Your company has always made demands on the network, but in the last ten years, the biggest demand has been for more bandwidth. While increasing bandwidth is still important, supporting the diverse set of applications now coming onto the scene is going to impact how you design and manage your network from edge-to-core. Our Next Generation Network Tech Center delivers best practices, emerging trends, new products and strategies to help you prepare for the next generation network.
News and Analysis
AppSense Unveils Smartphone Encryption
DataLocker, which will enable smartphone users to encrypt sensitive information in personal cloud services like Dropbox, is the first product to come out of the new research arm created by virtualization technology provider AppSense. Intended to create new computing technologies geared at both end users and IT, the focus of AppSense Labs will be "to research technologies that include cloud, mobile and data, and to build prototype products that bring a consumer experience to IT," the company says.
Cisco & Friends Debate Cloud Future
Cloud computing is evolving to the point where unique clouds will be developed for specific industry verticals, such as healthcare, government and financial services, predicts a Cisco Systems executive speaking at the CloudConnect 2012 conference this week in Silicon Valley. This runs contrary to what some have called the Coke versus Pepsi rule--that companies would not want to be in multitenant cloud environments with their competitors.
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Blogs
Cisco And Deloitte Wrong: Good Practices More Impactful Than Vendor Choice
February 21, 2012 02:57 PM
Posted by Mike Fratto
Cisco is fighting back against the notion that a multi-vendor network can simplify operations and reduce TCO. The networking giant commissioned a report by Deloitte that finds operation costs will increase over the life of the equipment in a network that uses equipment from disparate vendors. The fact is, one vendor vs. multiple vendors is the wrong fight. Sound management practices and smart production selection will have a bigger impact on your IT costs than the number of vendors you use.
See all blogs by Mike Fratto
Aruba Networks Swings Big At BYOD And More With ClearPass
February 21, 2012 09:00 AM
Posted by Lee H. Badman
Gone are the days of simply providing good signal in the WLAN environment. Guest requirements, the new reality of the BYOD--or bring your own device--model and increasing reliance on the wireless network as a critical resource combine to make life complicated for us in the business of enterprise wireless networking. Aruba Networks is ready to answer the back-end challenges of contemporary wireless with its new ClearPass framework, and the impressive array of features is not limited to use by Aruba customers.
See all blogs by Lee H. Badman
Emulex and Mellanox Drive Down 10 Gig Cost
February 14, 2012 12:15 PM
Posted by Howard Marks
While we've grown to believe that technologies follow steady geometric price decreases with confidence-inspiring names like Moore's or Kryder's Laws, the truth is market forces aren't as predictable as the word "law" would imply. Those of us who follow the Ethernet market are used to an occasional vendor making a dramatic price move for its own reasons. Most recently, Emulex and Mellanox are making moves to make 10-Gbps Ethernet cheaper.
See all blogs by Howard Marks
Centrify's New MDM Strategy Priced To Move
February 14, 2012 11:51 AM
Posted by Lee H. Badman
The mobile device management space is relatively new, but is already showing signs of being a study in same-old, same-old. How much can you really do with Apple's API for iDevices, after all? Judging by the current players, you'd think that all MDM solutions require a stand-alone management server and yet another console to administer. Though many MDM vendors put different faces on the same basic functionality, Centrify promises a unique methodology, at a price you won't believe.
See all blogs by Lee H. Badman
Riverbed's Granite Virtualizes Branch Office Storage
February 10, 2012 09:00 AM
Posted by Howard Marks
When Riverbed and others brought WAN acceleration to the market around the turn of the century, many of us hoped that with WAN acceleration we could pull the servers, and the headaches they cause, from branch offices. Unfortunately, many organizations found reasons to keep servers in the branches. Riverbed's new Granite appliance allows organizations to keep servers in their branch offices while eliminating many of the headaches through what Riverbed's calling Edge Virtual Server Infrastructure.
See all blogs by Howard Marks
DocuSign Does Android
February 09, 2012 09:00 AM
Posted by Lee H. Badman
One of the great promises of the mobile device explosion is increased productivity. But productivity is in the eye of the beholder, and many mobile users still haven't caught on to the notion that you can sign documents digitally, with a legally binding signature, from a mobile device. Whether the goal is paperwork reduction or expedience, DocuSign combines the power of digital ink and a slick, cloud-enabled document-handling framework to put an end to the likes of scanning and faxing. And now, those of us with Android devices can use DocuSign, too.
See all blogs by Lee H. Badman
Best of the Web
VXLAN termination on physical devices
VXLAN is an Experimental IETF draft of protocols to enable the creation of a large overlay, multi-tenant network.
ONF Deadly Serious About OpenFlow-Based SDNs
: OpenFlow is poised to reach over-hyped status, yet there are practical, useful reasons for keeping an eye on Openflow. The biggest cloud players are involved and driving the feature creation.
Practical Introduction to Applied OpenFlow
Get a primer on the Openflow protocol and what it can do for networking.
On Resilience of Spit-Architecture Networks
This research papers investigates the practical issues in split-architecture networks and the placement of the controllers, such as Openflow controllers, in the network.

















