This week's sponsor is Kaltura. |  | Webinar: CorporateTube - The Next Step for Enterprise Success
Thursday, April 18th, 2pm ET/ 11am PT
Learn from an elaborate case study and see how leading companies implemented this cutting edge solution to reap the benefits of video in the enterprise. Experts from Oracle, Akamai, and Kaltura will explain the many possibilities of deploying a CorporateTube for your organization. Register Today! |
Today's Top Stories
1. Cisco joins with Microsoft to offer cloud-based data center products
2. Avaya teams with VMware, EMC to launch collaboration pods on Aura virtualized environment
3. Dropbox renames Dropbox for Teams to emphasize business focus
4. VMware sells off Protect product line to LANDesk as part of cloud focus
5. More than half of large enterprises developing digital strategies, says Gartner survey Editor's Corner: Will amendments to CISPA satisfy Senate Democrats? Also Noted: Kony Solutions
Spotlight On... Extreme extends Open Fabric architecture to access layer edge
Future of IT; VoIPshield gets funding and much more...
| This week's sponsor is Yorktel. |  | Webinar: Videoconferencing security
April 11, 2 pm ET/ 11 am PT
Videoconferencing presents security challenges that differ from traditional communications and data security methods that rely on firewalls and user authentication. These challenges can expose sensitive confidential data and communications to multiple vulnerabilities. The webcast will discuss videoconferencing security risks as well as solutions. Register Today. |
Will amendments to CISPA satisfy Senate Democrats?
 Under a veil of secrecy, the House Intelligence Committee passed on Wednesday the controversial Cyber Intelligence Sharing and Protection Act (CISPA) by a vote of 18 to 2. The next step is for the bill to be voted on by the full House.
The bill is intended to eliminate legal barriers to sharing information between the private sector and the U.S. government about threats to networks and computer systems. Privacy advocates criticized the version of the bill which passed the House last year for not protecting personal information about individuals, particularly information passed along to U.S. intelligence agencies. During the closed-door markup session, six amendments were passed by the committee, according to a committee press release. The amendments appear to address some of the concerns expressed by privacy advocates. For example, one amendment gives the White House's Privacy and Civil Liberties Board and agency privacy officers oversight over the government use of information obtained from private companies. Another amendment would limit the private sector's use of information obtained under the bill to cybersecurity use only. This would prevent companies from using information for marketing or other non-cybersecurity purposes, the committee release explained. Another amendment would limit the government's receipt, retention and use of personal information not necessary to protect computer systems or networks from cyber threats. Yet another amendment struck the term "national security" from the bill in order to limit the use of information for only cyber security threats, rather than the broader "national security threats." Continued  Read more
Read more about: House Intelligence Committee, CISPA
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Sponsor: Coveo FierceLive! Webinars > Videoconferencing security - April 11, 2 pm ET/ 11 am PT
> CorporateTube - The Next Step for Enterprise Success- Thursday, April 18th, 2pm ET/ 11am PT
> Building Custom Enterprise Apps - Thursday, May 16, 2 pm ET/ 11 am PT Events > Fierce Innovation Awards 2012 Live Announcement of this Year's Winners - Now Available On-Demand Marketplace > eBook: Smarter Service: The Contract Center of the Future
> eBook: How to Get a Return on Knowledge in a Big Data World
> Research: How to Unlock Knowledge from Big, Unstructured Data to Improve Customer Service
> eBook: Harnessing the Increasingly Mobile Workforce Jobs > Public Safety DAS Engineer - Houston, TX - Connectivity Wireless Solutions
> Manager Business Process II - Business Intake - Denver, CO - Cricket Communications
> Construction Manager II Job - Nashville, TN, USA – Yoh
> Senior Linux Systems Administrator / Project Manager Job - Richardson, TX, USA – Yoh
> Technical Writer / Software Development Job - Falls Church, VA, USA – Yoh
> Project Manager II Job - Overland Park, KS, USA - Yoh
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* General ad info: Click here | Today's Top News 1. Cisco joins with Microsoft to offer cloud-based data center products
Cisco (Nasdaq: CSCO) unveiled on Wednesday new data center products employing Microsoft's (Nasdaq: MSFT) Cloud OS technologies. The new products combine Cisco's unified data center technology with Microsoft's Fast Track 3.0 private cloud architecture. This should help customers simplify the management of the combined Cisco and Microsoft data center environments and provision data center resources more rapidly, Cisco said in a release. "We are doubling down on our data center initiative working with Microsoft both on the hypervisor side as well as the management side. This announcement is related to joint engineering development work that we have been doing with Microsoft and bringing those solutions to the market," said Satinder Sethi, vice president for data center solutions at Cisco. Enterprise customers who want to virtualize their data center networks can do so alongside physical networking and cloud computing infrastructure through a combination of the Cisco Nexus 1000V series virtual and cloud networking platform and Microsoft's Windows Server 2012 Hyper-V Extensible Switch and System Center Virtual Machine Manager 2012 SP1, Cisco said. As part of the data center initiative, Cisco is offering new Microsoft Fast Track 3.0 products that give customers the choice of either integrated reference architectures with Cisco and EMC's (NYSE: EMC) VSPEX infrastructure or with Cisco and NetApp's FlexPod platform. Both of these products have been validated for the Microsoft Fast Track 3.0 program. "We have now certified UCS with best-of-breed partners EMC and NetApp. So we are not just joining our technology but also bringing joint solutions to the market, which should ease the consumption model for our customers," Sethi told FierceEnterpriseCommunications. The joint initiative will give enterprises insight and control over how Cisco's unified data center elements work with Windows Server and application software, Cisco explained. The two IT giants also plan to undertake go-to-market initiatives that will enable channel partners who resell both Cisco data center and Microsoft Cloud OS products to increase their data center business and improve customer service. Cisco had previously worked with VMware on integrating its UCS and Nexus 1000V into VMware's server virtualization offerings, noted a report by Datacenter Dynamics. By now integrating with Microsoft's Hyper-V virtualization platform, Cisco is providing its customers with a less expensive alternative to VMware, the report said. For more:
- check out Cisco's release
- read the Datacenter Dynamics report Related articles:
Cisco, NetApp expand FlexPod data center platform partnership
Avaya teams with VMware, EMC to launch collaboration pods on Aura virtualized environment Read more about: Cisco, Microsoft
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This week's sponsor is Coveo. |  | Research Report:
How to Unlock Knowledge from Big, Unstructured Data to Improve Customer Service
Learn how to unlock knowledge trapped in silos and systems and read how advanced enterprise search technology can put your organization's collective knowledge in the hands of your service reps. Watch your service performance improve and customer satisfaction soar. Download Now! |
2. Avaya teams with VMware, EMC to launch collaboration pods on Aura virtualized environment
Avaya is teaming with VMware (NYSE: VMW) and EMC (NYSE: EMC) to launch Avaya collaboration pods for the Aura virtualized environment, marking the first offering in its collaboration pods portfolio, the company announced this week. The collaboration pod for Aura is a converged infrastructure solution designed to speed cloud deployments for enterprises and cloud services providers using a full stack, plug-and-play communications platform that can be deployed within hours instead of days or months. Aura provides a full suite of unified communications services, along with contact center support, explained Jake Power, leader for data marketing at Avaya. "Our goal was to take what has traditionally been a project in creating a collaboration and communication solution and turn it into a product by providing the infrastructure and applications and dropping it on site in a way that will allow the customer to turn it up and walk away," Power told FierceEnterpriseCommunications. Avaya said the collaboration pods reduce the need for long planning cycles, extensive cabling, integration testing and optimization. "The idea is an appliance delivery for our applications. We start then with Avaya Aura, the heart and soul of Avaya communications," Power said. Avaya launched the virtualized version of Aura last fall, which takes the Aura collaboration suite and runs it on top of VMware, he added. Power explained that Aura virtualized environment was fine for large enterprises with the IT expertise to deploy it, but small and mid-sized enterprises needed an easier delivery method, which led to the launch of the collaboration pods. In addition to the collaboration pods, Avaya is also offering a new management orchestration capability, called the pod orchestration suite, which provides a single interface for managing collaboration pod components. Each collaboration pod includes the Aura virtualized environment and pod orchestration suite software, VMware vSphere ESXi 5.0 servers deployed in a high-availability cluster, EMC's VNX 5300 unified storage, Avaya's VSP 7000 top-of-the-rack data center platform and Avaya's G450 gateway for digital signal processing and PSTN connectivity. Customers have the option to add the Avaya Aura messaging server and the Avaya session border controller for the enterprise to the collaboration pod. Brandon Butler with Network World finds it curious that Cisco (Nasdaq: CSCO) is not involved in the Avaya team, since Cisco joined with VMware and EMC to set up converged infrastructure firm VCE in 2011. "Cisco and Avaya compete on communications products, so the fact that EMC and VMware (which EMC owns a majority stake of) are partnering with Avaya and not Cisco, has some raising questions about the health of the EMC-Cisco relations," he wrote. Butler quotes Zeus Kerravala, principal analyst at ZK Research, as observing: "This is really the next logical step for Avaya's collaboration pod." The collaboration pods can support up to 12,000 users for each rack and start at between $400,000 and $500,000, according to Butler's report. The Avaya collaboration pods are available in the United States, Canada and Europe. The product has so far been trialed with TSE Communications, Red Rock Telecommunications and California's Department of General Services. For more:
- see Avaya's release
- check out Avaya's Aura fact sheet
- read the Network World story Related articles:
Data traffic explosion drives demand for networking equipment, applications
Avaya's new SBC beefs up security of remote and mobile UC capabilities Read more about: Vmware, aura
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3. Dropbox renames Dropbox for Teams to emphasize business focus
Dropbox, the controversial file sharing service, is renaming its Dropbox for Teams as Dropbox for Business to reflect its business focus. Anand Subramani, product manager for Dropbox for Business, explained the rationale for the name change in a blog: "With all the changes we're making to create a Dropbox that's better for companies both large and small, it's become clear that the name 'Dropbox for Teams' doesn't quite fit anymore. To better rep the features we're building and the awesome companies that use Dropbox to create, share, and save their most important work, we realize the time has come to rename to Dropbox for Business," he explained.  | Image source: Dropbox | Numerous surveys of IT professionals have identified employee use of Dropbox to store work files as one of the top security risks to corporate data. Employees argue that they need to use Dropbox so they can access their work files from various locations and to work collaboratively on documents with colleagues. To address security concerns, Dropbox recently announced that it will support single sign-on, which enables employees to sign in once to a central identity provider, such as Microsoft's (Nasdaq: MSFT) Active Directory (AD), and securely access their apps, such as Dropbox. This allows enterprises to use their existing identity and access management (IAM) provider to handle the authentication process, Subramani explained. "For IT admins, SSO means additional security and administrative management. Single sign-on gives you complete ownership of the authentication process and works with your company's existing password policies. It also easily ties into the existing Dropbox provisioning and de-provisioning API to provide further Active Directory integration," he related. To deploy SSO, Dropbox is working with a number of IAM providers, including Ping Identity, Okta, OneLogin, Centrify and Symplified. The company expects to have SSO--based on the security assertion markup language--available to enterprise customers in May. According to Centrify's CEO, Tom Kemp, teaming with Dropbox makes sense for both companies. "So having a solution such as Centrify integrate Dropbox with AD means that (a) users can use the solution they are comfortable with in terms of sharing docs etc.; (b) IT can put in the access control and security rights (who can access what) that they require; and (c) IT can leverage an existing mgmt tool/infrastructure they already own (AD) so they can implement this control/visibility without having to learn yet another tool," Kemp was quoted by TechCrunch as arguing. In February, Dropbox introduced a new administrative console and sharing controls to provide IT administrators with better visibility and control. The new console enables IT admins to view recent activity, Web sessions, linked devices and third-party applications for each member of the team, as well as get a "complete picture" of activity across the team and generate a downloadable activity report. In addition, IT admins can set sharing controls at the account level to prevent shared folders and links from leaving the corporate network or allow team members to decide access levels on a case-by-case basis. The sharing controls also require team members to keep two-step verification enabled for tighter security, explained Dropbox. Terri McClure, senior analyst at the Enterprise Strategy Group, commented in the February announcement: "Dropbox is making it easier for IT admins to control and manage users and the sharing of company data. These new features will be a welcome addition for businesses looking to bring the de facto standard for ease of use for consumer file sharing into the workplace." For more:
- read Subramani's blog
- check out the TechCrunch article
- see Dropbox's administrative console news Related articles:
Users go around file-sharing bans
Dropbox acquires Mailbox Read more about: identity and access management
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4. VMware sells off Protect product line to LANDesk as part of cloud focus
Virtualization firm VMware (NYSE: VMW) has agreed to sell its Protect asset and patch management business to LANDesk as part of an effort to focus on its hybrid cloud, software-defined data center product line as well as end user computing, wrote Ramin Sayar, vice president and general manager of cloud infrastructure and management in VMware, in a blog. VMware acquired the Protect product line when it acquired Shavlik Technologies in 2011. It provides enterprises with centralized patch management and asset inventory for Windows and third-party applications for both virtual and physical machines. Sayar explained that VMware is focusing its efforts on its portfolio of virtual and cloud management products for enterprise customers. These include cloud service provisioning, which automates the provisioning of lifecycle management of infrastructure, applications and desktops across clouds and platforms; cloud operations management, which manages the heath, risk, efficiency and compliance of IT infrastructure and applications; and cloud business management, which governs and manages cloud services. LANDesk, which was spun off from Intel (Nasdaq: INTC) back in 2002, said it acquired the Protect product family from VMware to expand its user-oriented IT management market presence through new channels and an additional product line that complements its existing portfolio. LANDesk is resurrecting the Shavlik brand for the Protect product portfolio. Mark Shavlik founded Shavlik Technologies in 1993--after working at Microsoft (Nasdaq: MSFT) for seven years developing the Windows NT operating system--to provide security and patching services specifically for the Windows NT platform, explained The Register in a report on the sale. LANDesk plans to double the number of employees for the Protect product line over the next year, according to sources consulted by The Register. As part of the transaction, VMware signed up to be a partner of LANDesk, along with its former owner Intel, HP (NYSE: HPQ) and Lenovo. For more:
- read the VMware blog
- check out the LANDesk release
- read The Register report Related articles:
TechNavio: Close to three-quarters of enterprise server workloads will be virtualized by 2014
VMware, EMC team on big data and cloud app development Read more about: patch management, Vmware
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5. More than half of large enterprises developing digital strategies, says Gartner survey
More than half of chief executive officers and senior executives have a digital strategy in place to guide their enterprise through the digital storms ahead, according to a survey by Gartner. That digital strategy will be overseen by a chief digital officer, chief data officer, head of innovation or similar title, according to the survey of 390 CEOs and senior executives at companies with annual revenue of $250 million or more. The survey found that 19 percent of respondents expect to appoint a chief digital officer and 17 percent expect to name a chief data officer by 2014. "CEOs and leadership teams must crystallize what they mean by digital strategy and work with a small subgroup from the executive team to define what 'digital' means and how it manifests in the broader business strategy," said Jorge Lopez, vice president and distinguished analyst at Gartner. "They must ensure all elements of the digital strategy link clearly to the core business strategy, and that they do not form an independent, possibly distracting, program of change." The new digital strategy will be accompanied by additional investment in IT, with 78 percent of respondents saying they feel ready to move ahead with investment and growth this year and next. "This is the year when business leadership teams must commit to investing bravely and deeply to redevelop the technology and information capability of their firms," said Mark Raskino, vice president and Gartner fellow. "After more than a decade of modest investment and sorting out the basics, it's time to think ahead. Business leaders tell us they recognize the need to invest in e-commerce, mobile, cloud, social and other major technology categories, and the capabilities they enable. That can't be done from within existing IT budgets alone," Raskino stressed. The Gartner survey corresponds with a prediction made by research firm IDC that IT spending would increase by 5.5 percent this year, up from a disappointing 3.3 percent increase in 2012. IDC forecast that businesses and consumers will feel more comfortable investing in mobile devices, storage, networks and software applications as the U.S. economy stabilizes in the second half of the year. For more:
- check out the Gartner survey
- see the IDC prediction Related articles:
Enterprises plan to spend $17M on average for data center security this year, says Infonetics
IT spending on smartphones beats spending on PCs for first time Read more about: economic recovery
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Also Noted | This week's sponsor is Kony Solutions. |  | Webinar: Building Custom Enterprise Apps
Thursday, May 16, 2 pm ET/ 11 am PT
Enterprises are moving away from publicly-available apps in favor of apps that are custom-built for their needs. Join a panel of experts to learn whether customized enterprise apps are right for your company and what business requirements those apps need to address.
Register Today! |
SPOTLIGHT ON... Extreme extends Open Fabric architecture to access layer edge Extreme Networks (Nasdaq: EXTR) this week launched Open Fabric Edge, the next generation of its Open Fabric network architecture for the data center. The new product extends the Open Fabric architecture to the access layer edge, allowing enterprises to scale their networks for multiple services. Open Fabric Edge enables unified communications, physical security systems, audio-video bridging and Wi-Fi on a single converged network, the company explained in a release. With Open Fabric Edge, "we are lowering the total cost of ownership for our customers so that they can get the Extreme feature set at a lower cost," Jake Howering, director of data center marketing solutions at Extreme Networks, told FierceEnterpriseCommunications. Read more > Dell, Oracle and the future of the IT industry. Article (Forbes) > VoIPshield closes funding round. Article (Ottawa Business Journal) > Viber with VoIP support still planned for BlackBerry 7 in April. Article (Ubergizmo) > Mott MacDonald rolls out unified communications. Article (ComputerWeekly) > Five reasons you need hybrid cloud unified communications. Article (CloudTweaks) And finally… Video games teach kids how to program Java. Article (Wired) > Videoconferencing security - April 11, 2 pm ET/ 11 am PT Videoconferencing presents security challenges that differ from traditional communications and data security methods that rely on firewalls and user authentication. The webcast will discuss videoconferencing security risks as well as solutions. Register Today. > CorporateTube - The Next Step for Enterprise Success- Thursday, April 18th, 2pm ET/ 11am PT Learn from an elaborate case study and see how leading companies implemented this cutting edge solution to reap the benefits of video in the enterprise. Experts from Oracle, Akamai, and Kaltura will explain the many possibilities of deploying a CorporateTube for your organization. Register Today! > Building Custom Enterprise Apps - Thursday, May 16, 2 pm ET/ 11 am PT Enterprises are moving away from publicly-available apps in favor of apps that are custom-built for their needs. Join a panel of experts to learn whether customized enterprise apps are right for your company and what business requirements those apps need to address. Register Today!
| > Fierce Innovation Awards 2012 Live Announcement of this Year's Winners - Now Available On-Demand Please join Jason Nelson, Publisher of FierceWireless, FierceTelecom, and FierceCable as we announce the winners of the Fierce Innovation Awards 2012. Click here to RSVP today.
| > eBook: Smarter Service: The Contract Center of the Future This eBook explores the challenges facing traditional contact centers and the benefits of deploying the contact center of the future. You'll find links to further resources on the final page. Download today. > eBook: How to Get a Return on Knowledge in a Big Data World Learn how to get a higher return on your company's collective knowledge with advanced enterprise search technology - and watch your employee productivity rise and profits soar. Download Now For Free! > Research: How to Unlock Knowledge from Big, Unstructured Data to Improve Customer Service Learn how to unlock knowledge trapped in silos and systems and read how advanced enterprise search technology can put your organization's collective knowledge in the hands of your service reps. Watch your service performance improve and customer satisfaction soar. Download Now! > eBook: Harnessing the Increasingly Mobile Workforce How can companies best use mobile? FierceMobileIT explores methods for strategic mobile planning and IT development. Download for free today.
| > Public Safety DAS Engineer - Houston, TX - Connectivity Wireless Solutions Connectivity Wireless Solutions delivers best in class consulting, engineering, project management, installation, and staffing services to wireless carrier and enterprise customers. The Public Safety DAS Engineer is tasked with collecting and analyzing RF data typically with tools such as test phones and needs analysis equipment such as ZK Celltest and spectrum analyzers. Learn More! > Manager Business Process II - Business Intake - Denver, CO - Cricket Communications Cricket Communications, a subsidiary of Leap Wireless, is the pioneer and leader in delivering innovative value-rich prepaid wireless services with no long-term contracts serving approximately 6 million customers. The Business Intake Manager will provide oversight and management of the Business Readiness Board and delivery of a consolidated calendar of system & commercial launch dates. Bachelor's Degree - business, marketing or related field; or equivalent experience required...Learn more. > Construction Manager II Job - Nashville, TN, USA – Yoh Yoh has a contract opportunity for a Construction Manager II to join our client in Nashville, TN. Job responsibilities include to create project tracker in Site Handler and provide any necessary support to Site Acq Lead (i.e. production curves). Bachelor's Degree preferred or equivalent work experience of three to five (3-5) years in specific industry...Learn more. > Senior Linux Systems Administrator / Project Manager Job - Richardson, TX, USA – Yoh Yoh has a contract opportunity for a Senior Linux Systems Administrator / Project Manager to join our client in Richardson, TX. Responsible for the installation, configuration, patching, upgrades, maintenance, and troubleshooting of server hardware, operating systems, storage, software and utilities in a large enterprise environment. Extensive experience with Red Hat Linux 5.6. required...Learn more. > Technical Writer / Software Development Job - Falls Church, VA, USA – Yoh Yoh has a three (3) month plus contract opportunity available for a Technical Writer with Software Development experience in Falls Church, VA. Job responsibilities include to review, edit, and write end-user documentation (SRN, IG, UM, Online Help, Readme, Navigation Tips) for 31 software applications. Five to seven (5-7) years of technical writing experience in a software development environment required...Learn more. > Project Manager II Job - Overland Park, KS, USA - Yoh Yoh has a contract opportunity for a Project Manager II to join our client in Overland Park, KS. PMII will be responsible for Network deployments of new technology, capacity additions, optimization, and preventative maintenance across CORE, RF, and Access. Bachelor's Degree preferred or extensive telecommunications experience required...Learn more. > Need a job? Need to hire? Visit FierceWirelessJobs | |
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