Archive | June, 2010

Network engineers embrace cloud computing, Cisco Live survey says

By on June 30, 2010 in Service Assurance

While network engineers, managers and directors attending Cisco Live in Las Vegas this week can’t come to an agreement on one definition for cloud computing, 71% of 184 network professionals polled at the show reported that they are implementing some form of the technology at their companies.

Network performance management and troubleshooting vendor Network Instruments took the opportunity at Cisco Live this week to get a read on attendees’ understanding and adoption of cloud computing. The poll revealed that the meaning of cloud computing varied widely for attendees, the majority of which reported adopting the technology in some form at their companies.

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How to make the most of your Cisco environment

By on June 29, 2010 in Ask the Service Assurance Expert

Cisco Live attendees will hear about more than just the network giant’s tablet product plans. The Las Vegas show also gives Cisco partners the opportunity to showcase how their wares can monitor, manage and optimize Cisco environments.

On the heels of Cisco’s introduction of its Cius tablet, CA Technologies will be presenting to IT and network professionals at Cisco Live on how they can better manage virtual machines, ensure optimal application delivery and take on performance management in Cisco data centers.

To start, the software maker will host the CA Technologies Super Session, which is expected to draw some 1,400 show goers pre-registered for the event at Cisco Live. According to Kenneth Mills, principal technical marketing manager (also hosting his own session “Assuring Application Delivery with Cisco and CA Technologies), the show floor flooded with people looking to learn more about Cisco and how vendors like CA Technologies can help them get more from their existing environments.

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Seeking service provider IT certification? Cisco offers another option

By on June 28, 2010 in Service Assurance

Cisco Monday announced it had made available a new set of courseware and exams for the Cisco CCNP (Cisco Certified Network Professional) Service Provider Operations certification (CCNP SP Operations). The certification validates that its owner can troubleshoot complex network and network services.

The Cisco Learning Network is scheduled to make the exams and materials available to interested parties in early August 2010. This track is designed for network operations center (NOC) professionals working in service provider environments. Among the requirements for the IT certification is training in maintaining carrier class routing protocol environments as well as MPLS VPNs and TE deployments. The courses would also cover QoS mechanisms using Cisco IOS and IOS XR.

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Cisco ups its IT certification quotient

By on June 25, 2010 in Uncategorized

Cisco this week announced a new program that would ease the recertification burden for those bearing CCIE certs and enable Cisco Certified Internetwork Experts to keep their status without retesting every two years.

The Cisco CCIE Emeritus program will kick off August 1, 2010 and is ideally designed for long-time (10 years and greater to be exact) CCIEs. According to Learning@Cisco materials, the Emeritus is for “long-term CCIE’s who have moved out of the ‘day-to-day’ technical work, but would like to stay involved in the program serving as ambassadors to current and future CCIEs.”

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Are IT leaders betting on business service management?

By on June 24, 2010 in Ask the Service Assurance Expert

Enterprise IT leaders today realize to be effective their organizations’ work needs to be directly tied to the business — beyond alignment toward total synchronization.

And as vendors work to deliver technologies that fit into buckets of products defined by various IT industry watchers, it remains to be seen if enterprise IT leaders identify the technologies with the market terms. Recent research shows that the promise of one technology-business partnership represents a transformation to many in IT, but unfortunately fewer have made the progress needed to reach their goals.

During a webinar this week, Enterprise Management Associates (EMA) shared details on data (to be continued in future webinars) that sheds some light on just how well enterprise IT understands the technologies associated with business service management and how far along they have implemented product and processes to support BSM initiatives.

BSM isn’t a new concept. (Just to give you an example of how long the term has been bandied about, in 2004 I wrote a buzz-y article for Network World on the emerging technology concept.) Yet according to findings revealed by EMA’s Dennis Drogseth, vice president of research, the majority of 160 respondents are not in “First-Phase Deployment” of their BSM implementation.

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Which ITIL is right for you?

By on June 23, 2010 in Service Assurance & ITIL

The best practices of the IT Infrastructure Library appeal to enterprise IT organizations, but recent data from Forrester Research shows that most adopters are sticking with the second generation of ITIL, despite how-to guidance being incorporated into ITIL Version 3.

ITIL FAQ

According to a report in Network World, more than 50% of 115 respondents told Forrester analysts they were either fully or partially practicing ITIL v2 guidelines. Yet less than one-fifth (18%) of those polled said they were practicing ITIL v3. Yet 38% said they were considering adopting ITIL v3.

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World Cup fever hits American workers

By on June 23, 2010 in Uncategorized

Will it wreak havoc on network performance across U.S. companies?As the American team takes on Algeria today, will corporate networks across the U.S.A suffer at the hands of the 2010 FIFA World Cup in South Africa? A recent poll of about 400 IT professionals conducted at CA Technologies’ Interactive IT Executive Forum showed that the [...]

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Cisco Live 2010

Application performance, network engineers and Cisco Live

By on June 22, 2010 in Service Assurance

Network managers in the know realize they must master the art of optimized application performance just as they conquered Cisco router configuration. The application performance related job duty fell in the laps of network gurus years ago when it became clear that the network wasn’t always to blame for poor application performance — but that network engineers possibly held the best perspective on how to optimize bandwidth and other network resources to ensure business-critical apps performed as expected.

Cisco Live 2010Next week at Cisco Live attendees will get a chance to learn more about how to manage application performance from the network perspective.

CA Technologies is hosting a “super session” in which Cisco vet Cliff Meltzer, now corporate senior vice president and general manager of CA Technologies Service Assurance Business Unit will address the challenges network engineers face when virtualization is incorporated into the environment. Joined by Roger Pilc, corporate senior vice president and general manager of the Virtualization and Service Automation business unit at CA Technologies, Meltzer will share best practices on how to prepare for higher levels of virtualization as well as learn how automation triggers and real-time performance data can be used to enable successful QoS and SLA fulfillment.

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IT pros: Success equals doing more with less

By on June 21, 2010 in Service Assurance

A recent survey of 400 IT professionals revealed that for the majority success is measured on the IT organization’s ability to provide constant improvement – which was defined as “providing the expected quality of service while constantly reducing the budgets.”

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Poor application performance to blame for lost productivity, increased costs

By on June 21, 2010 in Ask the Service Assurance Expert

IT professionals realize poor application performance can hurt customer satisfaction and ultimately the business, but recent poll results show that applications not behaving as expected can drive down employee productivity and do damage to IT department budgets by increasing the costs of solving problems.

According to a poll taken during the multi-city event, CA Technologies’ Interactive IT Executive Forum, more than half of approximately 400 IT professionals in attendance experienced in the past 18 months a “loss of employee productivity due to downtime/poor performance.” About 23% said “escalating costs of resulting issues and problems” could also be attributed to end-user problems with online applications, and nearly 12% felt their company had suffered some damage to the brand/company reputation. More than 10% reported drops in revenue and more than 4% said that they experienced high levels of customer churn.

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CA Technologies tapped for app performance management in the cloud

By on June 18, 2010 in Service Assurance

Officials at NEC Corp. say the company this week extended its reach into cloud computing environments by coupling its monitoring products with CA Technologies’ Wily application performance management expertise.

CA makes ambitious moves to the cloud
NEC Thursday announced it had entered into a licensing agreement with CA Technologies that would enable NEC to incorporate CA Wily Introscope application performance management technology into NEC’s new Service Performance Management solution. CA Technologies, which acquired Wily and its Introscope technology in 2006, will serve as an original equipment manufacturer (OEM) and provide a real-time integration between Introscope and NEC’s system performance analysis software, MasterScope Invariant Analyzer.

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Network engineers, social networking and IT management

By on June 17, 2010 in Uncategorized

Social networking can be credited for helping people stay in touch with friends, make connections with business peers and even search for a new job. But does the technology hold promise for IT professionals hoping to streamline their jobs, collaborate with industry peers and better serve customers?

Research shows that more people are using social networking tools and technologies than ever before and industry watchers only see such numbers rising. Recent survey results from Cisco show that of about 1,300 respondents more than 40% have shared video content on a social website in the last month. Nearly 40% have shared blog content using social media and about 38% told another about a feature article using social networking. Fewer respondents, about 24%, shared graphics and less, about 22%, shared a press release, according to the News@Cisco Survey.

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