Cisco Names Champions for 2018

Posted on 23 January 2018 by GeekFluent

At the end of last last week, Cisco sent out the official “Welcome” emails to the folks they’ve named as Cisco Champions for 2018.

What are Cisco Champions exactly? you might ask.

It’s a fair question, I’ll admit. Started in 2014, the Cisco Champion program is a way for Cisco to recognize those members of the IT community — who are not Cisco employees — who are going above and beyond their job descriptions to find ways to contribute to and share knowledge with that IT community.

To quote from Cisco’s website:

Cisco Champions are passionate experts who share their perspectives with the community.

In my experience, that’s exactly who they are. Sometimes I feel like there are people out there who are only interested in joining community programs like this one in order to grab some free swag, but I’ve never gotten that vibe from any of the Cisco Champions I’ve met in person or interacted with online. In general, I find them to be very enthusiastic about the technology we all use and very eager to learn — and help others learn, too. I find that I get energized when I spend time with this community.

Cisco recognizes Champions in the following interest areas:

Data Center
Collaboration
Enterprise Networks
Internet of Things
Security

With that said, I’m both proud, humbled, and a little nervous to have been named a Cisco Champion for Data Center for my 5th year. Proud because, well, it’s a honor to be selected. Humbled because when I look at the other folks who’ve been selected, I see several folks who I’ve looked up to for a while, and someone has decided that I belong in the same grouping as them. And a little nervous because someone has decided that I belong in the same grouping as these folks — a little concerned about not living up to expectations.

Anyway, thank you Cisco, and congratulations to all the other Cisco Champions, both new and returning!

Cisco Announces Intention to Acquire Springpath

Posted on 23 August 2017 by GeekFluent

On Monday, Cisco ended over a year of hyperconverged infrastructure (HCI) speculation and announced their intent to acquire Springpath.

In this case, instead of Cisco the networking company, we’re looking at Cisco the manufacturer of the Unified Computing System (UCS) compute platform. Springpath makes hyperconvergence software. Cisco has been running that software — rebranded as the Cisco HX Data Platform — on their UCS servers and offering that bundle as their HyperFlex HCI solution. You may remember that I wrote about HyperFlex when it first launched back in March of 2016.

I’ve been a fan of the UCS platform since its launch, and I’ve been a fan of Springpath since they came out of stealth. HyperFlex has always looked like a great HCI solution to me, and I’ve been surprised it hasn’t taken off more than it has.

Cisco’s been making an overall change to put more emphasis on software and its value-add, and the Springpath acquisition obviously fits well with that shift. The Springpath team will be joining Cisco’s Computing Systems Product Group.

At the price — $320Million in cash — it’s a bargain for Cisco even if they’re only acquiring Springpath to ensure exclusive access to the intellectual property, or ongoing support for HyperFlex. The acquisition is expected to close in Q1 of 2018, pending regulatory review.

Cisco Press Release

Cisco and Pure Announce FlashStack – a Joint CI Solution

Posted on 20 February 2017 by GeekFluent

Last week, Cisco and Pure Storage announced FlashStack. FlashStack is a jointly-developed Converged Infrastructure (CI) solution bundle / reference architecture.

The FlashStack solution uses Cisco network and compute hardware, Pure Storage storage hardware, and VMware for the hypervisor and virtualization layer.

FlashStack CI is not a product, per se, but a Cisco Validated Design (CVD) or reference architecture (RA) that both companies will work together to support. This support includes both Pure Storage’s Flash Forward and Evergreen Storage programs. Continue reading →

Cisco Announces New Storage Building Blocks — UCS S3260

Posted on 1 November 2016 by GeekFluent

Today, Cisco made some storage-related announcements that may have sounded confusing. On a first read, you might think that Cisco is attempting to re-enter the storage market. Personally, I view their announcement as wanting to ensure that they become — and remain — “storage adjacent”…

I’ll walk through things and hopefully clear up any confusion below. Continue reading →

Cisco Enters Hyperconverged Market with HyperFlex

Posted on 1 March 2016 by GeekFluent

Today Cisco announced their entry in the Hyperconverged Infrastructure marketplace, a solution called HyperFlex.

Hyperconverged Infrastructure (HCI) can be thought of as “Virutalization in a Box”. An HCI solution is one that offers everything needed for server virtualization: compute, memory, network, storage, hypervisor, and management/orchestration for all of these.

Cisco’s HyperFlex solution uses:

Cisco Unified Computing System (UCS) to provide the compute, memory, and storage hardware
Cisco UCS Fabric Interconnects to provide the network hardware
Cisco UCS Manager for compute, memory, and network management
VMware ESXi for the hypervisor
SpringPath software, re-branded as the Cisco HX Data Platform, to provide the data services, and storage optimization and orchestration

The HyperFlex solution will initially be offered in three different ways: small footprint, capacity-heavy, and compute-heavy.

I’ll walk through the various components and the complete solution below. Continue reading →

Cisco Announces Champions for 2016

Posted on 1 February 2016 by GeekFluent

On Friday last week, Cisco started sending out email welcoming those people who have been selected to receive the Cisco Champion designation for 2016.

For those of you not familiar with it, Cisco Champion is Cisco’s community recognition program. Its main goal is to encourage and recognize knowledge-sharing efforts. To quote from the welcome email:

Cisco Champions are a group of highly-influential IT technical experts who enjoy sharing their knowledge, expertise, and thoughts across the social web and with Cisco. The Cisco Champion program encompasses a diverse set of areas such as Data Center, Internet of Things, Enterprise Networks, Collaboration, and Security.

I am simultaneously pleased, honored, and humbled to have been named a Cisco Champion for Data Center for the third year in a row. I look forward to meeting and working with the other Cisco Champions, which, this year includes three of my co-workers at Accunet Solutions.

For Your Listening Pleasure: Cisco Champion Radio Season 3, Ep 2 is Live

Posted on 22 January 2016 by GeekFluent

Earlier this week, I got to play the role of a guest-host/panelist on the Cisco Champion Radio podcast, talking about tech predictions for 2016. It was a very lively conversation and a lot of fun.

If you’re interested in hearing it, you can find it:

On the iTunes
On TalkShoe
Or, on Android, just search for Cisco Champion Radio in the DoggCatcher app

Or, you could listen to it right here:

If you have any thoughts to add to the conversation, feel free to do so in the comments below.

Guest-Hosting Cisco Champion Radio Next Week

Posted on 15 January 2016 by GeekFluent

I’ve written before about the various community programs I’ve been fortunate enough to be involved in and how I’ve benefited from them. I’ve just been given another unexpected benefit that should be a lot of fun.

The Cisco Champion community records a weekly podcast titled Cisco Champion Radio. Over the past two years, they’ve covered a broad variety of topics — you can see the full list of previous episodes here.

On Tuesday 19 January, I will be helping to guest-host Season Three, Episode 2 of Cisco Champion Radio. We’ll be talking about IT predictions for 2016. Apparently, I unconsciously predicted this topic, so naturally I accepted the invitation to guest-host.

If you’re a Cisco Champion, please join us to share your thoughts on what’s coming. If you’re not, don’t worries — I’ll post a link to the episode as soon as it’s available.

Headed to VMware Partner Exchange (#VMwarePEX)

Posted on 29 January 2015 by GeekFluent

In less than 48 hours, I’ll be boarding a plane to San Francisco to attend this year’s VMware Partner Exchange (PEX) conference. PEX is a VMware partner-only conference that’s always been a great learning and networking experience for me. Almost all of the vendors my company partners with will be there, too.

If you’re going to PEX and would like to meet in person, please reach out to me (either in comments here, or via email or Twitter). The chance to interact face-to-face with folks I normally only see online is one of the things that make these conferences so rewarding.

A rough idea of some of my schedule is below: Continue reading →

GeekFluent

Have Whiteboard, Will Translate

Tag Archives: Cisco