Displaying items by tag: Cisco

Cisco and Rakuten have adopted the world’s first end-to-end fully virtualized cloud-native mobile network.

Cisco played a key role in the development and deployment of the cloud-native virtualized architecture which is currently being used by Rakuten Mobile. Cisco has said that its state-of-the-art highly-automated approach has gained great traction amongst some of the world’s leading telecom operators.

According to Jonathan Davidson, SVP and GM, Cisco Mass-Scale Infrastructure, telecom operators across the world have been investing “30 to 40 billion dollars a year in deploying radio access technology and we still have so many parts of the globe that do not have coverage or do not have decent coverage… This is something that can be transformed with this new approach that Rakuten Mobile has pioneered. You could definitely call it profound.”

Davidson has also predicted that it will be widely adopted in Japan. Adding that, “this is just the beginning. Now we need to get to 5G and we need to scale the infrastructure.”

Cisco has not only supplied them with the IP internet protocol (IP) routers which essentially transport traffic from Rakuten’s radio towers and the cloud radio access network (RAN) into the IP core, but the Telco is also providing them with management orchestration software.

Rakuten Mobile’s CTO, Tareq Amin, stated, “Cisco is playing a crucial role in stitching together the carious elements of our new network.”

“The design approach we mapped out with Cisco is enabling us to deliver high-value services at very affordable prices, enabling our customers to really benefit from our cloud innovation. Scaling of such orchestration function is a challenge,” he continued.

Davidson says that he expects Rakuten Mobile’s network to perform at a very high level due to its software-defined architecture which allows for the fine-tuning of its network in real-time.

 “Any time you do something that has never been done before, there are going to be a lot of challenges that you have to uncover. It always come back to the team and making sure the team is aligned to a joint vision and a joint mission. Tareq is a phenomenal visionary who has got companies that have traditionally been competitors to collaborate and partner in new ways to really achieve something that has not been achieved before,” said Davidson.

In terms of the technology’s performance, there are technical and operational advantages that come to play. In fact, Cisco expects other operators to follow suit and deploy cloud-based RAN.

Cisco announced its intent to acquire privately-held CloudCherry based in Salt Lake City, UT. The acquisition is expected to close in the first quarter of Cisco's fiscal year 2020, subject to customary closing conditions and required approvals.

CloudCherry is a Customer Experience Management (CEM) company that provides customer journey mapping, out-of-the-box integrations, and predictive analytics. Predictive analytics help contact center agents make real-time journey modifications such as up and cross-selling, discounts, service modifications and more, to meet customer needs and improve loyalty. Together, Cisco and CloudCherry will help companies transform their contact center from delivering reactive care to providing predictive support and move from isolated customer interactions to cohesive, engaging experiences for improved business outcomes.

The new cognitive and collaborative contact center uses artificial intelligence and machine learning, which empowers agents to provide more personalized customer experiences, allows companies to use data to its fullest extent, and extends the power of cloud to hosted and on-premises deployments. CloudCherry’s open API platform facilitates this by simplifying how customer data is ingested from systems of records, transactional data, and other data sources – all in real time – to help contact center agents close the feedback loop and improve customer loyalty and satisfaction.

“We're thrilled to add CloudCherry's market leading customer experience management technology to our collaboration portfolio,” said Vasili Triant, vice president and general manager, Cisco Contact Center Solutions. “This is the next step in realizing our vision for cognitive collaboration in the contact center, enabling the delivery of the best, most personalized customer experiences, ultimately improving customer loyalty and lifetime value.”

Cisco announced it will acquire publicly-held BroadSoft, Inc., the global communication software and service provider headquartered in Gaithersburg, MD. Cisco will pay $55 per share, in cash, or an aggregate purchase price of approximately $1.9 billion net of cash, assuming fully diluted shares including conversion of debt. The acquisition has been approved by the board of directors of each company.

"Together, Cisco and BroadSoft will deliver a robust suite of collaboration capabilities across every market segment," said Rowan Trollope, senior vice president and general manager of Cisco's Applications Business Group. "We believe that our combined offers, from Cisco's collaboration technology for enterprises to BroadSoft's suite for small and medium businesses delivered through Service Providers will give customers more choice and flexibility."

"We are excited about this transaction, which represents the culmination of a robust process undertaken by BroadSoft's Board of Directors to maximize shareholder value," said Michael Tessler, president and CEO, BroadSoft. "As businesses continue to move toward the cloud in search of simplicity and speed, joining Cisco will allow us to deliver best-in-class collaboration tools and services.”

“BroadSoft's hosted offerings, sold through the Service Providers and aimed at small and medium businesses, are highly complementary to Cisco's on-premises and enterprise-centric HCS offerings,” Tessler added. “Together, we can inspire teams to create, collaborate and perform in ways never before imagined."

More and more businesses expect fully featured voice and contact center solutions with the ability to deploy them on premises or in the cloud. By combining BroadSoft's open interface and standards-based cloud voice and contact center solutions delivered via Service Provider partners, with Cisco's leading meetings, hardware and services portfolio, the combined company will offer best-of-breed solutions for businesses of all sizes and deliver a full suite of collaboration capabilities to power the future of work.

The acquisition of BroadSoft reinforces Cisco's commitment to Unified Communications and enhances its ability to address the millions of aging TDM lines poised to transition to IP technology and cloud native solutions over the coming years. 

"Cisco recently marked a significant milestone with our 200th acquisition. Acquisitions continue to be a core part of our innovation strategy and over the past two years have helped Cisco accelerate or enter areas such as IoT, application intelligence, AI, hyperconvergence and SD-WAN," said Rob Salvagno, vice president of Cisco Corporate Development. "With the addition of BroadSoft, we expect to accelerate the pace of innovation across our entire collaboration portfolio."

The acquisition is expected to close during the first quarter of calendar year 2018, subject to customary closing conditions and regulatory review. Prior to the close, Cisco and BroadSoft will continue to operate as separate companies. Upon completion of the transaction, BroadSoft employees will join Cisco's Unified Communications Technology Group led by Vice President and General Manager Tom Puorro, under the Applications Group led by Trollope.

US technology firm Cisco Systems has announced that its technologies will be used to help roll-out free public Wi-Fi in London. Last week, London Mayor, Sadiq Khan vowed to make London the ‘smartest city’ in the world - and one way of ensuring that vision is to enhance ‘connectivity’.

In a statement released by the US conglomerate which is headquartered in San Jose, California, it said Cisco hardware is set to underpin O2 and Vodafone in an effort to implement free public Wi-Fi across the city. It was further disclosed that the new network will use Cisco’s outdoor access point, the Aironet 1560 series, to provide high bandwidth connectivity points in the square mile area.

In addition to this, Cisco’s technology will sit in passive physical infrastructure provided by O2’s joint-venture with Vodafone, Cornerstone Telecommunications Infrastructure, while 02 will provide the network core. The new network will replace the existing service entitled ‘The Cloud’ which is provided by Sky. The new roll-out is expected to be complete by autumn - and users will be able to access the network for free after completing a one-time registration process.

Chief Operating Officer for O2, Derek McManus emphasized the importance of continuous investment in new infrastructure and digital technologies. McManus said, “Continued investment in infrastructure is essential to maintain the UK’s reputation as a digital leader and we needed a partner that would be able to provide cutting-edge technology to help us realize this." McManus also expressed his delight that they were able to broker an agreement with Cisco, and said the organization’s technology was robust, fast and seamless.

According to Cisco SVP, Global Service provider, Peter Karlstromer access to free Wi-Fi and enhanced connectivity is now a basic requirement for any city looking to drive ‘innovation’. He said, “Free Wi-Fi connectivity is now a pre-requisite for any city looking to drive innovation and compete on a globe scale."

The multi-million pound contract with the City of London was announced in April, and it aims to improve the city’s ‘smart infrastructure’. 4G connected cells will be implemented in street furniture such as street signs, lamp posts and buildings in an attempt to make London ‘connected’. It’s also been reported that Cornerstone Telecommunications Infrastructure Limited will offer all ‘smart infrastructure’ on a wholesale basis to all UK operators, as part of a collective effort to enhance mobile coverage in the area.

In May, O2 said it would invest £80m to install 1,400 small cells in London in a collaboration agreement with Cisco in order to improve mobile coverage for its own subscribers.

Cisco and IBM Security have announced they are working together to address the growing global threat of cybercrime. In a new collaboration, Cisco and IBM Security will work closely together across products, services and threat intelligence for the benefit of customers.

Cisco security solutions will integrate with IBM’s QRadar to protect organizations across networks, endpoints and cloud. Customers will also benefit from the scale of IBM Global Services support of Cisco products in their Managed Security Service Provider (MSSP) offerings.

The collaboration also establishes a new relationship between the IBM X-Force and Cisco Talos security research teams, who will begin collaborating on threat intelligence research and coordinating on major cybersecurity incidents.

One of the core issues impacting security teams is the proliferation of security tools that do not communicate or integrate. A recent Cisco survey of 3,000 chief security officers found that 65 percent of their organizations use between six and 50 different security products. Managing such complexity is challenging over-stretched security teams and can lead to potential gaps in security.

The Cisco and IBM Security relationship is focused on helping organizations reduce the time required to detect and mitigate threats, offering organizations integrated tools to help them automate a threat response with greater speed and accuracy.

“In cybersecurity, taking a data-driven approach is the only way to stay ahead of the threats impacting your business,” said Bill Heinrich, Chief Information Security Director, BNSF Railway. “Cisco and IBM working together greatly increases our team’s ability to focus on stopping threats versus making disconnected systems work with each other. This more open and collaborative approach is an important step for the industry and our ability to defend ourselves against cybercrime.”

Integrating threat defenses across networks and cloud

The cost of data breaches to enterprises continues to rise. In 2016, the Ponemon Institute found for companies surveyed the cost was at its highest ever at $4 million - up 29 percent over the past three years.

A slow response can also impact the cost of a breach –incidents that took longer than 30 days to contain cost $1 million more than those contained within 30 days. These rising costs make visibility into threats, and blocking them quickly, central to an integrated threat defense approach. 

The combination of Cisco’s best-of-breed security offerings and its architectural approach, integrated with IBM’s Cognitive Security Operations Platform, will help customers secure their organizations more effectively from the network to the endpoint to the cloud.

As part of the collaboration, Cisco will build new applications for IBM’s QRadar security analytics platform. The first two new applications will be designed to help security teams understand and respond to advanced threats and will be available on the IBM Security App Exchange.

These will enhance user experience, and help clients identify and remediate incidents more effectively when working with Cisco’s Next-Generation Firewall (NGFW), Next-Generation Intrusion Protection System (NGIPS) and Advanced Malware Protection (AMP) and Threat Grid.

In addition, IBM’s Resilient Incident Response Platform (IRP) will integrate with Cisco’s Threat Grid to provide security teams with insights needed to respond to incidents faster. For example, analysts in the IRP can look up indicators of compromise with Cisco Threat Grid's threat intelligence, or detonate suspected malware with its sandbox technology. This enables security teams to gain valuable incident data in the moment of response.

“Cisco’s architectural approach to security allows organizations to see a threat once, and stop it everywhere. By combining Cisco’s comprehensive security portfolio with IBM Security’s operations and response platform, Cisco and IBM bring best-of-breed products and solutions across the network, endpoint and cloud, paired with advanced analytics and orchestration capabilities,” said David Ulevitch, SVP and general manager, Cisco Security.  

Threat intelligence and managed services

IBM X-Force and Cisco Talos research teams will collaborate on security research aimed at addressing the most challenging cybersecurity problems facing mutual customers by connecting their leading experts. For joint customers, IBM will deliver an integration between X-Force Exchange and Cisco’s Threat Grid. This integration greatly expands the historical and real-time threat intelligence that security analysts can correlate for deeper insights. 

For example, Cisco and IBM recently shared threat intelligence as part of the recent WannaCry ransomware attacks. The teams coordinated their response and researchers exchanged insights into how the malware was spreading. They continue to collaborate on the investigation to ensure joint customers, and the industry have the most relevant information.

Through this expanded collaboration, IBM’s Managed Security Services team, which manages security for over 3,700 customers globally, will work with Cisco to deliver new services aimed at further reducing complexity. One of the first offerings is designed for the growing hybrid cloud market. As enterprise customers migrate security infrastructure to public and private cloud providers, IBM Security will provide Managed Security Services in support of Cisco security platforms in leading public cloud services.

The Ericsson and Cisco partnership has secured its first agreement in Brazil, with the two companies working together to supply and install IP routers for Nextel. The key components in the combined offering include a combination of hardware from Cisco, and services and project management from Ericsson.

Nextel's IP network in Brazil will be strengthened to support traffic growth and improve performance on the mobile network.

"Ericsson and Cisco are already long-term suppliers to Nextel, and their alliance makes them good partners to strengthen our IP network,” said Jorge Braga, Vice President and Chief Operations Officer, Nextel. “We needed a powerful and intelligent solution to improve our IP network in Brazil, and that's what we have secured with this deal."

Eduardo Ricotta, Vice President, Ericsson Latin America and Caribbean, says: "Our teams complemented each other with the right approach, from network analysis and planning to systems integration and customer support from Ericsson, to selecting the right routers from Cisco, and finally implementation with Ericsson services. The partnership has delivered real value to Nextel in terms of delivering end-to-end IP solution to meet the operator's needs."

The deal includes Cisco routers (ASR9010), supply and installation, overall project management, and customer support.

"Together, Cisco and Ericsson have the best mix of engagement required to support operators like Nextel address data traffic challenges,” said Yvette Kanouff, SVP and GM, Service Provider Business, Cisco. “Working together on this project, we will support Nextel's mobile broadband offering and help them deliver better network performance for customers."

Ericsson and Cisco - two industry leaders in the development and delivery of networking, mobility, and cloud - formed a global business and technology partnership in November 2015 to create the networks of the future. The partnership offers customers the best of both companies: routing, data center, networking, cloud, mobility, management and control, and global services capabilities.

The next-generation strategic partnership will drive growth, accelerate innovation, and speed digital transformation demanded by customers across industries. To date, over 300 active customer engagements have now started to turn into won deals. More than 100 deals, spread around the world, are in IP (routing and transport) and services. The companies announced deals with 3 Italy, Vodafone Portugal, Aster Dominican Republic and Cable & Wireless in Caribbean in 2016 as well as with Telefónica Guatemala and Vodafone Hutchison Australia this year.

The Ericsson/Cisco partnership has been cleared by Brazilian regulatory authorities and will be implemented there under local agreements.

Saudi Telecom Company (STC) announced cooperation agreements with its major international partners, including Huawei, Nokia, Juniper and Cisco at MWC 2017, with the aim of developing skills of future Saudi national ICT specialists. The program will help Saudi young engineers to acquire advanced technical skills needed to address the rapid development in the ICT market in KSA.

In this program, fresh graduate engineers will be selected by STC, based on carefully studied factors, including: high academic achievements, ambition, dedication, and desire to learn and lead. The trainees will subsequently undergo a versatile knowledge transfer program that lasts a minimum of eight months.

"I am very pleased to announce such a unique program for developing national talents. This innovative program is a true manifestation of STC’s commitments to its Saudi youth and is an expression of its high ambitions to deliver towards its corporate social responsibility," said Eng. Nasser Al Nasser, SVP for STC Technology & Operations.

"The digital revolution is having an enormous impact on all industries, demanding new digital skills for our workforce. We need to give our young graduates the "digital education tools" and "state-of-the-art" content and expertise in order to prepare them for a successful career in our rapidly transforming industry."

The program includes industrial orientation and directed training in fundamental soft-skills and technology foundations. This is followed by specialized training abroad with the respective partner, to be specialized in one or more of chosen ICT technology streams.

This specialized training will be conducted in different locations around the world. The last phase involves intensive practical industrial experience, based on a mentored "On-the-Job-Training" scheme. Such a valuable skill development opportunity will be a cornerstone in preparing future qualified ICT experts, as required by the ICT market-place in KSA.

This program comes as part of a continued effort towards achieving the digitalization transformation in the ICT sector in KSA, which is being addressed by the Kingdom’s 2030 Vision.

Ericsson and Cisco announced they will provide Telefonica Guatemala with a new Internet Protocol (IP) network backbone, based on Cisco's aggregation services routers and Ericsson's integration services. Telefonica's LTE subscribers will benefit from the network modernization with increased mobile broadband speeds and better application coverage throughout the country.

“We selected Ericsson based on our longstanding relationship, and trust that the new Ericsson and Cisco partnership will bring value to Telefonica in Central America,” said Daniel Delisante, Regional CTO, Telefonica Central America. “As the demand for high-speed broadband and application coverage is continually increasing, we are happy to offer our subscribers a modern, IP-based network throughout Guatemala."

The solution, which includes Ericsson's implementation and integration services, as well as Cisco routers (ASR 9010 and ASR 1001), will expand Telefonica Guatemala's current network backbone, according to Ericsson. It will support new capacity and features, including Ethernet services, VPNs, and IPv6. The network modernization also paves the way for future network requirements based on Network Functions Virtualization (NFV) and cloud implementations, providing future-proof technology to end users.

"The combination of Ericsson's and Cisco's leading integration services and IP routers will enable Telefonica's network modernization,” said Clayton Cruz, Vice President, Ericsson Latin America and Caribbean. “It allows Telefonica to address the high demand of new subscribers while enhancing the mobile experience for existing 3G and LTE customers."

Guatemala was the first country in Central America to launch 3G services in 2008, and has continued with robust growth since then, with the country currently having approximately 3.2 million 3G subscribers, Ericsson reports. Telefonica entered the 3G market in 2005, and the operator today has approximately 7 million subscribers in Guatemala.

Cisco, Ericsson, Huawei and Nokia announced on December 20, 2016, that they have signed a MoU to create the NFV Interoperability Testing Initiative (NFV-ITI) that will help communication service providers to address the challenges related to NFV deployment and Cloud transformation within multi-vendor network environments.

The deployment and integration of virtual network functions within today’s multi-vendor environments can introduce new interoperability challenges. To address these challenges, NFV-ITI members will cooperatively support the interoperability of NFV elements in specific customer situations to accelerate their commercial implementations, and to reduce the time-to-market for new applications and services.

All the existing NFV interoperability related testing activities have been triggered by different needs of the industry, including the European Telecommunications Standards Institute (ETSI) NFV Testing WG, OPNFV testing projects, Network Vendor Interoperability Testing (NVIOT) testing, and the New IP Agency (NIA) interoperability testing.

Complementing all the existing NFV interoperability testing activities in the industry, NFV-ITI will focus on testing interoperability configurations of commercial NFV solutions actually used in the communication service providers’ networks. It will recommend generic principles, including interoperability test cases, test criteria, processes, methods, guidelines, templates, and testing tools, and will also apply best practices from all existing interoperability testing activities in the industry, such as the NVIOT forum efforts. NFV-ITI shall be well-aligned with the ETSI NFV Industry Specification Group and the OPNFV project.

Martin Bäckström, Vice President, Group Function Strategy & Technology, Ericsson, said: “Through SDN, NFV, and Cloud technologies, Ericsson enables more flexible and scalable networks that bring innovative services to customers faster than ever before. By driving industry alignments on interoperability testing in specific commercial deployments, NFV-ITI will accelerate industrialization of NFV and help to create an even stronger ecosystem that benefits operators, customers and vendors everywhere.”

Long Jiping, R&D President, Business Unit Cloud Core Network, Huawei, said: “Cloud transformation has been the prevailing trend with carrier networks. Huawei is dedicated to promoting cloud transformation and helping carriers to construct an efficient, agile, and cloud-based network, by providing fully-cloudified products and solutions as well as an open and collaborative ecosystem. NFV-ITI is an important step towards cooperation between vendors and will address multi-vendor NFV interoperability challenges. We hope additional vendors in this field can join us to create this mutually beneficial industry.”

The general guiding principles for NFV-ITI are openness, fairness, reasonableness and non-discriminatory treatment. All relevant NFV vendors are welcome to join this initiative by ratifying the NFV-ITI MoU.

Cisco and Chinese IT company, Inspur Group, have launched their Chinese joint venture, Inspur - Cisco Networking Technology Co. Ltd, 51 percent owned by Inspur.

In September 2015, Inspur and Cisco signed a framework agreement to set up the joint venture. It is headquartered in Jinan in Shandong province and will develop and manufacture a range of products including, potentially, “high-end products meeting the needs of customers based on the advanced and well-positioned technologies of both Cisco and Inspur,” Inspur says.

In a press release, Inspur said: “The two sides will seize the opportunity provided by the new generation networking technologies represented by SDN to gear up the development of networking products and technologies, and to deliver advanced technologies related to IT infrastructure, cloud, data center, smart city, big data and so forth to the marketplace.” The first products are expected to be officially launched in 2017.

Inspur said the joint-venture project would become an important part of its cloud strategy. “It will further enrich Inspur's data center portfolio and improve Inspur's ability to build complete cloud data centers,” the company said.

“Meanwhile, it is also a major move under Cisco's long-term, sustainable development strategy in China, and will become an important addition to Cisco's operations in China. …  The Inspur-Cisco joint venture will provide a benchmark for local IT companies to bring in advanced technologies from abroad and drive the independent and secure development of information technologies in China.”

According to its web site, Inspur was ranked ninth in 2015 in the top 100 electronic information companies in China, was the number two IT enterprise in China and number one among indigenous Chinese software companies.

By volume it is the number one supplier of servers in China and number five worldwide and has been the largest indigenous supplier of storage to the Chinese market for the past 12 years.