This shift in WAN requirements is placing increased cost and performance pressure on traditional WAN solutions, which either pose the exorbitant costs of private WAN services or are burdened by the unreliability of the public internet. WAN optimization and virtualization can address and improve this in enterprises. Read more at GigaOM Pro »
Many factors have driven the recent high demand for IT products and services. However, relentless global economic weakness and uncertainty have resulted in a deterioration of worldwide IT spending through the third quarter and will continue to be an anchor in the fourth quarter. Read more at GigaOM Pro »
The growth of public and private cloud services places new demands on the IT organization, particularly when it comes to the scale, agility and management of the data center. SDNs are a response to those demands, providing opportunities for IT managers to improve their network operations. Read more at GigaOM Pro »
The purpose of the on-screen guide has shifted. By connecting the guide to content-recommendation engines and advertising platforms, service providers and connected-TV device manufacturers are using the EPG as an access point for understanding consumers and reaching out to them to own the living room. Read more at GigaOM Pro »
Mobile data will grow 18 times over the next five years. To successfully address the shift from voice-to data-centric usage models, operators need to act on multiple fronts, because no single solution will be sufficient in isolation. Read more at GigaOM Pro »
Welcome to the fast-growing world of work media, a class of social tools oriented toward the needs of enterprises. Their emergence is due to the shifting expectations of an increasingly social workforce and the sense that older approaches to work like email are arguably approaching obsolescence. Read more at GigaOM Pro »
Whether it’s the iPhone 5, the importance of LTE, or BYOD trends disrupting the enterprise, there are always technologies, trends, and companies changing the way we define mobile. Here are some noteworthy segments to watch in the coming months, from location-based shopping to apps to wireless networks. Read more at GigaOM Pro »
As the volume of connected devices increases, so too will the probability of hackers targeting these systems to exploit networks, steal data, hijack systems, and compromise workflows. Security specialists recognize the potential risks and are already developing technologies and methodologies for hardening M2M systems from attack. Read more at GigaOM Pro »
While cloud, mobility, social, and analytics have been driving demand for IT products and services in 2012, the worldwide IT spending picture has become dimmer as the year has progressed: We’re looking at 5.1 percent worldwide IT spending growth in 2012. Read more at GigaOM Pro »
The software-defined networking (SDN) market is expected to soar in size to $2 billion by 2016, according to IDC. Growth this fast may very well signify that SDN is the third epoch of computer networking, creating vendor discontinuities and a new IT order. Read more at GigaOM Pro »
Cisco in an internal memo outlined its plans for the changing nature of networking. It also acknowledged a $100 million investment in Insieme, a company started by three Cisco executives and that it can buy it for upto $750 million. Read the memo & what it means. Read more »
The industry has moved beyond starry-eyed soothsaying about a world of 50 billion connected devices to start talking about how these mammoth networks of objects and appliances would actually work and how they would be managed. Read more at GigaOM Pro »
Last week, the Wi-Fi Alliance and the Wireless Broadband Alliance announced significant progress in their shared goal of making your phone connect seamlessly with Wi-Fi networks. Now at Mobile World Congress, Cisco is proffering up the first equipment that supports those Next Generation Hotspot and Hotspot 2.0 standards. Read more »
Cisco hit the skids 18 months ago which led to a restructuring that was completed in record time. Now Cisco is ready to roll again, and to celebrate, CEO John Chambers discussed the company’s future. Here are 3 key takeaways. Read more »
Cisco said it would buy Lightwire, a company that makes optics chips using traditional chip manufacturing in a deal valued at $271 million. This is a significant acquisition for Cisco because it stays true to its core networking business and advances it with deep technology. Read more »
Systems integrator Dimension Data bought OpSource for its cloud services in June, and is now unveiling the updated cloud offering under its brand. The updated services include a public compute-as-a-service cloud, a private version of same, as well as managed hosting and managed services. Read more »
Last week IBM launched the first third party virtual switching platform for VMware environments. This is an important development because as the first tier of network switching moves into the server, the virtual switch becomes extremely strategic real-estate and control point for emerging SDN architectures. Read more »
Networking is having its heyday in Silicon Valley, as startups pushing programmable networks raise millions and venture firms are on the lookout for the next big thing in IT infrastructure. Read more »
European Union’s decision to approve the Microsoft & Skype merger without any objection isn’t sitting well with Cisco, the unified communications giant who is worried that Microsoft will use Skype to dominate the video calling industry. Sour grapes for a company caught in it own business-model. Read more »
Cisco has read the mobile data tea leaves again, and it predicts that next year the global population of mobile users will switch to streaming the majority of their content from “the cloud.” This will represent a shift from downloaded and sideloaded content. Read more »
Cisco Systems’ oft-cited Visual Networking Index of the world’s projected mobile data consumption fell under some criticism this year as some operators’ rapid growth seemed to peter off, but Cisco isn’t changing its forecasts. Rather, it is revising them upward, predicting even greater traffic growth. Read more »
Virgin Media announced today that it’s rolling out a suite of Cisco collaboration tools after a successful pilot. How did they ensure a widespread adoption of these tools and a smooth transition to new ways of working? Both companies share lessons from the pilot. Read more »
Cisco, an incredibly active acquirer, is ready to start doing deals again, according to John Chambers. We think it should be focusing on the cloud and beefing up its core networking skills by buying some of the companies we list in our story. Read more »
HP is following other big systems makers into the world of software defined networking with a line of 16 OpenFlow-enabled switches. That’s a pretty serious commitment to OpenFlow, a protocol that helps take the intelligence associated with routing packets off of the high-priced switching gear and […] Read more »
As I’ve been walking the floor at DistribuTECH in San Antonio, Texas — one of the largest smart grid focused conferences of the year — I’ve been snapping pics of the grid connected devices that will deliver a more efficient system and create the Energy Internet. Read more »
IBM has teamed up with NEC to deliver an OpenFlow-based controller-and-switch combo that tries to find the sweet spot in software-defined networking between expensive, proprietary gear from Cisco or Juniper and the brand-new, open-sourced stuff that startups and webscale companies are peddling. Read more »
Less than three years in, that’s a very big number, especially since data center buyers tend to be a conservative bunch. Cisco’s Unified Computing Systems definitely has legs, but it still hasn’t cracked the top five server vendors. Rival HP still holds the top slot. Read more »
Networking giant Cisco held a press event on Tuesday morning showing off a couple of new products for its smart grid initiative, but mostly emphasizing an overall design and architecture for how Cisco sees the entire smart grid network for its potential utility customers. Read more »
Cisco’s new Videoscape products announced at the 2012 CES will provide more functionality both for managing assets in the cloud, as well as new client-based technology for a wider range of connected devices. That will add new immersive features for pay TV subscribers. Read more »
Cisco’s move into living room video conferencing with its Umi product never got going, hampered by a high price and competition from free alternatives. Now Cisco has confirmed that it is no longer selling the consumer telepresence gear, though it will continue to support existing users. Read more »
I made a lot of predictions about cloud computing and the general IT infrastructure space heading into 2011, and I impressed myself with my skills of prognostication. Of course, it’s possible I’m just grading myself too generously, so I’ll let readers be the judges. Read more »
Schneider Electric filled in some checkboxes in its overall data center infrastructure management (DCIM) stack with the acquisition of Viridity’s EnergyCenter technology. EnergyCenter will bring Schneider a fuller picture of the energy cost and resource utilization of information technology gear. Read more »
Gen Y members may be natural telecommuters, as FlexJobs CEO Sara Sutton Fell has claimed, but it appears their natural affinity for mobile work doesn’t come equipped with natural instincts for data security, at least if a new survey from Cisco is to be believed. Read more »
It is fashionable to obsesses about the web startup phenomenons and forget old fashioned Silicon Valley startups – ones that makes hardware, writes software and along the way clocks in hundreds of millions in sales and profits. And like everything good it takes time to build one. Read more »
Juniper Networks, well known for making large Internet routers is looking to cut its workforce by a whopping 10 percent, according to Nikos Theodosopoulos, networking analyst for UBS Research. Juniper had about 9,300 employees at the end of the second quarter of 2011. Read more »
In five short years, cloud computing has gone from being a quaint technology to a major catchphrase. Amazon and others are now moving at Internet speed, trying to offer better security, faster networking, more compliance and a host of other products that are attempting to meet the demands of startups, consumers and enterprises alike. On GigaOM’s Structure channel, we cover the gear and software that comprises the cloud, the services and the people who are changing the industry. Now for the first time, we’ve decided to condense that knowledge into the Structure 50, a list of the 50 companies that are influencing how the cloud and infrastructure evolves. All of these players, big or small, have people, technology or strategies that will help shape the way the cloud market is developing and where it will eventually end up. Companies mentioned in this report include Amazon, Rackspace, Cloudera, China Telecom and SeaMicro. For a full list of companies, and to see the Structure 50 as one full report, sign up for a free trial. Read more at GigaOM Pro »
Cisco’s cloud computing ambitions might be judged by outsiders as being centered around selling servers and networking gear to cloud data centers, but recent developments show that such an assessment might not be entirely fair as Cisco comes around on open source software. Read more »
Pure Digital CEO Jonathan Kaplan sold the Flip video recorder maker to Cisco in 2009 for $590 million. Today, Cisco shut down the video maker and laid off 550 employees. Kaplan shares his thoughts about the news and argues that smartphone didn’t kill the Flip. Read more »
Hardware rarely comes up in discussions about big data, save for those centered on data warehouse appliances. But the omission hardly means hardware is irrelevant. In fact, big gear might become a big deal as companies look to bolster the performance of their big data systems. Read more »
As broadband erases the boundaries between places and time zones, companies can take advantage of remote workers and virtual teams, but two new surveys show that many organizations aren’t, and generally it’s not because they don’t have the tools, but because they don’t have the mindset. Read more »
