| This week's sponsor is Kony. | 
| Webinar: Building great mobile apps for Marketing
Wednesday, December 4th, 2pm ET / 11am PT
mCordis and Sepharim Group CEOs just added!
Mobile applications are a great place to forge customer connections. That means IT, developers and marketers have to partner more effectively than ever to deliver the goods. Join FierceMobileIT and learn how to create fantastic mobile apps for customers and marketers alike. Register Today! |
Also Noted: AT&T
Spotlight On... Developer wars
An Enterprise Architecture manifesto; Google Cloud makes mobile development easier; and much more...  Follow @fierceentcomm on Twitter
News From the Fierce Network:
1. CryptoLocker attackers step up attacks on small businesses, warns Cisco
2. Raising home-grown data scientist talent
3. Macheen study cites top 10 insights for new mobile reality
| This week's sponsor is Acronis and MobileIron. |  | Webinar: MobileIron and Acronis Deliver Secure File Access & Editing on Android
Thursday, December 12th, 11am ET /8am PT Join us on December 12th to learn how Acronis mobilEcho and MobileIron AppConnect together provide a complete solution for organizations supporting Android smart phones and tablets. Register Today! |
Today's Top News 1. Google, Amazon engineers on dealing with massive scale
Engineers from Google and Amazon dazzled the crowd at the recent Usenix LISA (Large Installation Systems Administration) conference in Washington D.C. Joab Jackson's write-up for IDG News Service includes numerous gems. From Todd Underwood, Google Site Reliability Engineer: - Frugality is key. Cost per incremental user added has to decline. To that end, Google makes its own routing equipment rather than buying it off the shelf.
- Automation is similarly vital. "I think systems administration is over, and I think we should stop doing it," said Underwood (though he reportedly acknowledged this isn't feasible--yet).
- Although Google is gigantic when taken as a whole, its challenges should not seem unfamiliar. The company really consists of numerous component services, such as Gmail and Google Plus in addition to search. From James Hamilton, distinguished engineer at Amazon: - Architecture enables fast growth. "If there are architectural errors or mistakes made in the application, and the customers decide to use them in a big way, there are lots of outages and lots of pain," he said.
- As at Google, homemade equipment plays an important role for Amazon. Buying off-the-shelf costs a 30 percent markup versus component costs.
For more:
- read Jackson's report
More on computing at scale:
IT managers seek reliability above all in the cloud
Rapid business model change strains enterprise architectures
Memory limits hinder exascale performance
SOA lessons from Twitter, Netflix
Read more about: Scalability
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2. The Big Switch: Extreme Networks to throw around new muscle after Enterasys merger
What a difference a day makes--by absorbing Enterasys, Extreme Networks jumps past competitors in the network switch market including Dell, Brocade and IBM, according to data from the Dell'Oro Group. So now what? In an interview with Network World's Jim Duffy, new Extreme CEO Chuck Berger says the company is better positioned for heavy-duty R&D and also has a solid foothold in the wireless and network management markets. All these markets are showing steady growth at the very least. Data center infrastructure is growing "north of 50 percent," according to Network World. Berger says the Enterasys acquisition (which was in some regards a merger of equals--both companies had annual revenues of roughly $300 million) gives Extreme critical mass to compete in more product areas. Some Enterasys and Extreme product lines are slated for consolidation. For example, users of Extreme's Ridgeline network management system will be migrated to Enterasys' NetSight products. Also, the two companies' software-defined networking technologies will be merged. For more:
- read the Network World interview More on networking infrastructure:
Cisco launches different company to build Cisco products, then buys it
Network performance monitoring flexing its muscle
Business, IT at odds over network infrastructure investments
Read more about: mergers and acquisitions
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3. Software Defined Networking: Maybe you can't get there from here
Imagine being able to allocate network resources to any task as the need arises. What a wonderful world it would be… And while advocates say software-defined networking (SDN) is the way there, a small obstacle lies in the road--in the form of today's legacy infrastructure. Arthur Cole examines the challenge on Enterprise Networking Planet. Yes, it's possible to create an SDN setup with existing equipment by instituting a software 'overlay'. Whether that's a good idea is open to debate. Cole offers the example of Juniper's OpenContrail controller, which can handle SDN automation and configuration tasks with legacy infrastructure, using a variety of protocols and not requiring OpenFlow. However, he also quotes several industry sources--one at Cisco and one at Juniper--who indicate that the preferred long-term solution is to replace the old hardware with systems designed for SDN from the ground up. A rip-and-replace approach is, of course, prohibitively expensive for most enterprises. This puts the industry, as Cole says, "in a classic development pause, in which the new technology has been introduced and now the challenge is to figure out the best way forward." Even in a one-vendor shop, moving to SDN isn't trivial. TechTarget offers commentary from a number of Cisco users, warily considering their options for moving from current hardware to new SDN systems. For more:
- read Cole's column
- and TechTarget's look at SDN tradeoffs for Cisco users More on Software-Defined Networking:
In SDNs, the edge needs some love too
How to find fault with your software-defined network
SDN use cases emerging; hold your breath for 2015
Read more about: software defined networking
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4. What's a next-gen contact center look like?
What does the next-generation contact center look like? Stephen Leaden paints an ambitious picture on UC Strategies. Some elements are technical, such as: - social media integration
- speech recognition, analysis, speech-to-text
- call recording, including screen scrapes
- video integration Incorporating these technologies, Leaden envisions, will enable companies to deliver superior service through better--and more real-time--data analytics for performance improvement and other process changes. Leaden points to the Amazon Kindle's Mayday button as indicative that this rosy future state is close at hand. Mayday delivers high-touch, multichannel, interactive help and a higher standard for response time as well--15 seconds versus the old industry 80/20 benchmark of responding to 80 percent of calls within 20 seconds. The Fierce Take: This may very well be true. The video integration piece remains a bit of a mystery, though, as pointed out in other discussions of Mayday--video has been available forever, and in certain applications it makes a great deal of sense, yet adoption has been very slow. For many technology products, a good voice connection with screen-sharing may be all the customer wants or needs. For more:
- read Leaden's column More on contact centers:
Will Amazon's Mayday button spark video revival in customer service?
Why is your desk phone still so dumb?
Call center activity taking off, says Cisco's Hernandez
Read more about: Unified Communications
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Also Noted | This week's sponsor is AT&T. |  | eBook | Making BYOD Work Chief information officers and enterprise IT departments face a myriad of challenges when allowing employees to bring their own mobile devices into the work environment. FierceMobileIT explores how BYOD can work best for your enterprise to solve these problems. Download for free today. |
SPOTLIGHT ON... Developer wars Eight qualified candidates for every 10 job openings. That's the estimate of one high-tech headhunter. So, if software wants to eat the world, it's probably going hungry. How can a CTO increase his or her odds of attracting and keeping top talent? Progressive workstyles and perks are the order of the day. Infoworld finds nerf rifles, go-kart excursions, subsidized haircuts and laundry, and much much more. > Building great mobile apps for Marketing - Wednesday, December 4th, 2pm ET / 11am PT Mobile applications are a great place to forge customer connections. That means IT, developers and marketers have to partner more effectively than ever to deliver the goods. Join FierceMobileIT and learn how to create fantastic mobile apps for customers and marketers alike. Register Today! > Building a Strategic Road Map for Enterprise Mobility - December 11, 2pm ET / 11am PT This FierceMobileIT webinar will explore how to use external subject matter experts to build a customized mobility strategy based on business priorities; simplify complexity and gain control through cross-platform solutions that align with existing information systems; develop standards-based mobile applications and processes that ensure seamless mobile transition and growth. Register Today! > MobileIron and Acronis Deliver Secure File Access & Editing on Android - Thursday, December 12th, 11am ET /8am PT Join us on December 12th to learn how Acronis mobilEcho and MobileIron AppConnect together provide a complete solution for organizations supporting Android smart phones and tablets. Register Today! > Moving Enterprise Apps to the Cloud – Fad or Necessity? - Wednesday, December 19th, 2pm ET / 11am PT If you're building mobile apps, this webinar is for you. Join us to learn how to utilize the cloud to optimize and improve your mobile application development strategy. Learn more about the advantages and challenges of cloud-based mobile development. Register Today! > Next Generation Data Center - Innovation, Transformation, and Management - Now Available On-Demand! Engage directly with Atos and Intel team members and see a live demonstration in unique approaches to innovation and transformation within the Data Center. Register to watch now!
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Download today to learn how to protect your data. > Whitepaper: Embracing Trends and Technologies: Change is in Your Hands In this whitepaper learn about these three key trends and technologies, how to be successful in the introduction of new IT services and how to embrace best practices for change adoption to facilitate simplified, reliable and cost-effective implementations. Learn More > eBook: Using Data Visualizations to Drive Business Decisions Big data visualizations are undeniably valuable. They can quickly relay important information for decision making, surpassing the capabilities of their traditional counterparts. Find out how key decision makers are using this information. Download this eBook today. | |
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