Category Archives: Cisco

Cisco, Internet of Things, IoT, Kansas City, News & Analysis, Sprint, Stephen Bye, Wim Elfrink

Cisco, Sprint tapped for Kansas City IoT deployment

Kansas City is working with Cisco, Sprint and a range of partners on fa large-scale IoT deployment

Kansas City is working with Cisco, Sprint and a range of partners on fa large-scale IoT deployment

Kansas City, Missourim announced a deal with Cisco and Sprint that will see the municipality deploy an Internet of Things (IoT) platform it said will transform the urban services it offers citizens.

As part of the deal Cisco will offer up its Smart+Connected wireless networking and mobile app services and work with a group of partners to bring together an ecosystem to develop applications including smart lighting, digital kiosks, a development data portal, and smart water innovation development.

Some of the applications being developed by project partners include CityPost, which broadcasts real-time location-based information and alerts through a Smart City network powered on the street by interactive Smart Signs (city posts) and on smartphones, and a series of applications designed to enhance policing.

“It’s exciting to see forward looking cities like Kansas City driving innovations that enable cities to connect people, process, data and things, and bring the Internet of Everything to life,” said Wim Elfrink, executive vice president, industry solutions group, and chief globalisation officer for Cisco.

“Kansas City is empowering its citizens, helping them become more efficient and more productive, and the city is poised to create significant new economic value. We’re pleased to be part of the team that will deploy a Smart+Connected City framework,” Elfrink said.

Sprint will deploy Cisco hardware to build and manage a Wi-Fi network that will serve as the backbone of the connectivity platform.

“Sprint looks forward to playing an integral role in this ground-breaking initiative to bring greater connectivity across a wide range of business and consumer applications that support the Internet of Everything in our hometown,” said Stephen Bye, chief technology officer at Sprint. “Delivering Wi-Fi connectivity is a great fit for Sprint, and enables our customers to more easily use both cellular and Wi-Fi for a better mobile experience.”

The first phase of the project is due to kick off later this year, the municipality said.

Blue Box, Cisco, Hilton Romansky, IBM, Jim Comfort, News & Analysis, Open Source, Piston

Cisco, IBM spend big in OpenStack-focused land grab

Cisco and IBM have both acquired OpenStack vendors this week

Cisco and IBM have both acquired OpenStack vendors this week

Cisco and IBM have both signed deals to acquire OpenStack vendors this week, with Cisco acquiring Piston Cloud Computing, a firm specialising in OpenStack-based private cloud software and IBM buying up managed private cloud provider Blue Box.

Piston offers what it calls Piston CloudOS, a supped up version of OpenStack for private clouds alongside custom cluster management and monitoring software and APIs. Underneath that sits a custom Linux micro-OS that contains all of the necessary code to run CloudOS; the company said it can be characterized as a “bare-metal operating system that is tailor-made for pools of hyper-converged, commodity resources.”

Cisco said Piston will help it deliver on its Intercloud vision, which sees a Cisco-based set of cloud services that can federate with one another; OpenStack seems increasingly to be at the heart of that effort.

“Paired with our recent acquisition of Metacloud, Piston’s distributed systems engineering and OpenStack talent will further enhance our capabilities around cloud automation, availability, and scale. The acquisition of Piston will complement our Intercloud strategy by bringing additional operational experience on the underlying infrastructure that powers Cisco OpenStack Private Cloud,” said Hilton Romanski, corporate development lead at Cisco.

“Additionally, Piston’s deep knowledge of distributed systems and automated deployment will help further enhance our delivery capabilities for customers and partners,” he added.

The move will also give Cisco some strong in-house OpenStack expertise. One of Piston’s co-founders, Chris MacGown, was among the originating members of OpenStack’s Nova-core (compute) development team.

This is the second big OpenStack-focused acquisition Cisco has made in recent months. In September last year Cisco acquired Metacloud, a provider of commercially supported OpenStack. Metacloud also had IP in the networking technology it has integrated into its OpenStack distribution, which gave Cisco’s OpenStack play an SDN boost.

IBM, meanwhile has acquired managed private cloud provider Blue Box, which the company said would help bolster its hybrid cloud and OpenStack strategy.

The company said the move would enable it to provide a public cloud-like experience within its customers’ datacentres by allowing it to offer a remotely managed OpenStack offering, which it hadn’t previously.

“IBM is dedicated to helping our clients migrate to the cloud in an open, secure, data rich environment that meet their current and future business needs,” said IBM general manager of cloud services Jim Comfort. “The acquisition of Blue Box accelerates IBM’s open cloud strategy making it easier for our clients to move to data and applications across clouds and adopt hybrid cloud environments.”

IBM said it will continue to support Blue Box customers and use the company as a channel to sell its own cloud services.

Both acquisitions are a sign the old-hat vendors are putting their money where their mouths are when it comes to OpenStack – particularly when some of them, like HP and Red Hat, are digging their heels in and aggressively pushing their OpenStack wares.

Cisco, Deutsche Telekom, Financial Results, John Chambers, Kelly Kramer, News & Analysis, telstra

Cisco Q3: Enterprise shines while service provider biz struggles

Cisco said it enterprise business is looking strong but service provider segment still sees challenges

Cisco said it enterprise business is looking strong but service provider segment still sees challenges

Cisco reported third quarter 2015 revenues of $12.1bn this week, just over 5 per cent what it raked in during the same quarter last year. In a call with analysts this week Cisco execs said the company sees continued growth in its enterprise segment, but its service provider business continue to struggle.

Revenue for the first nine months of fiscal 2015 was $36.3bn, up from $34.8bn for the first nine months of fiscal 2014.

Kelly Kramer, Cisco executive vice president and chief financial officer said the company saw a good balance across its portfolio, with its enterprise segment looking fairly strong, much like the previous quarter.

UCS revenues for the quarter were $3bn, which is sequentially flat but a 30 per cent year-on-year increase, and the company said its seeing growth in its converged infrastructure offerings (those co-developed with VCE and IBM). Its cloud revenues grew 11 per cent year-on-year, mostly on growth in its conferencing cloud software.

In a call with analysts this week Cisco chairman and chief executive John Chambers said the company is seeing better performance in its enterprise segment than its server provider business – hindered in part by an industry-wide slowdown in spending seen over the past few quarters now.

“In enterprise, the shift to selling outcomes, not products, is resulting in larger opportunities and dramatic increases in pipeline. In US enterprise, for example, the value of our pipeline of deals over $1 million increased approximately 60 per cent year-over-year, with the average deal size up over 30 per cent,” he said.

“We are managing continued challenges in our service provider business, which declined 7 per cent, as global service provider capex remained under pressure and industry consolidation continues. We believe the organisational changes we have made in our global service provider organisation are working, and we are very focused on growing our share of wallet.”

“We are managing continued challenges in our service provider business, which declined 7%, as global service provider CapEx remained under pressure and industry consolidation continues. We believe the organizational changes we have made in our global service provider organization are working, and we are very focused on growing our share of wallet”

Chambers also said Cisco’s intercloud strategy announced last year will kick into “phase 2” shortly, and while he declined to specifically outline what that entails he did shed some light on the programme’s challenges in its bid get other service providers on board with it.

“The pieces that we were missing was how do you go into this new environment where each of these “public clouds in clouds” are separate? And you have to be on different vendors or different companies’ tech to have the ability to go into it. So what we’re looking at first is an architecture and it cements our relationships in service providers. And then it really comes through to how you monetise it over time.”

“This will just take time to monetize, but the effect we see indirectly is already huge when you talk about a Deutsche Telekom or a Telstra and our relationships with those,” he added.

Airbus, Cisco, Defence, Eric Souleres, News & Analysis, Wendy Mars

Airbus, Cisco team up on SDN, IoT, cloud security

Airbus and Cisco are partnering to develop IT solutions for the defence sectors

Airbus and Cisco are partnering to develop IT solutions for the defence sectors

Airbus Defence and Space announced a partnership with Cisco this week that will see the two firms jointly develop solutions making use of a range of technologies for the security and defence sector.

The companies said they plan to combine their strengths in defence, security and satellite communications, software-defined networking, cybersecurity, mobility, cloud, data intelligence and Internet of Things to develop, market and sell IT solutions for the security and defence sector.

Eric Souleres, head of engineering, operations and quality of the communications, intelligence and security (CIS) unit at Airbus Defence and Space said: “This relationship is a significant step forward for both companies. By utilising both companies’ technology and expertise we will be able to develop and offer superior and ground-breaking products and solutions to our customers, and strengthen our respective strategies as system integrator and IT leader.”

As part of the agreement, Cisco will provide Airbus Defence and Space with its networking, design and engineering expertise as well as networking equipment and infrastructure. Airbus Defence and Space global sales and engineering teams will also receive training from Cisco solution architects and sales experts.

“Cisco and Airbus Defence and Space strongly believe that the network is key in driving innovation and delivering business outcomes to our customers,” said Wendy Mars, vice president, enterprise business group, Cisco EMEAR.

“The diversity of our talent and technology will help enable both companies to better address existing opportunities and create transformational solutions that will deliver competitive advantage in the defence, cyber security and the satellite communication industries,” Mars said.

Cisco, Elastica, News & Analysis, Rehan Jalil, Scott Harrell, Shadow IT

Cisco, Elastica join forces on cloud security monitoring

Cisco will resell Elastica's cloud service monitoring technology

Cisco will resell Elastica’s cloud service monitoring technology

Networking giant Cisco is teaming up with Elastica, a cloud security startup, in a move that will see the two firms combine their threat intelligence and cloud service monitoring technologies.

The partnership will also see Cisco resell Elastica’s cloud application security and monitoring solution (CloudSOC) to its customers.

“The combination of Cisco’s threat-centric security portfolio and Elastica’s innovation in cloud application security provides a unique opportunity. Our global customers gain additional levels of visibility and control for cloud applications and it enhances our portfolio of advanced cloud-delivered security offerings,” said Scott Harrell, vice president of product management, Cisco Security Business Group.

“We are excited to partner with Elastica to deliver an even richer portfolio of on–premises and cloud application security to protect businesses across the attack continuum – before, during, and after an attack,” Harrell said.

The move is a big win for Elastica, a startup that existed stealth in early 2014 and just last month secured $30m in funding. Cisco will provide the security startup with a large and varied channel that spans both the enterprise and scale-out markets, while Cisco can plug a gap in its burgeoning cloud-centric portfolio (that said, it’s possible the move is a precursor to an acquisition).

“CIOs want to empower employees with advanced cloud apps that help enterprises stay agile, productive and competitive in the marketplace. The power of these cloud apps – information sharing and built-in collaboration capabilities – also require a completely new approach to security,” said Rehan Jalil, president and chief executive of Elastica.

“Elastica’s cloud app security technology, together with Cisco’s broad security portfolio and footprint, will help us catalyze the safe and compliant use of cloud apps so that our customers can continue to securely make their businesses more agile and productive,” Jalil said.

Chris Dedicoat, Cisco, DHL, Internet of Things, Logistics, Markus Kückelhaus, News & Analysis, supply chain operations

DHL, Cisco claim Internet of Things will give $1.9tn boost to supply chain, logistics

Deutsche Post DHL and Cisco are looking at how IoT will unlock extra value in the supply chain and logistics sectors

Deutsche Post DHL and Cisco are looking at how IoT will unlock extra value in the supply chain and logistics sectors

DHL and Cisco, which are collaborating on a joint Internet of Things initiative looking at how IoT can improve decision-making in warehouse operations, claim the technology could give A $1.9tn boost to supply chain and logistics operations.

The two companies, which recently inked a report on IoT in logistics, are looking at how IoT sensors strategically embedded in warehouse inventory, stock locations and vehicles and connected to cloud-based services via Wi-Fi can improve warehouse operations through the use of analytics.

“At Deutsche Post DHL Group we have a deeply held belief in the positive powers of global trade. Yet, as our Global Connectedness Index 2014 revealed, the overall level of global connectedness remains surprisingly limited,” said Ken Allen, chief executive officer of DHL Express and Board Sponsor Technology.

“There is huge potential for countries to further increase their connectedness and prosper through trade, integration and technology. We believe the Internet of Things will be a primary enabler of this global transformation,” Allen added.

The companies said there is potential for IoT to expand beyond the warehouse and into supply chain,logistics operations and freight transportation, and could have a “game changing” impact on ‘last mile’ delivery for consumers. Cisco reckons that value to sit in the region of $8tn worldwide over the next decade.

But Markus Kückelhaus, vice president Innovation & Trend Research, DHL Customer Solutions & Innovation said there’s still much to do before that value can be realised.

“The Internet of Things is the connection of almost anything – from parcels to people – via sensor technology to the web and both Cisco and DHL believe this will revolutionize business processes across the entire value chain including supply chain and logistics,” Kückelhaus  said. “We’ll need to understand how all components in the value chain converge and this will require a comprehensive collaboration, participation and the willingness to invest to create a thriving IoT eco system for sustainable business processes.

Chris Dedicoat, president, EMEAR for Cisco said: “Digitization and the expansion of the Internet of Things is a catalyst for growth, which is driving new economic models and enabling organizations to remain competitive and embrace the pace of change happening globally. This report clearly demonstrates that digitization and the IoT will deliver long term efficiencies and growth opportunities across a wide range of industries.”

Cisco, Converged Infrastructure, Nebula, News & Analysis, Open Source, OpenStack, Private Cloud, Vendor

Converged OpenStack cloud pioneer Nebula closes its doors

Nebula, an OpenStack pioneer, is closing its doors

Nebula, an OpenStack pioneer, is closing its doors

Converged infrastructure vendor Nebula, one of the first companies to pioneer integrated OpenStack-based private cloud hardware, announced it will close its doors this week.

A notice posted by the Nebula management team on its website says the company had no choice but to cease operations after exhaustively searching for alternative arrangements that would allow the company to keep operating.

“When we started this journey four years ago, we set out to usher in a new era of cloud computing by curating and productizing OpenStack for the enterprise. We are incredibly proud of the role we had in establishing Nebula as the leading enterprise cloud computing platform. At the same time, we are deeply disappointed that the market will likely take another several years to mature. As a venture backed start up, we did not have the resources to wait.”

“Nebula private clouds deployed at customer sites will continue to operate normally, however support will no longer be available. Nebula is based on OpenStack and is compatible with OpenStack products from vendors including Red Hat, IBM, HP and others, providing customers with a number of choices moving forward.”

One of the original players behind the OpenStack codebase, Nebula offered Nebula Cosmos, a fast and secure deployment, management, and monitoring tool for enterprise-grade OpenStack private clouds, and converged infrastructure solutions based on x86 servers running OpenStack- the Nebula One.

Nearly five years after the creation of OpenStack the market is clearly still in its early stages despite loads of vendor hype and a flurry of acquisitions in this space. Indeed, the first challenge for independents like Nebula is their ability to gain critical mass and maintain operations – at least before being acquired by firms like Cisco, Red Hat, HP and other IT vendors that have snapped OpenStack startups in recent years in a bid to grow their portfolios based on the open source platform; the second is, of course, competing with the Ciscos, Red Hats and HPs of the world, which is no small feat.

Cisco, Dante Malagrinò, Embrane, Hilton Romanski, M&A, network function virtualisation, Networks, News & Analysis, NFV, Virtualisation

Cisco to buy Embrane in NFV automation play

Cisco is consolidating its NFV portfolio with an increasing focus on automation

Cisco is consolidating its NFV portfolio with an increasing focus on automation

Networking giant Cisco announced its intent to acquire network function virtualisation (NFV) and Cisco tech specialist Embrane for an undisclosed sum this week, a move intended to bolster the company’s networking automation capabilities.

“With agility and automation as persistent drivers for IT teams, the need to simplify application deployment and build the cloud is crucial for the datacentre,” explained Cisco’s corporate development lead Hilton Romanski.

“As we continue to drive virtualization and automation, the unique skillset and talent of the Embrane team will allow us to move more quickly to meet customer demands. Together with Cisco’s engineering expertise, the Embrane team will help to expand our strategy of offering freedom of choice to our customers through the Nexus product portfolio and enhance the capabilities of Application Centric Infrastructure (ACI),” he said, adding that the purchase also builds on previous commitments to open standards, open APIs, and playing nicely in multi-vendor environments.

Beyond complimenting Cisco’s ACI efforts, Dante Malagrinò, one of the founders of Embrane and its chief product officer said the move will help further the company’s goal of driving software-hardware integration in the networking space, and offer Embrane an attractive level of scale few vendors playing in this space have.

“Joining Cisco gives us the opportunity to continue our journey and participate in one of the most significant shifts in the history of networking:  leading the industry to better serve application needs through integrated software-hardware models,” he explained.

“The networking DNA of Cisco and Embrane together drives our common vision for an Application Centric Infrastructure.  We both believe that innovation must be evolutionary and enable IT organizations to transition to their future state on their own terms – and with their own timelines.  It’s about coexistence of hardware with software and of new with legacy in a way that streamlines and simplifies operations.”

Cisco is quickly working to consolidate its NFV offerings, and more recently its OpenStack services, as the vendor continues to target cloud service providers and telcos looking to revamp their datacentres. In March it was revealed Cisco struck a big deal with T-Systems, Deutsche Telekom’s enterprise-focused subsidiary, that will see the German incumbent roll out Cisco’s OpenStack-based infrastructure in datacentre in Biere, near Magdeburg, as well as a virtual hotspot service for SMEs.

Cisco, Day1, Funding, Grand View Research, Infrastructure as a Service, InterCloud, Logic Method IT, Luis Benavides, Managed services, NetApp, News & Analysis

Cloud service integrator Day1 secures $2m

Day1 offers cloud system integration services

Day1 offers cloud system integration services

Cloud services integrator and provider Day1 Solutions has closed a $2m funding round the company said will be used to expand its technical services and sales team.

Day1 was founded in 2012 and provides NetApp cloud storage and Cisco Intercloud-based services to a range of public and private sector clients, and offers system integration services for clients deploying cloud services on Amazon’s cloud infrastructure.

It also offers a white label managed services platform to MSPs, an offering that grew out of its acquisition of Logic Method IT (LMIT) in November last year.

“Day1 Solutions is on a hyper-growth trajectory, and last year experienced a year-over-year revenue increase in excess of 1600 percent,” said Luis Benavides, founder and chief executive officer of Day1 Solutions.

“This funding is a testament to our investors’ confidence in Day1 Solutions’ leadership team, business model and ability to consistently deliver an exceptional cloud experience to a rapidly growing base of enterprise customers moving mission critical IT operations to the cloud.”

Day1’s specialisation is largely in the service integration piece, and many analyst houses expect cloud system integration to play an increasingly prominent role – particularly in the infrastructure integration segment – as enterprises increasingly hybridise their IT landscapes with a mix of multi-cloud, cloud and on-premise systems.

According to Grand View Research the global system integration market is expected to reach $393bn by 2020, with infrastructure integration accounting for about 35 per cent of that market.

Asia Pacific, Cisco, Internet of Things, IoT, Irving Tan, News & Analysis, Vendor

Cisco to open Internet of Things innovation centre in Australia

Cisco will open an Internet of Things innovation centre in Australia this year

Cisco will open an Internet of Things innovation centre in Australia this year

Networking giant Cisco plans to open an Internet of Everything Innovation Centre in Australia this year, which the company said will house experts in the Internet of Things and help catalyse IoT innovation in the region.

The $15m centre, one of eight planned globally (Rio de Janeiro, Toronto, Songdo, Berlin, Barcelona, Tokyo and London) will include locations in Sydney at Sirca and in Perth at Curtin University. Perth-based energy firm Woodside Energy will also contribute resources to the centre.

The centres include dedicated space to demonstrate Internet of Things platforms, and are being pitched as areas where customers, startups and researchers can come together to prototype and test out their ideas.

“Australia is a sophisticated market with a high level of innovation and an early adopter of new technology. Australia is already highly regarded globally for its resources and agriculture sectors and is well-placed to serve the rapidly growing Asian markets, and the Australian government has prioritised these sectors accordingly,” said Irving Tan, senior vice president Asia Pacific and Japan at Cisco.

“The aim now with Cisco IoE Innovation Centre, Australia and its ecosystem of partners is to accelerate innovation and the adoption of the IoE in Australia,” Tan said.

The announcement comes the same week Cisco published a report claiming UK Internet of Things startups could generate more than £100bn over the decade as their offerings catch on in industries like healthcare, retail, transport and energy.

The company also said large firms, SMEs, and government organisations in the UK need to cultivate more joint innovation partnerships if any industry stakeholders are to reap the financial benefits of such a proliferation in internet-connected devices.