There are many facts that point to continuing growth in branch office deployments, and the realization that application delivery has become data-center and branch office focused. Delivering business innovation to branch office locations has always been challenging with few, if any, IT personal on site, in-consistent application and service delivery among branches and employee demands for higher levels of business services that are available at headquarter facilities. In the current difficult macro economic scenario managed services offers the favorable trade-off of capital plus salary cost for facilities cost; lowering operational spend. Joel Conover Sr. Manager, Network Systems Marketing at Cisco Systems joins me to discuss IT leader’s options to accelerate business innovation while lowering operational spend through managed services delivered by service providers harnessing the power of Cisco’s Empowered Branch solution. If you are looking for a new model to deliver branch office innovation and cut capital costs, then you have to listen to this podcast

Enterprise networks, especially branch office networks, have experienced a level of service integration over the past five years that has delivered lower acquisition and operational cost while increasing the number of services available to branch office employees. Branch office routers now include switching, WLANs, PoE, network security, WAN Optimization, VPN, unified communications and advanced routing which increase application performance over thin wide area network links. In this podcast we explain the next generation of branch office optimization, which is the integration of applications into the network fabric. The networking industry has started to open up its software in the form of SDKs and APIs. Cisco, Juniper, Extreme, 3Com and the open source routing initiatives are all allowing developers to write to defined router software interfaces. The concepts here are based upon research contained within an industry paper available for download at http://lippisreport.com/2008/09/increasing-corporate-value-through-integrated-networks-and-applications-a-new-approach-to-it-service-delivery-emerges-for-branch-office-operations/. We explain integrated networks and applications in this pdocast and provide business and IT leaders recommendations to exploit it for corporate advantage.

Avaya just hired Kevin Kennedy as its new CEO. Zeus Kerravala of The Yankee Group and I comment on Avaya’s pick and review the recent Avaya analyst conference with an eye toward which Enterprise Communication companies will survive the downturn. Enjoy, Nick

You can’t manage what you can’t measure and this could not be truer for virtualized data center infrastructure. Virtualized infrastructure reduces energy consumption, software license fees and provides a flexible data center that can spin up and down services as demand dictates. But the lack of network visibility to manage and optimize this infrastructure is giving many IT leaders pause. Virtual ports that support numerous logical flows to a single blade running across multiple virtual machines eliminate management, optimization and troubleshooting tools previous available. Stephen Garrison, VP of Marketing for Force10 Networks joins me to talk about strategies and tactics that deliver visibility into virtualized IT infrastructure. If you’re building or trying to manage a virtualized data center, then you need to listen to this podcast

Many business thought leaders are exploring strategies to leverage their branch assets to increase revenues and improve the branch office customer experience by mitigating branch office constraints. These thought leaders are collectively thinking in terms of Branch 2.0, which from a real estate and staffing point of view is a smaller footprint but rich in information technology (IT). Branch 2.0 offers a solution to the business challenges of staff skill levels, right here, right now customer transaction requirements, broad lack of loyalty thanks to increased competition and using the large branch office footprint to up- and cross-sell customers while gaining new ones. The communications industry is driving new value in branch offices with Branch 2.0, which leverages communications and IT to remove the above branch office constraints and improve corporate performance. The combination of business and communication technology trends is creating the next generation branch office. The Branch Office 2.0 concept and its associated business value are developed in white paper available for download at http://lippisreport.com/2008/08/business-value-creation-through-branch-20/ which contains industry recommendations so that business and IT leaders may exploit it for corporate advantage. We use retail and financial services as examples, but Branch 2.0 may be applied to any branch or store facility in any geographic theater.

Two major enterprise trends are combining to deliver greater communication options, that being unified communications and smart mobile endpoints such as Blackberrys Symbian, Iphones and Windows mobile devices. Enterprise mobility solutions are delivering greater value to dual mode smart mobile endpoints thanks to 802.11 WLANs, 3G, fixed mobile convergence and unified communications. In short a mobile endpoint is being equipped with the same services, features and functions that were once isolated and fixed upon a desktop phone. Luc Roy VP of Enterprise Mobility at Siemens joins me to discuss mobile unified communications.

Located just south of Vancouver, Delta School District includes 33 schools spread out over 60 miles. Having initially deployed consumer-grade Wi-Fi technology, Delta quickly realized that it needed industrial strength management and WLAN performance to meet the needs of educators, students and administrators. Its first enterprise WLAN provider offered central management improvements, but Delta was only able to sprinkle single access points (APs) in most of its schools, equipping some with several APs and a centralized controller. Adding more APs meant adding more controllers and backhauling traffic from each AP to a central site over a WAN connection. Then Delta switched to Ruckus Wireless and gained a professional-grade WLAN system that could be centrally managed, was quick to deploy and offered unique design attributes thanks to meshing. Paul Parsons of the Electronic and Computer Services (ECS) Group within Delta School District is my guest as we talk about Delta’s business requirements, motivation and experience with a new WLAN solution by Ruckus Wireless.

Unified Communications (UC) suppliers have been busy extending their software to work on mobile endpoints, such as the Apple Iphone, blackberry, smartphones etc. But there has been little focus on solutions that extend UC to address in-building roaming applications. This is a huge area that has been overlooked with requirements in nearly every industry such as gaming, education, retail, financial services, transportation, etc. Most business and IT leaders look toward a few technologies to solve the in-building UC roaming problem including Voice Over WLAN, IP DECT, Dual Mode endpoints, reliance on the cellular network and, in the extreme, deploying their own cellular antenna to improve coverage. To sort this all out, I invited Shane Yu Director of Unified Communications Consulting at Avaya where we’ll review these options and provide guidance as to which approach may work best for your corporation. If you’re looking to extend UC to in-building nomads, then you need to listen to this podcast

Mr. Michael Whaley, Network Engineering Specialist at American Century Investments is my quest as we discuss American Century Investment’s teleworking strategy and solution. American Century Investments was looking to reduce the operational burden of supporting a large teleworking population while delivering an office IT experience to those working from home. Mr. Whaley describes how American Century Investments paid for a new teleworking solution with wide area facilities cost savings while increasing security, employee productivity and reducing IT management’s operational spend. It’s a fascinating podcast, if you’re developing a teleworking plan, then you need to listen in.

Mindwave Research recently changed its operational model to reduce facilities cost, improve productivity, gain access to a broader labor pool, increase customer service and be a greener company. At the heart of this operational change was the shift toward teleworking. By deploying a teleworker solution, Mindwave reduced its facilities cost by over 80%. They are leveraging IM, video conferencing and other unified communication services to keep employees connected and working together while they telecommute. Jason Snook, IT Director at Mindwave is my quest as he discusses the realized increased productivity and drastic reduction in commute travel time and CO2 emissions its employees would otherwise emit into the atmosphere.

Working from home has always been a different IT experience then being in the office. Home connectivity was restricted to dial-in, VPN or client based solutions with voice service usually being the house phone. This poor experience dampened the growth of teleworking, which was good news for most IT leaders as their concerns were security vulnerabilities and management. But with advanced integration of networks and communications in a small appliance the gap between office and home IT experience is closing fast. A confluence of factors ranging from green initiatives, to governmental requirements, work-home life style changes, business expense controls and new teleworking solutions are giving business and IT leaders the motivation to embrace and massively deploy teleworking solutions. Mr. Calvin Chai, Senior Marketing Executive at Cisco is my guest as we discuss Cisco’s new Cisco Virtual Office offering; a teleworking solution that can be deployed in scale.

Teleworking with unified communications is now a major contributor to green initiatives. The thinking is simple, reduce the amount of cars commuting and carbon emissions will decline. On average there are 0.45 Tons of CO2 emitted into the atmosphere for every 1,000 miles driven while a typical commuter travels 7,000 miles per year. Assuming that in the US telecommuters work at home at least one day a week results is some 22.6 million Tons of CO2 that will not be emitted into the atmosphere. That’s just in the US and other countries are more aggressive in their telecommuting initiatives. But to make telecommuting realistic it needs to support multiple endpoints, communication services and all of the conveniences of enterprise communication systems including presence, directory, the corporate dial plan, etc. Combining unified communications with teleworking is delivering on this level of usefulness. Andrey Kuzyk, Senior Marketing Manager Unified Communications at Avaya joins me to discuss teleworking solutions, which helps to support a greener corporation.

Luis Suarez Director of IT at H.I.G. Capital is my guest as we talk about how H.I.G created value and optimized its remote office operations through a new Cisco business platform, which tightly links applications and networks. In previous Lippis Report podcasts we reviewed Cisco’s ISR-based Application eXtension Platform or AXP. Here Luis explains how HIG used AXP along with Sagem-Interstar’s XMediusFAX application to displace both an old world analog fax network plus web based fax services, while integrating fax services into UC extending it to all H.I.G endpoints and in the process speeding up business process and deal flow. If you are looking to reduce TCO and simplify fax services by integrating it into a UC environment, then you have to listen to this podcast.

Voice recording in branch offices and retail stores are becoming mandatory requirements as executive management seeks to capture customer interactions to better understand and optimize customer and market dynamics. Also new and stricter regulations for financial organizations are driving the need to record customer interactions at the branch level. NICE Systems has teamed up with Cisco Systems to deliver their Network Embedded VoIP logger on top of Cisco’s AXP or Application eXtension Platform, which resides within its Integrated Services Router (ISR). In this podcast I talk with Nadav Doron Director of Branch Solutions for NICE Systems about the AXP as a development platform, the business value it creates and branch optimization realized. If you have voice recording requirements in your branch offices, then you need to listen to this podcast.

Cisco is delivering a networked based application development platform within its Integrated Services Router (ISR) called AXP or Application eXtension Platform. Cisco created a technical and business architecture around AXP to foster an ecosystem of partners. The fact that there are millions of Cisco ISRs in production makes this approach compelling for partners. One Cisco partner is Sagem-Interstar, the global leader in advanced fax server solutions for IP networks. Sagem deploy its XMediusFAX FoIP technology on Cisco’s AXP to virtualize fax functions into the Cisco ISR VoIP gateway. Shashi Kiran Senior Manager Network Systems Solutions Marketing for Cisco Systems and Christian Larocque, Director for Sagem-Interstar are my guest as we discuss the AXP as a development platform; the business value it creates and branch optimization realized. If you’re looking to optimize your branch office network, then you need to listen to this podcast

Today’s knee jerk approach of stacking multiple vendor best-of-breed appliances to address specific threats increases security plus compliance vulnerabilities, operational cost and lowers application performance. Security appliances usually have their own management interfaces and performance parameters driving cost and complexity up. There’s another approach. Crossbeam transforms the way enterprises, service providers and government agencies architect and deliver security services. Its Next Generation Security Platform facilitates the consolidation, virtualization and simplification of security services delivery, while preserving the choice of best-of-breed security applications. Crossbeam’s security platform delivers quantifiable value on multiple fronts. In this podcast I talk with Pete Fiore, CEO of Crossbeam Systems about Crossbean’s approach to IT security threat mitigation. If you have a perimeter defense in place then you need to listen to this podcast

The NAC market is at a pivot point as a key piece of technology that offers a third deployment option is about to enter the market. This third option, based upon authentication and distribution of NAC functions across existing appliances and network infrastructure will enable NAC to scale across an enterprise from its early deployments of guest, wireless and remote access to headquarter and campus LAN environments. Most NAC appliances support two deployment options, in-band and out-of-band. In-band for small deployments and out-of -band for larger ones, but neither scale well for campus LANs. A new deployment option distributes device posture assessment, authentication and enforcement across NAC appliances, a radius 802.1x server and NAC enabled LAN infrastructure. This distribution of NAC tasks across NAC appliances and NAC infrastructure create scale to support large campus environments. Steven Song, Marketing Manager for Cisco Systems joins me to discuss NAC and how its maturing to the point that campus LANs are now being equipped with its defense mitigation protection capabilities. If you have requirements to implement NAC in your campus, then you need to listen to this podcast.

The networking industry has started to open up its software in the form of SDKs and APIs. Cisco, Juniper, Extreme, 3Com and the open source routing initiatives are allowing developers to write to well defined router software interfaces. This is an important development as it provides a venue for increased innovation in networking. But Cisco has taken this activity to a higher level by offering Linux and Windows platforms within its Integrated Services Router (ISR) and Wide Area Application Services (WAAS) products, delivering on the network as a platform concept. We focus on the ISR-based solution today as I talk with Shashi Kiran, Senior Manager Network Systems for Cisco Systems. We discuss this new trend in IT which takes integrated networking to the next level by integrating computing and applications in to the network fabric offering business and IT leaders a new approach to branch office value creation with the Application eXtension Platform. If you’re designing new applications for, or optimizing branch office operations then you need to listen to this podcast.

We all have multiple workspaces where we deliver value to our corporations. Workspaces span from your office to your home and every place in-between. The devices we use may be desktop and laptop computers, fixed, mobile and soft phones. The bottom line is that our communications conveniences that being directory, presence, messaging, call logs, click-to-call, click-to-conference, etc should be extended across all these workspaces. The question we ask in this podcast is can a workspace ready network be implemented with different network and communications suppliers or are their compelling attributes to build workspace ready network with a single vendor? Sanket Amberkar, Manager Solutions Marketing of Network Systems & Security for Cisco Systems is my guest as we discuss workspace ready networks and how they increase corporate value while simultaneously reducing IT operational cost. If you’re planning a UC deployment then you need to listen to this podcast.

aCerno is a company that serves online ads at sub-millisecond speeds. It uses anonymous shopping data from a group of over 450 multichannel retailers to predict which products of more than 140 million online consumers will be likely to purchase. aCerno reaches nearly all online shoppers and processes over a couple billion queries per day. From the time of the query to the time an ad is served has to be 150 milliseconds or less. Foundry Networks' equipment makes that possible. Wayne Earl, Director of Network Operations at aCerno is my guest as we explore aCerno's IT infrastructure that allows it to deliver a fantastic service to its customers with very strict time constraints. If you're looking to increase application performance then you need to listen to this podcast.

It’s a fact that the global economy has slowed prompting contact center managers and IT leaders to explore strategies for maintaining efficiency and meeting revenue targets with fewer resources and constrained budgets. But within a contact center environment, there are many opportunities, sometime hidden, to actually maximize efficiency and still control and possibly reduce costs. With an expert, holistic examination of operations and identification of areas of improvement, management can be proactive in identifying and implementing strategies that not only help their businesses navigate through a potential economic downturn, but accomplish business results that remain beneficial after the economy recovers. Eddie Jenkins, Vice President, Customer Service Practice for the Professional Services business at Avaya joins me to discuss leveraging contact centers for strategic corporate value, which means increasing revenues, corporate productivity and gaining market share during down markets. This is a very timely podcast chocked full of great ideas to be successful in a down market.

With the slow down in the global economy we ask the question; how is this business cycle impacting IT and communications? During down markets cost reduction initiatives are obviously important, but so too is service creation as corporations respond and react to new market realities. One major difference in this down cycle from others is the fact that many firms are in the middle of a communications infrastructure upgrade cycle. Traditional TDM PBXs are reaching the end of their economic and reliability lifecycles. Most enterprises are either in the middle of or have migration plans to move to IP telephony platforms, implementation of Unified Communication applications, and the upgrading of Call Centers to Contact Centers. Given the state of this communications technology migration, IT organizations will find it even more difficult to manage the inevitable downturn in spending and tightening of resources to accomplish their missions. Ajay Kapoor, Director of Consulting and Systems Integration for Enterprise Communications for Avaya is my guest as we offer several actions that IT leaders can take immediately that help IT increase efficiency while reducing costs within 12 months. This is a great IT management podcast that business and IT leaders will find valuable and timely.

According to industry sources “The average corporation under budgets PCI (Payment Card Industry Compliance) by 40%. Any company, mom and pop shops to fortune 50 corporation that processes credit card information need to be PCI compliant. Penalties for non-compliance are severe and are enforced by the banks such as Visa, MasterCard, American Express and others through fees plus increases in transaction cost. For the mid market, a doubling of the transaction fee charge will have a much larger impact on its cost to productivity. Terry Quinn-Andry, Compliance Solutions Manager for Cisco Systems joins me to discuss PCI requirements for mid market corporation. We’ll explain PCI benefits, exposure of non-compliance and how to avoid penalties. If you’re responsible for PCI compliance, then you need to listen to this podcast

Data centers are the largest single IT investment CIOs and business leaders appropriate. Data center networking is leading edge by default and where high-speed links and new approaches are first deployed. While data centers are consolidating and becoming increasingly virtualized, networking requirements are fundamentally changing. High performance end-of-row and top-of-rack network switches are uniquely positioned to increase network throughput and reduce operational spend. I talk with Doug Murray VP/GM of Extreme Networks about new data center design options thanks to its Summit X650 high end Ethernet switch. If you’re designing a data center network, then you need to listen to this podcast

The conventional wisdom in IT threat mitigation is to build a layered defense with security technology such as firewalls, IPS, network access control, anti-x client software, alarm aggregation and event correlation, etc. Conventional wisdom is starting to shift toward a systems approach to protecting IT assets. The layered approach was built upon deploying best of breed products, which were best of breed only until other products emerged and relegated them to either standalone appliances and/or loosely coupled silos such as the linking between IPS and firewalls. The systems approach builds upon IT security investment by wrapping it with System Management for policy, reputation and identity that transcending endpoints, networks, content and application security. Fred Kost, Cisco’s Director Security Marketing is my guest as we explain the new IT security model and provide IT leaders with guidance on building a more secure IT infrastructure. To understand the systems approach to IT security then listens to this podcast:

Scott Lucas, Senior Director of Solutions Marketing for Extreme Networks is my guest as we discuss Extreme Networks major product portfolio expansion and the launch of its widget central. Extreme launched its new Summit X350 fixed configuration switch for network edge applications plus 802.11n access points and controllers. A new version of ExtremeXOS with enhanced automation capabilities to help IT leaders reduce operational spend is now available too. Extending the usefulness of its flagship BlackDiamond 8800, it launched the C Series of core switch interface and management blades for increased scalability and density of 1GbE and 10GbE ports plus PoE support. Extreme has created an ecosystem around the development of application Widgets by exposing features and providing software developers access to its ExtremeXOS. This ecosystem is called Widget Central. I talk with Scott about the new design options and widgets available to network architects afforded by this launch.

TCO or total cost of ownership is always a difficult metric to measure. So many business and IT leaders focus on purchase price or product acquisition without giving full attention to operational and facilities cost, which dominate network TCO. Conventional wisdom is that for LAN and WLAN switching acquisition cost represents between 20 to 25% of TCO with operational and facilities spend represents between 75 to 80% over a 3-year period. So the question is what can IT leaders do to optimize TCO and bring balance to network acquisition and operations. Scott Lucas, Senior Director of Solutions Marketing for Extreme Networks is my guest as we discuss best practices to balance TCO.

Marcus Bost, Chief Information Officer, Adena Health System is my guest as we discuss how Adena is using IP Video to provide neonatal care to its patients in southern Ohio linked to the largest US Neonatology center at Nationwide Children’s Hospital 70 miles away. Adena pediatricians are now able to collaborate with Nationwide Children’s neonatology experts in full high definition real time IP video to assess and diagnose infants, review CT scans, X-rays and consult with Adena pediatricians on treatment plans. Mr. Bost discusses the above project from both a human condition improvement and economic perspective. We end the talk with a discussion on network readiness and future IP video plans at Adena Health System. If you’re developing an IP Video plan then you need to listen to this podcast.

Many IT leaders have build private application delivery networks while outsourcing content delivery network needs to improve the performance of video, music downloads, and rich media. These two separate networks are now converging into one physical but logically separate networks with unique attributes for the traffic, which flows through them. Two experts in the field from Internap; Phil Kaplan Chief Strategy Officer and Tim Sullivan Chief Technology Officer join me to discuss how these two network clouds are beginning to drift together and what this will mean to IT operations and business. Internap’s approach to service delivery is software based and relies upon backbone router vendors such as Foundry Network’s NetIron XMR and its ServerIron to deliver the services it offers. If you have built an application delivery network and outsource content delivery to a service provider then you need to listen to this podcast.

IP video is being massively consumed in the consumer and corporate markets. In 2007 IP video exceeded the total sum of 2000 internet traffic which was nearly 25 Petabytes/month while IDC estimates that corporate video traffic will more then double in the next two years with greater then half of all corporations currently using some form of IP video. IP video is either deployed from the bottom up or top down. Click-to-conference plus enterprise based Web 2.0 social networking and collaboration initiatives are deployed from the bottom up while video surveillance, digital signage, TelePresence, and one-to-many for training and executive-to-employee briefings broadcast are top down. In short, business and IT leaders will not have total control over IP video deployments and are advised to prepare your networks for IP video. Kumar Srikantan Senior Director of Cisco’s Campus Switching Systems Technology Group joins me to discuss best practices to guide IT leaders to prepare their networks in support of IP video services. If your corporation is using IP video, then you need to listen to this podcast.

With every IT paradigm transition comes not only increased bandwidth requirements, but an increased reliance on network services such as security, remote VPN access, QoS, and application classification to support a wide variety of corporate applications. Also new WAN services such as Metro Ethernet and 3G wireless are redefining WAN design. Between these demanding new applications and WAN options, lies the aggregation router, which has been primarily a narrowband device connecting sites via Frame Relay and MPLS, and thus has presented a bottleneck to new real-time collaboration technologies. This is all about to change, because a new era of WAN design has emerged. New router platforms are rare as their life-cycle is usually greater then a decade. So when one is announced it’s the beginning of a long industry cycle and when it’s Cisco who’s making the announcement you know that it’s an industry-changing event. Cisco has announced its Aggregation Services Router, or ASR, 1000 Series, which is focused on the high-end enterprise WAN and service provider edges. The ASR value proposition is rooted in a reduction of appliance hardware, lower WAN cost through aggregation and lower operational spend thanks to management break-throughs. Marie Hattar, Senior Director of Network Systems and Security solutions marketing at Cisco Systems is my guest as we dive into the ASR and new WAN design options it enables. To get the cost out and performance into your WAN, listen to this podcast

The Kent School District is the fourth largest school district in the state of Washington comprised of four high schools, six middle schools, 28 elementary schools and two academies with nearly 27,000 students and 3200 employees. Kent’s IT staff were challenged to support a doubling of networked computers, new IT service requirements including virtualized desktops, smart boards, video surveillance and unified communications all while keeping their operational budget constant. Kent under went a district-wide network refresh, where the IT team sought to replace the current edge network that included products from ProCurve Networking by HP and 3Com for Cisco. I talk with Thuan Nguyen, Director of IT at Kent School District about his options, decisions and results. It’s a fascinating case of what can be done in IT today.

802.11n offers impressive improvements in rate, range, and price/ performance thanks to significantly higher processing and power consumption than older WLAN Access Points (APs). A key question in the decision to deploy 802.11n APs is whether there is enough power delivered over 802.3af Power over Ethernet (PoE) switch ports or compliant power injectors to run these APs as 802.11n’s increased bandwidth and processing may require more then the 12.95 Watts provided in 802.3af switch ports. I interview Craig Mathias, a Principal at Farpoint Group and author of the recent report “802.11n Access Points and Power over Ethernet: Key Considerations� and Luc Roy VP of Enterprise Mobility at Siemens Enterprise Communications which is shipping an 802.11n AP that operates with 802.3af PoE. Craig tested the Siemens AP3620 802.11n APs and shares its results. If you’re planning on deploying 802.11n then you need to listen to this podcast.

Wiring closet switches are undergoing a renaissance of sorts. Once thought of as simple network connectivity devices, they are now central to network security, mobility, PoE distribution, IP phone and UC connection devices etc. Wiring closet switches are pervasive as they connect all end points into an enterprise network distributing network services throughout a corporation. TCO of these switches breakdown as 20/80% capital/operational spend resulting in switch design, network management plus reliability and serviceability features possessing a demonstrable effect toward lowering TCO. I talk with Ish Limkakeng Senior Director of Marketing for the Desktop Switching unit at Cisco Systems about wiring closet switches and the new basis of competition and buying criteria that has emerged.

Retail business executives are measured on customer experience, revenue and productivity. Retail IT executives are expected to lower TCO while being integral to addressing the most pressing retail issues; that being customer brand loyalty and creating an environment which delivers an excellent experience. The communications industry is driving new value in retail stores with what I call Retail Store 2.0 (RS 2.0). RS 2.0 addresses retail executive concerns including creating brand loyalty, delivering good to excellent service, lowing TCO, simplifying communications, and delivering improved visibility, security and control of communications. Bruce Mazza, Director of Branch Solutions and Leslie Levy, Senior Manager of Retail Solutions both from Avaya discuss value creation in retail and multi-site environments through Intelligent Store Architecture. If you’re seeking to deliver a better retail store experience and drive revenue up then you have to listen to this podcast.

Customers demand personalized and relevant brand interaction at every touch point be it on the web, call centers, online and particularly in-branch. The brand experience must flow consistently across these channels. Smart multi-channel retailers – especially those with traditional branch marketers like department stores, home improvement, retail banking services - even branch-delivered healthcare are realizing the value creation possible by investing in communications innovation of their core brick and mortar investments. This alignment of the customer experience across channels ensures consistently good customer interaction, increased productivity and ultimately - brand loyalty and increased revenues. Avaya’s Craig Wilson, Principle Business Communications consultant and Bruce Mazza, Intelligent Branch Solutions Manager join me to discuss discuss value creation within Branch Offices though intelligent communication solutions.

This is the year of the Branch Office. Business and IT leaders are re-distributing corporate assets and allocating significant investments in data center and branch office assets. There is strong business, economic, demographic and technical drivers’ shaping this trend. The IT industry has responded by offering many new network design options to business and IT leaders who seek to add value to their branch offices. In this podcast I discuss this global trend with Inbar Lasser-Raab Senior Director of Marketing for Enterprise Routing and Switching at Cisco as we dive into the details of Cisco’s latest branch office innovations. If adding value to your branch offices is a corporate initiative, then you need to listen to this podcast

Siemens Communications made the largest Unified Communications (UC) announcement of the year by launching OpenScape UC Server and a suite of UC applications. This is a huge software investment from Siemens taking one of, if not the, largest steps of any in the industry toward a software and services concern. Siemens is offering innovative UC software based upon open communications architecture while rooted in enterprise class voice communications capabilities. I discuss this announcement, industry dynamics, Siemens’ relationships with Microsoft, IBM et al with Siemens’ Mark Straton, SVP Global Marketing and Interpreet Singh, Director of Emerging Technologies. If you’re planning a UC project, then you have to listen to this podcast

Many business thought leaders in financial services and retail are exploring how best to leverage their branch assets to up and cross sell customers while improving the branch office experience. These thought leaders are collectively thinking in terms of Intelligent Branch solutons, which from a real estate and staffing point of view is a smaller footprint but rich in IT. Bruce Mazza, Director of Branch Solutions and Tony Kleckner Practice Leader for Financial Services both of Avaya join me to discuss what I call Branch 2.0 and how it addresses and solves the main concerns of retail and banking executives.

Kim Niederman, CEO at Anagran, a developer of intelligent flow-based products for next generation networks joins the Lippis Report podcast. Network traffic such as P2P, IP video and VoIP traffic is increasing exponentially creating congestion and poor application performance. Flow management is a congestion management/avoidance scheme that groups’ different traffic classes by flows to assure application performance. In this podcast we discuss Anagran and its value proposition.

On Jan 28th Cisco announced its Nexus data center high performance switch while the day after Juniper announced its long awaited arrival into the LAN switching market with its EX-Series of Ethernet switches internally called Hurricane. Zeus Kerravala, of The Yankee Group and I analyze Juniper’s LAN switches and Cisco’s new Nexus 7000 data center switch. It’s a 20 minute podcast, but its worth the time. Enjoy Nick

Energy used by the nation’s servers and data centers is about 61 billion kilowatt-hours (kWh) in 2006, costing about $4.5 billion. This consumption is up by a factor of 2 since the year 2000 and is projected to double again by 2011 unless efficiencies are implemented. Bill Ryan, Senior Product Marketing Manager at Foundry Networks joins me to discuss best practices in Green Data Center Networking that can result in network power consumption efficiencies in the 80-to-90% range. If you’re looking to build a Green data center, then you need to listen to this podcast

2007 was the year that enterprise communication vendors restructured with Avaya going private, Shortel going public, Microsoft and Nortel joining forces, Siemens Communications being spun off from Siemens AG, while InterTel and Mitel merged. 2008 is the year of Unified Communications (UC).  I asked Grace Tiscareno-Sato, Senior Global Marketing Manager for UC at Siemens Communications to join the program to provide a view of what’s ahead from the enterprise communication supplier perspective.  Grace lays out her top 8 UC events to watch for in 2008.
 
Download the "Measuring the Pain: What is Fragmented Communication Costing Your Enterprise?" white paper discussed in this podcast here

Selina Lo the CEO of Ruckus Wireless joins me to discuss the emerging mid-tier enterprise WLAN market that Ruckus Wireless finds itself in the envious position of being alone within. Ruckus Wireless is the expert on RF and antennas for high performance and stable WLANs. Radio communications are subject to unpredictable behavior due to environmental dependencies and various flavors of interference. Yet it’s possible to effectively mitigate many of these impairments through continuous intelligent selection of system operating parameters and a sufficiently agile antenna system. WLAN reliability has plagued enterprise WLAN deployments since their inception. Ruckus has invested into engineering solutions to these problems developed over the past three years supplying service providers with over 1 million WLAN solutions for IPTV services around the world. Their intellectual property and mid-tier market requirements could not be more aligned. If you are in the hospitality, retail, education or just a mid-tier enterprise company that needs a stable and easy to deploy WLAN solution, then you need to listen to this podcast.

Jeff Kaplan, Managing Director of THINKstrategies, and founder of the Managed Service Showplace® www.thinkmsp.com and Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) Showplace® www.thinksaas.com joins the Lippis Report podcast to discuss Managed Services. The general trend is that Managed Service providers are adding IP communication into their service portfolio to differentiate and grow. We discuss MS 3.0 and in particular Cisco’s managed services 3.0 initiative.

Jeff Kaplan, Managing Director of THINKstrategies, and founder of the Managed Service Showplace® www.thinkmsp.com and Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) Showplace® www.thinksaas.com, joins me to discuss how communications is being added to Software as a Service (SaaS) offerings and in particular how Cisco may use SaaS as part of its unified communications strategy. Cisco offers unified communications, WebEx and arguably the best video conferencing systems on the market, that being its Telepresence system. Will Cisco integrate these services or let customers pick and choose which communication services they want? Jeff and I explore what impact SaaS may have on Cisco’s unified software strategy.

Zeus Kerravala, SVP, of The Yankee Group joins me to discuss important 2007 industry developments, what 2008 will bring and what the industry may look like 2012. Zeus and I compare notes and debate the future of our industry. It longer then our typical podcast, 27 minutes, so enjoy and relax while you listen to it in the car, on a bike, walking the dog or during a coffee break. It’s a great way to start off your year. Happy Holidays Everyone!!

The new trend in application delivery switches is an expansion beyond load balancing toward specific application support of firms like Oracle, BEA, SAP, Microsoft et al. With enterprise spending on application acceleration equipment expected to reach $3.7 billion by the end of 2008, we identify the five issues IT leaders need to consider before they procure and deploy these switches in their data centers and server farms. I discuss this with Gary Hemminger, Director of Product Marketing for Application Delivery Products at Foundry Networks. No matter where you are on the buying cycle, you need to listen to this podcast before you act.