Grazed from Midsize Insider. Author: Doug Bonderud.

While many midsize companies see the value in moving away from local stacks and physical mainframes, overall efficiency is often crippled by existing static networks. Software-defined networks (SDNs) and network edge virtualization may not be as flashy as the cloud or as disruptive as bring-your-own-device (BYOD), but could have a significant impact on the utility of virtualized resources.

Better Network, Better Net Worth

A June 18 piece from MSPAlliance examines the Nemertes Report "Application Delivery for Virtualized Infrastructures." According to the report, "Virtualized infrastructures are highly dynamic and increasingly automated. By comparison, the network delivering applications to users tends to still be static, fragile and manually configured." In other words, while businesses have learned the value of virtualization in the "center," edge functions remain largely unchanged. As a result, efficient use of resources in virtualized containers is countermanded by transmission through legacy systems...

Grazed from ZDNet. Author: Aimee Chanthadavong.

Cisco Systems is confident that Australia will be the global market leader to take up its big cloud play that has been dubbed Intercloud. Speaking to a room of media this week, Cisco development and sales president Robert Lloyd said Intercloud — which the company initially announced in March as part of its US$1 billion investment to secure its position in the cloud computing market — is an "enterprise response to the multiple uses of cloud technology that is expected to unfold in the next decade".

"We have heard for a year or two about the construct of the market, and how it has been trying to respond to the complexity that has emerged in networking ... [but] command line interface network units that's expected to lead to the agility and flexibility that customers are looking for today isn't going to be the answer," he said...

Grazed from CIOToday. Author: Jennifer LeClaire.

Cisco Relevant Products/Services let the world know it plans to acquire a multi-vendor networking software Relevant Products/Services maker that targets both traditional and virtualized networks. The tech titan is grabbing Sweden-based Tail-f Systems for about $175 million.

Tail-f’s products aim to help service providers and enterprise Relevant Products/Services IT implement applications, network Relevant Products/Services services and solutions across networking devices cost-effectively. The foreign firm’s tech also promises to reduce the time-to-market for network equipment vendors building equipment for agile, software-programmable networks...

Grazed from TechRepublic. Author: Michael Kassner.

Companies, large and small, are slowly leaning towards having a presence in the cloud. Many companies are using the stepping stone approach, leveraging a hybrid cloud-computing environment to gain experience, and to work out unforeseen operational issues. To that end, the hybrid cloud is considered the best choice, allowing companies to retain some digital resources in-house while relegating other resources to a cloud-service provider.

Companies using this approach have the ability to scale up or scale down as needed, along with knowing their most sensitive digital information is still completely under their control and behind their defenses. Security, data protection, privacy, and performance issues are areas of concern for system admins and security managers...

Grazed from EntperpriseTech.  Author: George Leopold.

Brace yourself for the Zettabyte Era.  That forecast comes from networking equipment giant Cisco Systems, which has released its latest Visual Networking Index that foresees global Internet Protocol traffic growing three-fold through 2018 to a hard-to-get-your-brain-around 1.6 zettabytes, or more than one and a half trillion gigabytes, per year.  (The concept of zettabytes is so new that automated spell checkers still don’t recognize the word.)

Driving IP traffic over the next five years will be high-definition streaming video and the emerging network of intelligent devices popularly known as the Internet of Things. Traffic demand will be augmented by faster broadband speeds...

Grazed from Forbes. Author: Roger Kay.

The litany of computing buzzwords has been repeated so often that we’ve almost glazed over: mobile, social, cloud, crowd, big data, analytics. After a while they almost lose their meaning. Taken together, though, they describe the evolution of computing from its most recent incarnation — single user, sitting at a desk, typing on a keyboard, watching a screen, local machine doing all the work — to a much more amorphous activity that involves a whole new set of systems, relationships, and actions.

The single user becomes a collaboration among people. The desk becomes a car, plane, back deck, conference room, or hotel. The keyboard becomes voice or data inbound from other connected systems. The screen may still be a screen, but it could be a bigger screen, or a smaller screen, and it could be a voice, or an action, or a command sent somewhere else. And the work is being done everywhere: on premise, in the cloud, by people, and by machines...

Grazed from NetworkComputing. Author: Andrew Froehlich.

At Cisco Live in San Francisco last month, I attended a panel discussion on the Internet of Things (IoT), where the participants talked of an impending tidal wave of Internet-connected devices and data that could overwhelm data centers and cloud infrastructure. But I don't believe that IoT adoption -- and ultimately cloud growth -- is as absolute as many make it out to be. In fact, I feel that we're actually in for a backlash against IoT, which could seriously impact the predictions and even stall cloud growth forecasts.

The panelists included startup entrepreneurs, venture capitalists and healthcare IT forward-thinkers, all who painted a picture a mind-blowing "everything-connected" world. In fact, most agreed that in the not-too-distant future, IoT devices will not only become more integrated into our daily lives, they will actually begin making decisions for us...

Grazed from Investors. Author: Brian Deagon.

Cloud computing has fundamentally changed the way companies build data centers and deliver software applications. Arista Networks, a leading provider of cloud networking solutions, is tapping into this enthusiasm with an initial public offering scheduled to begin trading Friday.

Cloud-computing centers consist of thousands of servers and storage systems connected by optical-fiber lines, routers and switches that can rapidly distribute software apps and data across the Internet and wireless networks to smartphones, tablets, PCs and other systems.

Read More At Investor's Business Daily: http://news.investors.com/business-new-issue-america/060314-703217-arista-networks-ipo-on-calendar.htm#ixzz33fyBtUGa

Grazed from PRWeb. Author: PR Announcement.

Arista Networks, which sells 10/40/100 Gigabit Ethernet switches and software for cloud-computing data centers, announced terms for its IPO on Tuesday. The Santa Clara, CA-based company plans to raise $200 million by offering 5.3 million shares at a price range of $36 to $40. At the midpoint of the proposed range, it would command a fully diluted market value of $2.8 billion.

Arista Networks, which was founded in 2004 and booked $417 million in sales for the 12 months ended March 31, 2014, plans to list on the NYSE under the symbol ANET. The company initially filed confidentially on January 31, 2014. Morgan Stanley, Citi, BofA Merrill Lynch, Barclays, Credit Suisse, Deutsche Bank and RBC Capital Markets are the joint bookrunners on the deal. It is expected to price next week.

Grazed from NetworkComputing. Author: Andrew Froehlich.

When designing infrastructure for corporate branch offices, you usually run up against one or more common pitfalls. Best-practice architecture documentation and common sense dictate that designing and implementing branch offices in a cookie-cutter fashion makes it much easier to manage all sites. But various factors commonly force designs to be altered to meet the needs of each individual branch.

Because of this, the architecture and, therefore, support of each branch office end up being decidedly different. Your support staff has to burn more time and resources to support disparate infrastructures -- time that could be spent on more meaningful tasks. Thankfully, the growing acceptance of cloud computing allows for an opportunity to design branch office infrastructures in a far more homogeneous manner...