Cisco Borderless Networks Released in the Wild?

Back in October 2009, Cisco announced a plan to launch its Cisco Borderless Networks. Recently, the company announced the release of its Cisco Borderless Networks line. This new product direction is aimed at supporting increasingly mobile businesses with distributed, in-the-field networking needs. Cisco Borderless Networks is designed to securely connect business workers to anything, anywhere, and anytime. Cisco delivers on this architecture through video, energy management and highly secure networking services that are embedded across its routing, switching, wireless and security platforms to form a comprehensive borderless networking solution.

An interesting aspect of this new line of Cisco products is that the company is makings its prices. We mentioned yesterday that the competition between HP and Cisco is heating up. This could be a concession or a new salvo, in that battle.

Some highlights of the Cisco Borderless Networks products include a much expanded switching line. The Cisco Catalyst 3750-X and 3560-X, the flagship of the Cisco fixed-switching portfolio. They are enterprise-class stackable and standalone these enterprise-class switches. The company also updated its router line.The Cisco Integrated Services Router G2 3900 E-Series was introduced last year in October. Cisco's latest announcement, though, includes the fact that they have tripled the performance of its ISR G2 router line. The line is now more than capable of handling challenging video applications and service integration.

These new Cisco products are an exciting addition to the networking marketplace. Competition is a good thing.

Cisco versus HP

Cisco and Hewlett-Packard are vying neck and neck for the valuable corporate data center market, but their leaders couldn't be more different. Whereas Cisco's John Chambers is known as a charismatic leader with a style similar to a southern preacher, HP's Mark Hurd is a by-the-numbers guy who excels at running operations. But obviously, both men have had a large amount of success.

Cisco dominates the market for networking and telecom systems. HP has a more diverse hardware portfolio, including computers, printers, servers, consulting, and software. The two companies, though, are starting to compete head to head as HP more fully enters the corporate market.

According to analysts, HP has seen its earnings grow over 22% per quarter on a year-over-year basis. Cisco has only seen 6% growth over a comparable period. HP's stock is also rising faster than Cisco's. Only time will tell which company assets its ultimate dominance.

Is every RFID tag like a snowflake?

A problem faced by the RFID industry is counterfeit RFID tags. Since most tags are just a sort of substitute for a barcode or magnetic strip label, and encryption is generally not a viable (or even desirable) option, RFID tags could be counterfeited and used for nefarious purposes, which you can entail.

However, a new company called Verayo (an MIT spinoff company) has formulated an at least partial answer to this dilemma. They have come up with a process for getting a sort of electronic fingerprint from individual RFID tags. Since there are small, necessary variations in the chip material and manufacturing process, no two RFID tags are exactly alike. Even if they meet the same specifications, there are small artifacts in the way that they process signals, which can be measured. Professor Srini Devadas, CTO of Verayo, says,

A signal traveling through a simple circuit will go faster or slower depending on these physical variations. By sending a series of signals through, and measuring how fast they travel, [one] can generate a string of numbers unique to each circuit.

This is a great step toward building more secure RFID systems. Each RFID tag would, essentially, be personally trackable on an almost meta-level. Of course, this added layer of security would cost more money, so it would have to be employed in only a cost-effective manners. But if you're tracking things like medicines or very expensive consumer goods, it may be a good step. Maybe Lilly Drugs could have avoided this latest embarrassment!

Cisco Now Requires CCNA Certification For CCSP Certification

Some news about Cisco certification has recently come out. In order to gain a Cisco CCSP (Cisco Certified Security Professional) certification, an IT professional will have to have already CCNA (Cisco Certified Network Associate) certification as a prerequisite. CCNA and CCSP classes may be taken back-to-back.

The thinking behind the decision seems to be that the CCNA ensures an IT professional has basic, entry-level knowledge of Cisco systems. Its curriculum highlights installation procedure, core security practices, troubleshooting, and network monitoring. It also gets into the basics of network security, such as data confidentiality. The CCSP certification represents a more advanced stage in an IT professional's career. It is supposed to demonstrate advanced knowledge, including network threat mitigation and infrastructure protection. Further, the CCSP certification emphasizes Cisco Router IOS (ISR) and Catalyst Switch security features, Adaptive Security Appliance (ASA), secure VPN connectivity, Intrusion Prevention Systems (IPS), Cisco Security Agent (CSA), Security Enterprise and Device Management, and Network Admission Control (NAC).

The iPhone and Verizon: Rachel and Ross or Juliet and Romeo?

A pretty funny post from the Faster Times makes a startlingly apt analogy: The iPhone is the Rachel to Verizon's Ross. If you've never seen Friends (has it really been 16 years since the show debuted?!), Rachel and Ross were the perfect-for-each-other but always-missing-each-other couple that created a lot of the show's romantic tension during its ten year run. The analogy, while silly, holds up.

The iPhone is the 2,000 pound gorilla of smart phones (and phones, in general): Hate it or love it, you have to admit that its fast, steady adoption rate shows people are attracted to it. Whether it's the App Store, the phone's slick user interface, or the coolness factor, people are seduced by Apple's penultimate gewgaw. So why shouldn't the most popular phone be on the most popular network? You'd think it's a marriage made in heaven.

Brown, author of the article, posits that AT&T has simply continued to outbid Verizon. As (Fake) Steve Jobs himself points out, AT&T is certainly not spending its increasing profits on growing its network. Rather, while the company has been (since 12/2007) enjoying evenly increasing revenues since becoming the sole carrier of the iPhone, capital expenditures have remained stagnant. Operating income has remained level, as well. All this extra revenue is going somewhere--either into executives' pockets or into paying Apple back for the providing it an exclusive relationship with its iPhone (and now its iPad, as well). This relationship built around monetary kickbacks and exclusivity seems to contradict Brown's prediction that the iPhone will eventually hook up with Verizon. If Apple continues to receive the lion's share of AT&T's profits, then the increased sales it would see on the Verizon network may be rendered moot. After all, Apple has shown that its modern incarnation is pretty darn savvy. The iPhone and Verizon could be less Rachel and Ross and more Juliet and Romeo--seemingly destined for each other, but star crossed lovers all the same.

Don't forget about VoIP!

I know we're all waiting breathlessly (you can breath! remember to breath!) for the Apple iPad/iTab/table computer announcement, but we thought it would be good to remember that a lot of the tech we take for granted is still looking for mass adoption and refinement. Chief among them is VoIP telephony. Danie Crowther, a partner at consulting firm Deloitte, sees mobile VoIP as a big gainer in 2010.

“The rising adoption of mobile VOIP services could cause a fundamental rise in expectations as to what mobile voice can do.”

Google Voice has been kind of backended onto the iPhone, and Android (in Nexus One and Droid flavors) seems poised to keep mobile telephone technology in the forefront of people's minds. According to Crowther, mobile VoIP could be a $30 billion global business within three years. I'm willing to bet that's a lot more money than the Apple iTable is going earn. It's just something to keep in mind: Our core technologies--email, voice, Internet--may be delivered via ever and more impressive technologies, but they're still the star of the show. VoIP isn't as sexy as it used to be, but it's still a growing technology.

Cisco Networkers Live 2010

If you're looking to sharpen your Cisco training, network with leading IT professionals, and learn a heck of a lot, then you should check out Cisco Networkers 2010. The event is being held in Barcelona! You can check out some registration information here.

The Cisco Keynote will be delivered by Marthin De Beer, Senior Vice President, Emerging Technologies Group. Marthin was one of the main creative minds behind development of technologies such as Cisco TelePresence, TelePresence Exchange Services, Digital Media Systems, Media Processing, Video Surveillance Systems, and Converged Building Systems.

There will also be a Guest Keynote from Professor Bruce Thomas. Thomas is the Director of the Wearable Computer Laboratory at the University of South Australia. His talk will focus on augmented reality technology, including head-mounted displays and virtual retina displays.

It's probably a long trek for most readers, but if you're company has a fresh training budget, you might want to get away to Barcelona from 25 January to 28 January and enjoy a change of scene and some great Cisco training.