift from hardware to more software and subscription services. The Collaboration portfolio grew 16%, while the team were also confident in the performance of its next generation data centre portfolio. The ACI platform grew revenues approximately 100%, exceeding a $2 billion annualized run-rate.

“We delivered strong Q3 results against the backdrop of the Macro environment that continues to be uncertain,” said CEO Charles Robbins. “Despite this uncertainty we executed very well, with revenue growth of 3%. The operational changes we continued to make will further enable our customers to leverage strategic role to network as they transform their businesses to become digital.”

Regionally, the America’s accounted for a 4% lift, whereas EMEA and APJ were slightly less at 2% and 1% respectively. The emerging markets demonstrated healthy results for the business, as BRICs increased by 4%, Mexico by 4%, China up 22% and India up 18%. The team highlighted while there was good growth in the public and service provider segments, the enterprise was not as positive as the team pointed towards pressure driven by macro uncertainty as the reasoning.

The quarter also saw Cisco as one of the more active players in the M&A market, completing five acquisitions over the course of the quarter. The $1.4 billion acquisition of Jasper Technologies now makes Cisco the largest cloud based IOT service platform in the industry, the team claims. Cisco also completed the acquisitions of Acano, Synata, Leaba and CliQr during the period, the latter a $260 million orchestration platform to help customers simplify and accelerate their private, public and hybrid cloud deployment. Cisco had already integrated CliQr with its Cisco Application Centric Infrastructure (ACI) and Unified Computing systems (UCS) prior to acquisition.

“These acquisitions are clearly focused on our key growth areas including IOT, software cloud and collaboration as well as continuing to strengthen our core,” said Robbins.

The IoT market has been a long time target of Cisco, with the Jasper deal adding to the ParStream acquisition last year. The acquisition offered the opportunity for instant analysis of masses of data at the network edge with minimal infrastructural or OPEX repercussions, the company claimed.

AWS, Cisco, Enterprise IT, HPE, IBM, Microsoft, News & Analysis

HPE holds off Cisco for cloud infrastructure top spot

HPE street logoFindings from Synergy Research Group have HPE as the number one provider in the cloud infrastructure equipment market, narrowly outperforming Cisco over the course of 2015.

Total revenues for the cloud infrastructure equipment segment reached over $60 billion in 2015, with HPE accounting for just over 12%, and Cisco just under. Dell, Microsoft and IBM complete the top five, each controlling about 7% market share.

“There continues to be particularly impressive growth in the public cloud infrastructure market as AWS and other cloud operators are having tremendous success in attracting enterprises to their ever-expanding range of service offerings,” said Jeremy Duke, Synergy Research Group’s founder. “But enterprises too are buying ever-larger volumes of infrastructure to support their private or hybrid cloud deployments. Across the board there is a massive swing away from enterprises running workloads over more traditional and inflexible IT infrastructure.”

Synergy’s research showed between Q4 2014 and Q3 2015 total spend on infrastructure hardware and software to build cloud services exceeded $60 billion. Spend on private cloud accounted for more than 50% of these revenues, though public cloud is growing at a faster pace. HPE currently leads the private cloud space, with Cisco in second, however the roles are reversed for the public cloud segment.

While HPE and Cisco remain dominant in the server and networking segments, both companies have been releasing a number of new products in recent months to diversify their offering. Last week, HPE launched its ‘machine-learning-as-a-service’ on Microsoft Azure, which combines 60 API’s to provide machine learning capabilities. While HPE is seemingly capitalizing on the growing ‘as-a-service’ trend, Cisco is focused on its cloud-based collaboration service, Cisco Spark, which was launched with Verizon recently.

Market share graphMicrosoft features in the list due to its position in the server OS and virtualization applications market, where as Dell and IBM have demonstrated strong offerings in a broad number of cloud technology markets. Servers, OS, storage, networking and virtualization software combined accounted for 95% of the Q4 cloud infrastructure market.

While hardware and software to build cloud services revenues exceeded $60 billion, other areas of the industry demonstrated stronger growth. Public IaaS/PaaS services had the highest growth rate at 51%, followed by private & hybrid cloud infrastructure services at 45%.

“In many ways 2015 was the year when cloud became mainstream. Across a wide range of cloud applications and services we have seen that usage has now passed well beyond the early adopter phase and barriers to adoption continue to diminish,” said Duke. “Cloud technologies are now generating massive revenues and high growth rates that will continue long into the future, making this an exciting time for IT vendors and service providers that focus on cloud.”

Cisco, cloud based collaboration, News & Analysis, partnership, Telco Cloud, Verizon

Cisco and Verizon team up to launch Cisco Spark

Cisco corporateCisco is expanding its partnership with Verizon Enterprise Solutions to offer its new cloud-based collaboration service, Cisco Spark, to Verizon’s customer base.

The announcement builds on continued efforts from Verizon to bolster its range next-generation collaboration solutions, which already includes offers such as Cisco WebEx Cloud Connected Audio, Collaboration Meeting Room and Verizon’s UCCaaS Mobile First service.

The new joint offer will deliver Spark Message and Spark Meet features integrated with Verizon’s business collaboration services. The ultimate goal of the partnership will be to develop a service delivered in such a manner that customers are unable to differentiate between the Cisco and Verizon components. While currently available in the US, the service will be available to enterprise and government customers worldwide towards the end of the year.

Cisco has also announced the allocation of $150 million to the Cisco Spark for Developers Fund to generate new ideas for the ecosystem. The fund will cover direct investments, joint development, additional enhancements and developer support.

Verizon has been making considerable efforts over the last 12 months to increase its cloud-based communications offerings, to meet the demands of an increasingly mobile and collaborative workforce. With enterprise increasingly searching for opportunities to create a more productive working environment, software- and cloud-based offerings which enable employees to work in the office, from home or on the road, are quickly becoming the norm.

“Verizon is a leader in delivering global, mobile-enabled unified communications solutions to our business and government clients,” said Bob Minai, Executive Director, Advanced Communications at Verizon. “By integrating Cisco Spark meeting and messaging capabilities into Verizon’s collaboration portfolio and global network, Verizon and Cisco will continue to help enterprise clients with digital transformation initiatives that drive better customer experiences and meaningful, measurable business outcomes.”

The partnership continues Verizon’s trend of collaborative business, following up on last month’s announcement that it would be teaming up HyperOffice. As part of the agreement, HyperOffice would distribute its Share.to communications suite from Verizon Cloud infrastructure. Primarily, the tool will enable employees to work alongside freelancers, customers and other stakeholders all using different collaboration tools that need to work together.

Cisco, News & Analysis, Virtualisation

Cisco launches Digital Network Architecture virtualization platform

Network Function VirtualisationCisco has launched a new system which aims to virtualize every conceivable network function possible for clients and take them through the painful process of digital transformation, reports Telecoms.com.

The networking vendor has announced its new Digital Network Architecture (DNA), which it describes as an open, software driven framework. The DNA will complement and extend the policies of its datacentre based Application Centric Infrastructure (ACI) technology throughout the entire network, Cisco says.

Whereas ACI software defined the network, DNA will help enterprises to define everything from the campus to the branch, whether the network is wired or wireless, at the core or at the edge, says Cisco. DNA will sit within the Cisco ONE Software family, in order to simplify software licensing and help protect investments by providing continuity.

The Cisco DNA is built on five guiding principles, which can be summarized as virtualize everything, automate management, analyse everything everywhere, one policy for the entire network and keep every layer of networking as open and extensible as possible.

The mission to virtualising everything that can be possibly software defined will maximise the options for telcos and all enterprises. This gives the clients the choice to run any service anywhere, independent of the underlying platform, be it physical or virtual, on premise or in the cloud, says Cisco. Yesterday Cisco announced the acquisition of Leaba Semiconductor, which specialises in networking semi-conductors which could play a central role in the virtualisation of networking functions and maximise the possibilities for embedding virtualised functions.

Automating network management will maximise the speed and efficiency of the virtualised functions of an enterprise, but this may be regulated by the third important DNA principle, the need to have pervasive analytics. Analytics will provide the checks and balances needed to keep the network and IT infrastructure meeting its performance potential. Similarly, a virtualised network can only be an efficient cloud if service management from the cloud can unify policy and orchestration across the network. On Monday BCN reported how Cisco plans to buy cloud orchestration specialist CliQr.

The key to preventing network sclerosis is keeping everything open and accessible, which is why Cisco’s fifth guiding principle for DNA is to keep everything open, extensible and programmable at every layer, so that Cisco and third party technology can be integrated.

Cisco, M&A, News & Analysis

Cisco to buy cloud orchestrator CliQr for $260 million

Cisco corporateCisco has announced its intention to buy CliQr Technologies, a Californian start up that specialises in making apps run faster in the new bare metal, virtualised and container environments that are becoming increasingly pivotal in cloud computing.

Under the terms of the agreement, Cisco will pay $260 million in cash and assumed equity awards, plus retention based incentives. The acquisition is expected to close in the third quarter of 2016, subject to closing conditions. The CliQr team will join Cisco’s Insieme Business Unit reporting to Prem Jain, Cisco’s general manager.

Announcing the acquisition at Cisco’s Partner Summit, Cisco’s VP of Corporate Development Robert Salvagno said that the new technology will help its systems integrators and service provider partners to simplify the marshalling of resources and help get private, public and hybrid cloud projects running quicker. CliQr has out-of-the box support for all major public cloud environments.

Cisco said it will now continue to integrate CliQr across its data centre portfolio.

Cisco had already integrated CliQr with its Cisco Application Centric Infrastructure (ACI) and Unified Computing systems (UCS) prior to acquisition, in a bid to improve the movement of applications between on-premise and cloud environments. Having achieved that it now aims to integrate CliQr across its data centre portfolio, extending the ‘orchestration of services’ to cover eventualities such as bare metal computing, containerised systems and all the various types of virtualisation.

CliQr simplifies management by giving customers a single system for managing the application lifecycle across hybrid IT environments. Cisco claims the system is intuitive and can simplify the most complex systems. With computing becoming a hybrid of traditional on premise IT and services running in the cloud, many CIOs and network managers have been left behind by the new complexity and inefficiencies and blockages have emerged which Cisco claims it can now smooth out.

Among the productivity improvements promised by CliQr is a feature that allows managers to create a single, secure application profile that can then be whizzed across any data centre, public or private cloud. Other managerial time savers include a consistent policy making scheme, an application optimiser across hybrid systems, a one click rollout and ‘complete visibility’ and control across applications, cloud environments and users.

Channel, Cisco, News & Analysis, Pivotal

Cisco to resell Pivotal’s Cloud Foundry service alongside Metapod

Cisco corporatePivotal and Cisco are to jointly will jointly offer an enterprise cloud service designed to help developers work quicker.

A global agreement between the two will see Cisco partners resell Pivotal’s Cloud Foundry services blended alongside Cisco’s own Metapod offering. The selling point for the combined service is the promise that it will help companies set up cloud native applications quicker, from a wider choice of hosted, public and private clouds.

While Cisco’s OpenStack-based Metapod is designed to run on company premises the Pivotal Cloud Foundry is available to clients as an externally hosted system. Cloud Foundry’s main promise is to improve the productivity of developers, fine tune operations and provide IT systems with enterprise grade security, scalability and availability. Both system take different approaches to a common delivery goal, to help companies get their software to market faster.

Under the terms of the Cisco Solution Partner Program, which is part of the Cisco Partner Ecosystem, Cisco and third-party independent hardware, software and technology vendors integrate various IT systems and offer them to clients. As a Cisco Solution Partner, Pivotal has already been granted Cisco compatibility certification and offers 24X7 customer support.

Cloud Foundry has five major elements to its service. Microservices help developers to move faster by using composable services designed for independent deployment, scaling and recovery. Containers help create a flexible, secure and manageable workload which can be distributed and scheduled in order to create greater efficiency. Cloud Foundry’s Open Source is backed by contributions from over 40 members of the Cloud Foundry Foundation. A short software delivery cycle is the aim of the Continuous Delivery element of Cloud Foundry, while the DevOps element can provide a structured platform for app creation.

The integration of Cisco Metapod and Pivotal Cloud Foundry marries the top managed private cloud with the leading Cloud Native developer experience, according to Peder Ulander, Cisco’s VP of Cloud and Managed Services. The goal is to help customers “quickly and easily modernize their IT,” said Ulnder.

The combination of Metapod and Clod Foundry gives companies the clout of an enterprise but the stealth of an SME, according to James Watters, senior VP of Products at Pivotal. Enterprises can use the cloud service to build “next generation applications that rival that of Silicon Valley’s most renowned start-ups,” said Watters.

BT, Cisco, News & Analysis, SDN, Telco Cloud

BT uses Cisco IWAN tech for new SDN namaged service

BT cloud of cloudsBT has launched a new managed comms service that uses software defined networking techniques to automatically optimise network traffic, reports Telecoms.com.

The BT Connect Intelligence IWAN service will, it claims, cut networking costs, boost app performance and tighten security for clients. It unveiled the Walgreens Boots Alliance as a reference customer, which runs in the UK and 20 other countries. Clients can use IWAN as a bridging stage in its transition to full network function virtualisation and software definition in the cloud, it claims.

BT’s IWAN was created by integrating Cisco’s Intelligent WAN (IWAN) service within the BT Connect portfolio of network services. The new offering is a hybrid of public and private cloud and uses Software Defined Wide Area Network (SD-WAN) technology to create virtualised functions such as application performance management and security.

Among the new options offered in this first version of Connect Intelligence IWAN will be a        Virtual Private Network (VPN), fast track application routing, higher rates of app performance and better intelligence on how the network is operating.

The VPNs will be created using MPLS technology and will secure interconnections across hybrids of private and public cloud, as well as fixed line and mobile networks. Meanwhile, despite the powerful levels of encryption set up by the VPNs, information from applications will be fast tracked across the network by the quickest possible route, thanks to intelligence based on real-time network performance. The faster performance of applications will improve productivity and user experience, claims BT. Meanwhile SDN will allow the service provider to gives customers deep insight into their application and network performance, BT claims. The telco claims customers can self-manage their networks through BT’s My Account portal.

The use of NFV and SDN paves the way for a new generation of services that are quicker and easier to set up and change, according to Keith Langridge, VP of network services at BT Global Services. “Customers all over the world can now deal much more effectively with their increasing bandwidth and traffic optimisation demands,” said Langridge.

CCaaS, Cisco, Enterprise IT, News & Analysis, Shadow IT

Cisco launches Cloud Consumption as a Service to help CIOs retain control

Cisco shadow ITCisco has announced a new service to help CIOs regain control of the company computing resources as shadow IT threatens to run rampant.

Its new Cloud Consumption as a Service (CCaaS) offering promises to discover and monitor public cloud computing usage, which grew at 112 per cent last year in large enterprises. With the average organisation now using 1,220 cloud services the position of chief information officer risks being undermined, as much of the information technology that companies use is now out of the CIO’s control, according to Cisco.

Cisco alleges that cloud services are now 25 times higher than the average CIO planned for, meaning that management is impossible. The launch of CCaaS will offer measure and monitoring, in order to help CIOs to manage what it describes as ‘the significant business risks associated with uncontrolled adoption of public cloud services’. These risks range from regulatory compliance and data protection, to business continuity, cost and service performance, it warns.

The main function of the service is to discover and continually monitor public cloud use across an organisation. When tempered with detailed analytics and benchmarking from Cisco, businesses could cut both their costs and security risks while making better future cloud service purchasing decisions.

New York based health care organisation CityMD, which acted a test user of the service, found that employees across its 50 sites were using 522 cloud services, while the IT department only supported 20.

“Our company was founded by doctors, so they want cloud services fast but now we have a better idea of what risks we may face,” said Robert Florescu, Information Technology VP at CityMD.

The Cisco Cloud Consumption as a Service is now available globally via qualified Cisco channel partners, prices start at $1 to $2 dollars per employee per month, depending on the size of the business.


Cisco, Financing, Funding, News & Analysis

Cisco to create 200 new cloud jobs at Cisco Meraki UK

Cisco has announced plans to create 200 new UK jobs for cloud professionals with an investment of $2.5m in the UK-based Startupbootcamp accelerator.

The news came as Cisco entertained Sajid Javid the UK’s Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills at its new City of London HQ in Finsbury Square. Javid met with Cisco’s UK CEO Phil Smith to discuss the digitisation of the economy and Cisco’s role in catalysing this process in the UK.

In July Cisco announced it would invest $1 billion in the UK over the next three to five years. In November in announced its intention to buy London-based conferencing company Acano for £470m ($700 million) and Portcullis for an undisclosed figure.

The 200 new UK jobs will be at Cisco Meraki, a cloud controlled wifi, routing and security specialist arm which Cisco plans to grow three-fold by early 2017. Meraki is expected to grow in response to booming demand for solutions to the problems created by the BYOD trend in enterprises.

In a separate initiative Cisco is investing in Startupbootcamp, a startup accelerator that aims to nurture new digital talent. Cisco runs different technology themes in programmes across eight sites in Amsterdam, Barcelona, Berlin, Copenhagen, Eindhoven, Israel, Istanbul and London. Startupbootcamp claims that 80% of its alumni are still trading and have attracted an average investment of £400,000 each.

Cisco already runs an incubator, IDEALondon, in association with University College London (UCL) and DC Thomson. Last week as IDEALondon celebrated its second anniversary it announced it has secured £10 million in external funding and earned £2 million in revenue, creating 100 jobs. Cisco customers now have 50 pilot projects using technology from IDEALondon startups. The pilot projects help refine the systems and give Cisco customers access to new options that otherwise wouldn’t be available, it claims.

“There are still huge opportunities to improve productivity with digital technology,” said Cisco’s UK CEO Phil Smith.

“Two hundred new high value jobs is fantastic news,” said Javid. “Britain is the place to do business.”