What's a good measure for economists to use to predict which countries will be technology powerhouses? Count the number of CCIEs for any given country. Brad Reese on Cisco points to a column by PBS contributor Robert X. Cringely, who does some CCIE and GDP math and concludes that China and Korea could be regional leaders in 30 years. READ MORE.
Cisco's lack of any new edge routers is hurting the company as it competes with Juniper in the service 
provider space, according to this story in Investor's Business Daily. The story reports that Cisco revealed slower growth in its router business, which grew 8% year-over-year in Cisco's Q4, down from 14% growth in Q3. "That growth far lagged recent results of No. 2 networking gear maker Juniper Networks. (JNPR) For its quarter ended June 30, Juniper reported a 43% jump for its unit that mostly sells routers," reports IBD.
From Network World: A Cisco exec who was shot to death in Detroit last week is being mourned this week as a gentle family man, a "gifted techie" and a voice of reason. Ben Goldman, 42, was a director of product marketing for Cisco, where he had worked for the past 16 years. He was found shot in a notoriously dangerous and seedy part of town known as "8 Mile Road" on Aug. 19. His wallet apparently was stolen, which delayed Goldman being identified, Detroit police reported. Goldman was attending a conference at the MGM Grand Detroit, police determined.
Cisco buying VMware rumor just won't go away08/27/08It seems the Cisco + EMC/VMware rumors just won't go away. Barron's is reporting that stock-market site theflyonthewall.com is writing that a 3.1% increase in VMware shares today to $38.12 reflects speculation that Cisco is to up its stake in the virtualization company. Cisco owns 6.9% of VMware's Class A shares, or about 1.5% of the company, reports Barron's. EMC owns 84% of VMware.
Cisco buys e-mail supplier for the cloud; goes head-to-head against Microsoft 08/27/08It looks like Cisco is going head-to-head against e-mail software giant Microsoft with its $215 million acquisition of PostPath, a maker of e-mail and calendaring software. PostPath apparently touts its 
PostPath Server e-mail and collaboration server as a replacement or supplement to Microsoft Exchange. What's more interesting is that Cisco plans to put the server in the cloud and selling an e-mail and calendaring service to its customers - this is perhaps Cisco's first formal offering in the oh-so fashionable cloud computing space that pundits have been busy discussing.
Judy Estrin, entrepreneur and former Cisco CTO, has a less than flattering view of U.S. innovation, saying 
that the climate for innovation that fuels enconomic growth has been diluted on a reliance of quick fixes and fast products, reports the San Francisco Chronicle. In her book, "Closing the Innovation Gap," Estrin explains that just as trees need good soil and climate to create healthy forests, start-ups require an "innovative ecosystem." She says: "What happens to trees is root rot in which the leaves and branches look fine for a while until the tree topples over and dies," she said. "We've already got the root rot."
This week's Democratic National Convention in Denver has accelerated the roll out of telecommuting technologies in some businesses, reports Cisco Subnet's Jamey Heary in his blog. Worried that their 
employees won't be able to get to work due to the many road closures and increase in traffic, some local employers have set up remote access teleworker services. "Some businesses, using the DNC as a catalyst, are taking a more long term approach and rolling out VPN routers and IP telephony to home offices in an effort to cut voice costs and provide employees the same experience they have at the office," writes Jamey. One such company is Johns Manville, a maker of insulation and roofing supplies which has introduced a Cisco VPN to its employees.
Cisco certified folks have been invited by Cisco to vote on potential new logos that will "represent Cisco career certifications on learning materials, as well as on promotional items such as shirts, hats, and jackets," writes Tassos (CCIE # 19858) in his blog. There are two choices - view them on Tassos blog. Between the comments on the blog postings of Tassos, CCIE Pursuit, and Carl Project, the preferred choice by Cisco certified folks seems to be split. Did you vote for the logo that reminds CCIE Pursuit of a film festival award logo, or the one that Tassos says would be good for stickers?
Latest suitor in Cisco mega acquisition rumor: Brocade08/25/08Just as San Francisco Bay Area residents are waiting for the next big earthquake to happen, the market is 
waiting for Cisco to make its next big acquisition and are busying themselves with throwing names into the ring. Last week Wall Street rumor mongers linked Cisco with Brocade, suggesting that the tie-up would enable Cisco to block Brocade's $3 billion acquisition of Foundry Networks and to give Cisco a lift in the storage market.
Cisco water cooler gossip: Will the global CCIE count predict the future of world power?Robert X. Cringely - the famous Public Broadcasting Service (PBS) weekly columnist whose Web site describes him as a sex symbol, airplane enthusiast and intrepid adventurer (the nerdiest of them ...Read more
Brad Reese is research manager at BradReese.Com, advancing the careers of 1 million certified individuals in the growing Cisco Career Certification Program.
Get Smart about CCNA Security – Part 2 of 2(Wendell here - Kevin's wrapping up today on CCNA Security - thanks, Kevin!) Kevin Wallace, CCIE #7945, CCSI, CCSP, CCNP, CCDP, CCVP, is a full-time instructor of Cisco courses for SkillSoft ...Read more
Wendell Odom, CCIE No, 1624, splits time between writing books for Cisco Press and teaching classes for Skyline ATS. His books include titles on QoS, CCIE R/S, as well as several titles related to CCNA certification, including his newest book Official Exam Certification Library (CCNA Exam 640-802) (Read a sneak peek of chapter 7). Follow Wendell's blog here. More free chapters from other Cisco Press books here.
Good Jobs are Out There, the Economy is Not in RecessionIf you're thinking the economy is doing very poorly right now, I would argue that you have given in to the media and political hype. Are we experiencing record ...Read more
Morris is a Technical Team Lead and Network Architect at a $3 billion high-tech company. His background is in enterprise WANs working with telcos, and developing large-scale routing designs.
Getting help in JUNOSI discussed in the previous post how candidate configurations, explicit commits, and rollbacks greatly increase the reliability of configuration changes in JUNOS and reduce the risk of configuration mistakes. Heaven ...Read more
Jeff is president of Jeff Doyle and Associates, an IP networking consultancy, and author of Routing TCP/IP, Volumes I (read an excerpt) and II. Read the transcript of our live online text chat with Jeff entitled "IPv6: Will matter to the enterprise in five years."
For downtown Denver businesses, DNC conference sparks mass roll out of work from home solutionsThe Democratic National Convention is in my home state this year. Many of my downtown Denver customers and friends have worked diligently over the past couple months to setup a ...Read more
Jamey Heary, CCIE No. 7680, is a security consulting systems engineer at Cisco. Jamey is the author of Cisco NAC Appliance: Enforcing Host Security with Clean Access. Read a chapter from the book here. Follow Jamey's blog here. More free chapters from other Cisco Press books here.
Manufacturers' Inside Sales vs. Channel Partners: the good, the bad and the ugly Manufacturers' inside sales versus Channel Partners; the good, the bad and the ugly I received a call from a CIO this weekend while playing golf, the call started on the ...Read more
Larry Chaffin, Ph.D, is the CEO/chairman and founder of Pluto Networks a consulting company specializing in VoIP, WLAN and security. He is also author of a number of books including Managing Cisco Secure Networks, Skype Me, Practical VOIP Security, and Configuring Check Point NGX VPN-1/Firewall-1.
Call Routing Part 10: Translation PatternsTranslation Patterns in CUCM are very similar to Route Patterns, but they do not have a Call Routing destination. Route Patterns point to Route Lists or gateways, while translation ...Read more
Dennis Hartmann, CCIE No. 15651, is a unified communications consultant and author of Implementing Cisco Unified Communications Manager, Part 1. Dennis is also a lead instructor at Global Knowledge.
Cisco and Linksys Channel Programs Get Merged Cisco Systems has announced the elimination of the Linksys channel program, and the intent to fold as many as 20,000 channel partners into the “Registered” tier of the overall Cisco ...Read more
Ken Presti is president of Presti Research & Consulting, Inc., which specializes in go-to-market strategies for technology vendors and service providers.
Cisco Telepresence: Pretty Spooky…A while back I had my first experience using a Cisco Telepresence system (3000), and I thought that I would share some thoughts. My overall impression is that it is pretty ...Read more
Mark Lewis (CCIE#6280) is an independent consultant who helps service provider and large enterprise clients design and implement leading-edge technologies. Mark has designed and implemented a variety of large-scale technology solutions including VPN, MPLS, QoS, data center, and IP telephony. Mark is the author of Comparing, Designing, and Deploying VPNs; Troubleshooting Virtual Private Networks; and CCIE Voice Exam Quick Reference Sheets.
ChalkTalk - ASA Firewall – Packet Classification in Multiple Contexts Mode I recently posted a chalktalk article about ASA Firewall – Packet Classification in Multiple Contexts Mode... thought it might be useful to NW readers. http://www.cisco.com/public/news_training/itsnews/tech/chalktalk/200804.html Security Contexts Overview ...Read more
Yusuf Bhaiji, CCIE #9305 (R&S and Security), is the program manager for the Cisco CCIE Security certification and CCIE Proctor in Cisco Dubai Lab. Yusuf is the author of Cisco Press titles CCIE Security Practice Labs and Network Security Technologies and Solutions, of which we have 15 copies to give away. Click for competition details, or take a sneak peek of a chapter from the book. More free chapters from other Cisco Press books here.
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Why one-time passwords don't work for SSL VPN vulnerabilities
Direct sales vs. the channel: The good, the bad, and the ugly
Out goes Cisco, in comes ShoreTel VoIP for the City of Oakland
Why Cisco could have SaaS in its sights
Cisco Forums at Networking-Forum.com
Cisco warns of WebEx ActiveX security hole
Cisco is warning of a buffer overflow flaw in an ActiveX control used by the WebEx Meeting Manager. If exploited, hackers could execute arbitrary code on the user client machine. The WebEx Meeting Manager is a client-side program that is provided by the Cisco WebEx meeting service, which automatically downloads, installs, and configures Meeting Manager the first time a user begins or joins a meeting. Workarounds to the problem is available at Cisco, which said WebEx is in the process of upgrading the meeting service infrastructure with fixed versions of the affected file. READ MORE.
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Cisco has launched a support wiki for partners and customers to share their knowledge of Cisco gear on top of Cisco documents. According to Cisco: "This augmentation of knowledge gives our user community a medium to share knowledge and improve their overall effectiveness."
VIDEORob Salvagno, senior director of Business Development, discusses Cisco's Nuova acquisition, a follow-on to Cisco's initial investment in August 2006. Nuova's first product is the Nexus 5000.
VIDEOJapan's NTT Group deploys new Cisco ASR 1000 Series routers to deliver advanced services. (3:54)
PODCASTTop analyst discusses edge networking trends and environmental and cost of ownership benefits that new Cisco ASR 1000 Series routers deliver to service providers relative to competitive solutions. (10:37)
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