Saturday 16 November 2019

Latest Cisco 200-401 IMINS Certification Exam Practice Test


Thursday 14 November 2019

Explore Model-Driven Telemetry

New learning labs and sandbox


As our journey through network automation grows, so does the need for our network tools. Network Engineers have always been considered the absolute escalation point for any performance difficulties and problems, irrespective whether the root cause is really the network, server, or application. Network Engineers are expected to have the knowledge and tools to isolate and identify the issue, collaborating with other teams such as SRE / AppDev to bring it to resolution and often present this in an RCA (root cause analysis).

One of these great tools which can really help is telemetry.  In software, telemetry is used to gather data on the use and performance of applications and application components, e.g. how often certain features are used, measurements of start-up time and processing time, hardware, application crashes, and general usage statistics and/or user behavior.

In our network, the demands for data on network state — whether to detect hot spots in the network, or aid decision making on workload placement — requires data at a cadence that traditional methods just can not deliver. SNMP, CLI, and Syslog have limitations that restrict automation and scale. SNMP polling can often be in the order of 5-10 minutes, CLIs are unstructured and prone to change, which can often break scripts.

The traditional use of the pull model – where the client requests data from the network – does not scale when what you want is near real-time data. Moreover, in some use cases, there is the need to be notified only when some data changes, like interfaces status, protocol neighbors change etc.

Real-time access to operational statistics


Model-driven telemetry is a new approach for network monitoring in which data is streamed from network devices continuously using a push model and provides near real-time access to operational statistics. Applications can subscribe to specific data items they need, by using standard-based YANG data models over NETCONF-YANG. Cisco IOS XE streaming telemetry allows to push data off of the device to an external collector at a much higher frequency, more efficiently, as well as data on-change streaming.

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We want more data, when do we want it? Now!


Listening to our community they asked for more model-driven telemetry content, as chance would have this I was working with Jeremy Cohoe. His blog formed the boilerplate for how the new learning lab and the new sandbox was built.

In the new Learning Lab Module, there are four new labs:

1. Introduction to Telemetry on IOS XE


Here you can learn about Telemetry Options, Publications Types, Data Encoding and TIG Software Stack. The TIG software stack refers to the three open-source software components that enable receiving, storing, and visualization the telemetry data.

◉ Telegraf (Collection) with the cisco_telemetry_mdt plugin that decodes the gRPC data to text

◉ InfluxDB (Storage): an open-source time-series database optimized for fast, high-availability storage and retrieval of time series data in fields such as operations monitoring, application metrics, Internet of Things sensor data, and real-time analytics. It provides a SQL-like language with built-in time functions for querying a data structure composed of measurements, series, and points

◉ Grafana (GUI visualization): an open-source platform to build monitoring and analytics dash

2. Enabling Telemetry On IOS XE


This learning labs begin your hand on a section with an overview of the open-source tooling and its configuration required to receive the telemetry information. We set up Cisco IOS XE MDT Configuration and begin receiving data with Telegraf and look at the storage in InfluxDB.

3. Yang Explorer


The YANG data models are found within the IOS XE operating system and can be exported easily from the NETCONF interface with tooling like YANG Explorer. Yang Explorer is an open-source web application which provides a web-based user interface to

◉ Browse yang data models
◉ Create netconf rpc payload
◉ Execute netconf RPCs
◉ Save RPCs to collections

4. Building Grafana with increase Telemetry


We look how to verify and validate the existing configuration within Grafana, as well as how to add an additional telemetry subscription on IOS XE The reason for using Grafana is that it is an open-source metric analytics & visualization suite. It is most commonly used for visualizing time series data for infrastructure and application analytics but many use it in other domains including industrial sensors, home automation, weather, and process control. Here, Grafana is the visualization engine that is used to display the telemetry data. It calls into InfluxDB to access the data that is stored there, which is the same data that Telegraf received from IOS XE.

Experiment with Model-Driven Telemetry in the DevNet Sandbox


Try this for yourself ! Wherever you are on your network programmability journey, the new IOS XE Model Driven Telemetry learning lab is ready.  In it, you’ll find all kinds of helpful information.

Before you begin, reserve an instance of the new Model-Driven Telemetry Sandbox. This sandbox is a development area for developers to experiment with Model Driven Telemetry on IOS XE, IOS XR, and NX-OS, and create their own consumers and transformers for their databases. With the telemetry sandbox you’ll be able to use the learning labs against live infrastructure to have a true hands-on experience with the technology.

Tuesday 12 November 2019

Innovate at speed, with Cisco Business Architecture

Digital disruption is affecting every market sector and every industry, every organisation and every user. Yet, innovating often seems slow and complex, and changes are awkwardly interdependent. This make it difficult to communicate in a clear way ‘what’ needs to be done, and even more so to explain ‘why’ and ‘how’. Cisco’s Business Architecture Center of Excellence (BA CoE) was set up to solve exactly this problem: How can Cisco help you, our customers, deliver business impact at speed, through agile and interactive collaboration with both business & IT. Interested? Read on.

Last week at Gartner’s IT Xpo in Barcelona, the focus of Cisco’s booth (see picture below) laid squarely on innovation and how we can accelerate our customers’ business transformation. This was a timely opportunity for me to recap how Business Architects work with our customers, in close collaboration with our partners, our professional services (Customer eXperience, CX), and other innovation-focused groups within Cisco.

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Cisco Booth at Gartner IT Xpo: Leading with Innovation

On the left of the booth, experts from Cisco IT shared their experiences – both positive and negative – of running Enterprise IT. They outlined to attendees how Cisco gradually transformed its internal IT operating model to focus on business innovation, improve service quality, increase employee satisfaction, and all this while lowering costs. On the right, Cisco’s Co-Innovation Centers (CIC) team showcased how Cisco works with a varied partner ecosystem to co-create new solutions answering today’s business and societal problems. Examples presented ranged from a system that connects the unconnected in rural areas, to partnerships that increase road safety, and to solutions that improve connectivity on trains.

And in the center, Cisco’s Business Architecture Center of Excellence (BA CoE) tied everything together by detailing the 6 steps we take with our customers to deliver innovation at speed:

1. We create a CxO-level 1-page strategy that connects technology investments with the company’s mission, bringing together a unified digital agenda in a visual way;

2. We harness vertical trends and spell out the business drivers in terms that both Business and IT understand and can act upon;

3. We bridge the gap between Business & IT and gradually transform the IT department into the driver of Digital Transformation;

4. We co-create innovative solutions to answer the most pressing business challenges, leveraging the power of Design Thinking and our partner ecosystem;

5. Through a set of IT “Strategic Plays”, we build the multi-domain architecture that will accelerate business innovation — and we justify the Return on Investment (“IT as a Business”);

6. We continuously orchestrate a healthy Customer eXperience (CX) for our customers, focused on delivering ongoing, mutual business success.

So why are we doing this again? Because driving digital transformation in today’s complex, multi-faceted environment is not evident. Powered by a community of 200 Business Architects (BAs) active throughout the globe, Cisco can help you, our customers, innovate in unique and compelling way:

◉ Practice over theory: for many consultants, conceiving a digital strategy becomes an objective in itself. But really, it’s only paper until the business and the users feel the benefits in their day-to-day interactions. So Cisco Business Architects avoid wasting your precious time and resources on theoretical reports – and instead, we implement real solutions, with visible and tangible impact to your key stakeholders.

◉ Agile and Visual: we proceed quickly and through continuous iterations. The first one is usually completed within 1 or 2 weeks. Fail fast: if you don’t like it, we rapidly change course until we get it right. Communication is key, so we facilitate collaborative workshops powered by Design Thinking and we share the business outcomes through powerful infographics.

◉ Share and Partner: We leverage best practices from our customers all over the world, from multiple sectors, as well as from Cisco’s own internal transformation. We openly share our lessons learned and the solutions we created. We engage our ecosystem of partners to bring you the industry expertise you need, with the impeccable execution you expect.

In this post, I’ll walk you through the 6 phases of a typical BA-led engagement, summarized in the figure below.

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Deliver Business Impact at Speed, with Cisco Business Architecture

1. Create the big picture


Cisco Business Architects create a CxO-level, one-page strategy called “Digital Journey Dashboard” (DJD). The DJD is a large infographic that depicts the way your organisation’s strategic business drivers (the ‘why’) connect to your next-gen IT operating model (the ‘how’) and to the multi-domain architecture that will accelerate your business innovation (the ‘what’). It balances the long-term, structural transformation initiatives (the ‘marathon’) with “Business Innovation Sprints” focused on delivering tangible & visible value to the business.

The DJD helps the CIO explain and communicate the digital journey in a manner that is accessible, actionable and easy to understand by business stakeholders, but also by the people in the IT department. It connects future technology investments with the company’s mission and visualizes the unified plan that will deliver business impact at speed.

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The power of storytelling and visualization to drive digital transformation

Working in close partnership with our Customer eXperience Centers (CXC), the Business Architects use the DJD to frame the overall, long-term partnership between you and Cisco: rather than pitching our products, we start from your business objectives and derive which challenges we need to focus on first. Only then do we bring into action our technology solutions, our rich partner ecosystem, and our professional services (Customer eXperience, CX).

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Build a one-page Strategy to chart your journey to Digital (click to download pdf)

2. Spell out the business drivers


Cisco Business Architects are skilled and tooled to harness the trends specific to your industry/market and spell out the key objectives related to your business drivers, for example:

◉ Customer Experience: How can we deliver an end-to-end, engaging, personalised, omni-channel experience to our customers?

◉ Workforce Experience: How can we evolve the day-to-day working experience of our employees, driving productivity & empowering a forward-looking culture?

◉ Digital First and Data Insights: How can we make better decisions, increase relevancy, availability and speed with advanced analytics and AI?

◉ Co-innovation and Partnerships: How can we run Joint Living Labs with trusted partners to deliver business innovation at speed?

◉ Risk, Security and Compliance: How can we protect and secure our assets to avoid penalties/fines/brand damage, balancing risk with innovation & value to our customers?

◉ Culture of Partnership & Change: How can IT improve trust and open dialog with the business to accelerate impact to market with high quality?

Using powerful Design Thinking tools and engaging with both Business & IT, we crystalize the initiatives that will realize these objectives and express them in terms that everyone understands and can act upon:

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Customer Workshop involving Business & IT stakeholders, powered by Design Thinking

Working in close collaboration with Cisco’s Industry Solutions Group (ISG), Business Architects explore the use cases and solutions that are making a difference in your sector. Most often, these solutions require the involvement of specialized partners, able to cater for the unique challenges and opportunities in front of you.

3. Bridge the gap between business and IT


Cisco Business Architects understand the pivotal role played by the CIO and the IT department, repositioning IT from a mere ‘cost center’ to a leader of Digital Transformation. Nearly always, this requires a profound, ongoing evolution of the IT Operating Model, to bridge the gap between Business and IT. But you might wonder how exactly Cisco can provide credible recommendations in this area, since you would usually engage with Cisco on technology-related topics. Enter Cisco IT – yes, that’s our own internal IT department.

For a long time, Cisco has viewed IT as a critical enabler of our business strategy – in fact, we view our IT capabilities as a key competitive differentiator in our ability to deliver the best products, services and solutions to our customers. And in order to quickly adapt to changing business environments and address emerging opportunities and markets, we continuously evolve and fine-tune our IT Operating model.

Why does it matter to you? Because our experts from Cisco IT openly share our lessons learned, covering a whole span of topics, including:

◉ Strategy and Governance: How to be clear and transparent about what the IT department must do, who should do it, when/how, and above all, why?

◉ People, Culture & Communication: How to ensure that IT personnel is embracing and driving the change required by the new digital agenda?

◉ Architecture & IT Service Management: How to architect a service-oriented model, present all IT services through a portal, and automate their delivery to the user?

◉ Service Delivery & Agile Project Management: How can agile principles accelerate speed of innovation and project time-to-market?

◉ Sourcing and Financial Models: How to optimize IT budget and resources through modern consumption and procurement models?

◉ Future Skills and Roles: How to develop skills of the future so that IT can proactively meet the new business requirements?

Cisco IT can help you benchmark where your IT Department stands today in each of these areas (“AS-IS” State), define where your IT capabilities ought to be to meet and exceed the expectations of the business and users (“TO-BE” State) – and of course, help you get from AS-IS to TO-BE.


Cisco IT as Customer Zero

Leveraging the lessons learned from Cisco IT’s own transformation over the last decade, you can avoid the pitfalls we encountered and accelerate your transformation projects. Discover how on our “Cisco on Cisco” portal.

4. Solve business-critical challenges, using Design Thinking


In a 1.5-day collaborative workshop powered by Design Thinking techniques, Cisco Business Architects can help you harmonize the viewpoints of the business executives and IT leaders inside your organization. We call this a “Business Innovation Sprint” (BIS):

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Defining “Business Innovation Sprint”

I underlined the word “prescriptive”, because it’s the secret to success of BIS. There are literally hundreds of Design Thinking tools available — and selecting which ones are right for you can be daunting. Following dozens of customer engagements, Cisco Business Architect have made this selection and developed a framework and a process proven to accelerate the speed at which our customers innovate. Effectively, we lower barrier to entry to Design Thinking by providing tested workshop agendas, trainings, tools, templates, etc.

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Business Innovation Sprint in action, powered by Design Thinking

Phrasing the Challenge Statement is a critical input to a Business Innovation Sprint. The right BIS Challenge Statement usually aligns to one of these four customer imperatives:

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Here are some examples of past challenges we have worked out with customers:

1. “Reimagine your applications” (with a Retail customer) – “How might we… improve our customers’ experience by combining online & offline across the journey, and increase revenue and profitability per customer?”

2. “Secure your data” (with a Financial Services customer) – “How might we… remain compliant while removing friction and delays caused by security procedures?”

3. “Transform your infrastructure” (with a Manufacturing customer) – “How might we… redesign the process of adding a new OT machine in our network in order to reduce provisioning time from 6 months to 1 week?”

4. “Empower your teams” (with a Government customer) – “How might we… rethink the way our internal teams collaborate in order to improve employee happiness, team productivity and cross-functional collaboration?”

The Business Innovation Sprint allows us to create a Minimum Viable Product (MVP) — and because your key stakeholders were involved from the start, we are sure to address their needs and expectations. Cisco Business Architects can then engage one of Cisco’s Co-Innovation Centers (CIC) and/or our regional/global partners to bring the MVP to life, i.e. in production.

5. Build the multi-domain architecture to accelerate innovation


It’s plain and simple: silos kill innovation. Unfortunately, more often than not, technology investments are made case by case – in silo – without looking at the big picture. In order to flourish, innovation needs a platform – a secure, digital platform architected to support and accelerate your business transformation.

This is why Cisco Business Architects make sure each investment you make to fund a Business Innovation Sprint contributes to the gradual built-out of your long-term, multi-domain architecture. At the end of the day, this architecture is going to be your key competitive differentiator, whether you are a university trying to improve services to students and researchers; a bank looking to cross-sell adjacent services to existing customers; or a hospital on a mission to radically change how patients are being cared for.

Business decision makers – who hold the purse strings – find it hard to connect their strategic objectives with the technicalities of architecting this digital platform. This is why it falls upon IT to EXPLAIN and JUSTIFY.

EXPLAIN the linkage between IT’s “Strategic Plays” and the outcomes delivered to the business


Cisco Business Architects leverage the SCIPAB framework to structure and visualize the impact of IT’s “Strategic Plays” in the context of the customer’s Digital Transformation Strategy:

◉ Situation: Objectively, what’s the current state of the business, technology, industry, and/or mega trends?

◉ Complication: What are the critical issues (changes, pressures, demands, etc.) that are impacting the Situation and creating problems or opportunities?

◉ Implication: What are the consequences of failing to act on the problems or opportunities described in the Complication?

◉ Position: We then clearly and confidently state the strategic direction to solve the problems and reap the benefits.

◉ Action: We explain the role everyone needs to play and the key initiatives that will be undertaken in the next few weeks.

◉ Benefit: We describe how the recommended Position and Action will address the stakeholders’ needs, both qualitatively and quantitatively.

Over the years, Cisco Business Architects have developed dozens of SCIPAB storyboards, similar to the one below.

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Example of a SCIPAB Storyboard focused on the Employee Collaboration Strategic IT Play (click to download pdf)

JUSTIFY the investment through a financial analysis and ROI model


IT as a Business, or ITaaB, is a structured engagement process and tooling which enable Cisco Business Architects to develop a financial value proposition and demonstrate to your business stakeholders the Capability, Cost, Compliance and Calendar (speed) benefits of evolving towards a multi-domain architecture. Typical areas of focus include: Secure Access, Secure SD-WAN, and Secure DC Network.

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ITaaB is a structured process to develop a financial value proposition

6. Create a virtuous lifecycle for ongoing success


Today’s IT projects are more complex and interdependent than ever, spanning multiple technology domains and affecting a myriad of stakeholders. Environments and requirements change every day. In-house IT teams are always short on resources and critical skills.

In this context, success relies on the effective orchestration of all involved parties throughout the business transformation lifecycle.

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How Business Architects orchestrate innovation, in 6 steps

Cisco Business Architects are the orchestrators. The tools that we have developed over many years (e.g. Digital Journey Dashboard, Business Innovation Sprints, SCIPAB, ITaaB LITE) empower us to build bridges and establish an open collaboration and clear communication between our customers, our rich partner ecosystem, our professional services (Customer eXperience, CX), as well as engaging the many parties within Cisco focused on customer innovation, including Cisco IT, Industry Solutions Group, Co-Innovation Centers, Customer eXperience (CX), Partner Organisation, etc.

Saturday 9 November 2019

Cisco’s Single Platform and Unified App Make a More Human Approach to Transforming your Workplace

Making the new way of working more human


When we delight employees, we increase engagement and productivity which has a direct effect on our customers.  According to MIT, when we invest in the employee experience, we see a 25% increase in profits and 2 times the customer satisfaction. But employees are demanding new tools to keep up with fast-paced environments and flexible workstyles. Transforming the way employees work can be a tough dilemma; many organizations end up with a stitched together collaboration solution that provides disjointed and dis-engaging experiences for employees.

The Webex unified platform for the modern workplace


Enter Cisco’s Single Unified Platform that provides employees with all the collaboration tools they need with just one, modern, unified application. One single platform that enables innovation at speed and consistency of experience. One modern, unified application for calling, messaging and meeting, and with intelligence and context that makes collaboration more human, friction-free and engaging.

I’m excited to be introducing new capabilities enabled by the unified platform and accelerating workplace transformation:

Think: A single app experience is the hero in any engagement


What is the typical employee experience today? Multiple apps and legacy UX design makes for a disjointed experience and reduces productivity. That’s why we introduced the Webex Teams Unified App, bringing together calling, ​meetings​, messaging, and video device control. Each of these experiences was available at-scale as separate apps, and are now integrated into a single multipurpose app.

Webex Teams took a major step towards unification when we integrated calling registered to UCM (Cisco Unified Call Manager) and Webex Calling. App users can make and receive phone calls with a range of features from basic to a full set. Webex Teams also has device control, enabling users to wirelessly connect to Cisco collaboration room devices, control the device, and share their screen.

Now we continue to enhance the game-changing single app experience by providing the same rich meetings experience as in Webex Meetings. Available on an opt-in basis, the meetings experience in Webex Teams now includes host controls and layout options, for example roster management, the ability to host 200 participants, and to see 25 participants at one time.

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In addition, we have introduced modularity to the app, aligning with the workstyle needs of users — configurable by IT and managed from Cisco Control Hub. Modules include messaging, calling, meetings, and device control. One, two, three or all four of these modes can be enabled within the unified app.

And IT or a partner can further personalize or customize the app by adding a logo and changing the color palette for a fully immersive brand experience.

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Think: Calling is fundamental to business
Enter Cisco Webex Edge for Calling. This new solution allows CUCM and Avaya and third-party PBXs to connect to Webex Calling allowing transparent site-to-site dial plans and global least cost routing, saving on PSTN and networking expenses. New cloud services and traditional telephone services like auto-attendant and voice mail can be centralized, reducing capital investments and significantly simplifying management with Webex Control Hub.

Also, today enterprises can now choose bundled PSTN purchased directly from Service Providers or BYOC (bring your own carrier) with a local gateway allowing them to retain in-place contracts. And we’ve expanded our PSTN BYOC with direct Service Provider connection to the Webex Calling cloud. For customers that prefer the CUCM experience, there is a new Cisco UCM Cloud that supports all UCM devices and features but with all the advantages of a cloud solution.

Think: Intelligent devices for every workspace and workstyle


Leveraging devices in workplace transformation goes beyond simply placing them into conference rooms and hoping that they’ll be used. It’s about connecting devices in different spaces, supporting different workstyles, and enabling smarter meetings.

With the help of our customers, we’ve reimagined video experiences from large to small, and introduced headsets that enable productivity without background disruption:

1. Cisco Headset 730: Built with smart sensor controls and AI voice technology, this headset can be personalized through our intelligent mobile app.

2. Webex Desk Pro: The ultimate desk-based collaboration device creating an instant office with the most advanced capabilities of Webex on an interactive, touch redirect 4K display.

3. Webex Room Panorama: With a smaller footprint and adaptable design, the next generation immersive video solution cuts the executive boardroom in half and adds 5,000 miles with rich cognitive capabilities.

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We’re introducing a Hardware as a Service (HaaS) offering. Cisco offers industry leading collaboration tools with a more affordable payment plan and a better user experience with an end-to-end solution and advanced features from the Webex platform. We’re bringing to the marketplace Hardware as a Service to make it easier to refresh to the latest phones, desktop devices and room devices – on-premises or in the cloud. With HaaS, customers can get a phone for $5/month or a Webex room kit mini for $75/month. This provides customers the opportunity to refresh and keep up with innovation every 3 years.

Finally, we’re also announcing today, our new Webex Edge for Devices, bringing cloud experiences to on-premises registered devices. In keeping with our “cloud first, not cloud only” commitment, our single platform provides an option for more scalable management and analytics for on-premises video room devices. This allows the enterprise to keep media local and connect to the Webex cloud to extend more cloud services and innovations.

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Think: Frictionless collaboration in multivendor environments


Recently Cisco and Microsoft announced a partnership that enables Cisco’s Webex video devices to connect to the Microsoft Teams meeting services in multiple ways. Customers will benefit from a reliable interop solution using their existing Cisco video conferencing devices to seamlessly join a Microsoft Teams meeting, or using Cisco Webex Meetings to join a Microsoft Teams Room. The solutions are expected to GA in early 2020.

Webex is the connective tissue throughout your workday


Finally, here is a way to think about the Webex single platform and one unified app. This is not stitching apps together — we are natively integrating them onto a single platform. This creates connective tissue across meetings, messaging, calling, and devices, and the business processes that employees use throughout their day. Employees receive rich seamless collaboration that delights and engages.

Thursday 7 November 2019

Cisco introduces new Catalyst 1000 Series of Switches

Catalyst Quality for Small Deployments


When your business is growing, you need your network to enable that growth, not stand in the way of it. So, it’s important to have a network that you know you can rely on. This is why we designed the Cisco Catalyst 1000 Series switches – providing flexibility, simplicity, and security for deployments of up to 250 users.

Flexible, so you can allocate resources intelligently


Small businesses are known for agility, so your network requirements may change over time. The great news is, the Catalyst 1000 switches fit a host of use cases, whether you’re adding connectivity for an increase in staff or bringing online a host of Internet of Things (IoT) devices.

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For example, Catalyst 1000 provides both flexibility and redundancy to your network with horizontal stacking. This is helpful in the age of pay as you go, which allows stacking over Small Form Factor (SFP) and Enhanced SFP (SFP+) front-panel ports. This way, you can keep adding switches to the network as needed. Up to eight switches can be part of a single stack, all functioning as a single switch with unified management/control plane and distributed control plane.

The compact, fanless design of the Cisco Catalyst 1000 Series means it does not need to be placed in a wiring closet, but instead can sit in an open-plan office, day spa, or classroom without disturbing the environment.

The series also offers a greater PoE budget, which means you can run more devices per port. Plus, Perpetual PoE ensures that the connected devices retain power in the event of a switch reboot.

Simple, so you can do more, easier and faster


Not all businesses have the luxury of experienced, dedicated IT professionals to keep their networks running. Even if they do, it’s likely that each IT person has to wear multiple hats. For this reason, we have built in several features that help save on network management time.

One of these features is an on-box intuitive WebUI, called Cisco Configuration Professional (CCP). CCP provides you with a wizard for day-0 setup, day-N provisioning, image upgrades, troubleshooting, diagnostics, system monitoring, and a client view.

Smart Managed models in the series are only managed through the WebUI, while the fixed managed switches offer complete access to the command-line interface (CLI) for those network administrators who prefer greater control over their management.

Other time-saving features include the ability to connect via a Bluetooth dongle, and automatic switch recovery. You can access the user interface through Bluetooth connectivity by pairing the switch to a computer – helpful when the switch is tucked away somewhere hard to reach. With automatic switch recovery, you can configure automatic recovery on the switch to recover from the error-disabled state after the specified period of time.

To demonstrate how easy it is to use, we asked a customer why they recommend the Cisco Catalyst 1000 Series switches over any other competitor’s switches or even pro/consumer options.

“Adding users, access points, and changing port types and VLAN settings can all be accomplished in minutes. The user interface is designed for people with minimal technical knowledge – and the device pretty much configures itself.”

—John House, Senior IT Network Administrator for Transpo Systems

Secure and reliable, so you can grow with confidence


Even smaller networks must serve multiple functions, and the Cisco Catalyst 1000 Series switches make it easy to meet competing demands with expanded support for VLANs. Larger-scale access control tables enable network administrators to segment traffic for greater security and control. The series runs classic Cisco IOS, one of the most hardened networking operating systems ever released. Advanced security features like 802.1x authentication and IPv6 First Hop Security provide additional protection.

When a business is running in high gear, you need to be confident that your networking gear is going to keep running as well. Reliability has been built into the Catalyst 1000 series. When the only space you have to place the switch is in an unventilated closet, the extended operating temperature range is a boon. And with Perpetual PoE, your endpoints will continue to have power even if the switch must be rebooted.

Upgrade from the Catalyst 2960-L switch series


The Cisco Catalyst 1000 Series is the upgrade for the Catalyst 2960-L series. Compared to the C2960-L, the C1000 series has improved hardware reliability, more advanced software options, and provides expanded support for VLANs.

All in all, the Catalyst 1000 series offers cost-effective connectivity that is ideal for a variety of network needs:

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◈ Branch offices with conventionally wired workspaces with PC, IP phones, Wireless Access Points, Cash Registers and printers, etc.

◈ Building infrastructure networks to connect physical security, sensors and control systems; and any application requiring Gigabit Ethernet connectivity and a low total cost of ownership.

The Catalyst 1000 series switches are also backed by our enhanced limited lifetime hardware warranty. This provides next-business-day delivery of replacement hardware where available and 90 days of 8×5 Cisco Technical Assistance Center.

Flexible, simple and secure, the Cisco Catalyst 1000 Series switches deliver enterprise-grade quality sized for small deployments.

Wednesday 6 November 2019

Get Quality Preparation with Cisco 210-451: CCNA Cloud (CLDFND) Sample Question


Tuesday 5 November 2019

The Awesome Power of Webex Collaboration Combinations

Universal Combinations Guaranteed to Make Your Day Great


What is the best part of your morning? We used to hear commercials like Folgers coffee say, “It’s Folgers in your cup”.  I think they were on to something big because millions of people around the world have a love affair with coffee and start their day off with coffee and their favorite pairing, from doughnuts, warm baked breads, muffins, scones, croissants and more, people love a great combo. I myself love an extra hot chai tea latte, and a vanilla Tahini bar.

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Essential Workplace Combinations to Help You Thrive


At Cisco Webex we believe our collaboration technology paired with your device of choice, brings you many essential combinations to thrive in your professional daily lives. Here are my favorite Webex combinations, that enable me to have a productive workday, every day:

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#1 Productive Start

As I start my morning, it is important for me to review my plan for the day and that starts with me checking my Webex Teams application on my mobile device for messages from my team, look to see if I’ve missed any urgent calls and to review meetings upcoming for the day and respond as appropriate. As a corporate executive and global leader, the combination I use most often and essential to my daily routine is with my mobile device and Webex Teams application. I have meetings at varied times of the day, including my commute to and from work, and need to collaborate and connect with my team, anytime anywhere. I love that Webex enhances my daily work routine, simply, and with the velocity I need on the go.

#2 Intuitive Experiences

My second favorite combination might surprise you, it’s not the obvious like chocolate covered strawberries and champagne, which admittedly I do love too, but it’s the intuitive experiences, ease of use and the power of the outcomes my team and I achieve during the day, enabled by AI in Webex Meetings and our Devices. Here are a few magical examples that happen effortlessly when we join AI to our Webex Meetings and Devices.

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#3 Join Meetings Seamlessly

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When I arrive into the office daily, I’m usually finishing up a call from my mobile office; I walk into my physical office and my Webex Teams Board device, comes alive and has “Hello Aruna” pop up on screen. The invisible proximity pairing technology from my mobile device to my Webex Teams enabled devices, allow my profile to connect, so I can use, my device of choice for the next meeting, whether it’s a one-to-one, with my team or one-to-many, I love the convenience and simplicity of Webex connecting me to others and just working.

#4 Knowing What Matters Most is Now Enabled by AI

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Being an executive my meetings are typically back to back and depending on the nature of the call or who I’m meeting with, I love the prompt by my Webex Assistant on my Webex Teams board that says “Hello Aruna, you have a call in five minutes, would you like to join?”, I simply answer “Yes.” and boom I’m in the meeting.

Even more surreal in the meeting is Facial Recognition, I can now see the name tags underneath the faces of the people I’m meeting with. How many times do we join a meeting and think, “Hmm who is that person in the blue shirt?”. Now with virtual tags, I know who is in the meeting and can address them by name when we converse.

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#5 People Insights, the X-Factor in Webex Meetings

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Another AI feature within Webex Teams I love is People Insights which adds an X-Factor to my meetings. Now before, during, or after a meeting, I can go one step further and hover over a name of a person and view a detailed profile with public information, such as their name, title, education, company and more will pop up, to help me connect on a more human and personalized level.

#6 AI Improving the Meetings Experience Through Voice Transcription

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My final favorite AI combination is with Webex Meetings and Voice Transcription. During my meetings, my team and I rarely have time to take fast and furious notes to capture all that is going on, take action items and jot down key insights, but meetings just got better because Webex AI now has voice transcription! As a video meeting is taking place, we have a virtual assistant not only transcribing in real time, but can also transcribe in other languages, can take action items and can share out the meeting notes promptly after the call. I hope you are just as excited as we are for this added innovation.

The Awesome Power of Combinations


The way Webex + my mobile device, + offices devices, or + my life, just works, is an incredibly and invaluable collaboration tool, that helps me optimize my day in a magical way, like Rainbows and Unicorns.

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When you think of the power of technology combined with the daily rhythm of our lives, we experience so much value no matter where we are in the world. To our British friends the magical relation might be Rugby and a Pint…

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…or Tea and Scones.

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To our Aussie friends the magical relation may be Meat Pie and Sauce…

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…or Board Shorts and Thongs.

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More than Design Thinking


These combinations bring a smile to our face, put a joy in our heart, and bring us so much happiness… There is an awesome and unexplainable thing that takes place when two or more people gather with their talents to create and ideate, where thoughts flow and dreams are realized; that’s the power of collaboration and we believe the best collaborations happen on Webex.

Our Brand Campaign The best collaborations happen on Webex


We are very excited to bring to market our new brand campaign, which will be launched in three geographies: US, UK and Australia. Just like coffee and doughnuts makes our mornings and how champagne and strawberries make our twilight hour… Webex, enables the best collaborations to happen when people come together, anywhere, anytime, on any device around the world.

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Cisco Tutorial and Material, Cisco Guides, Cisco Learning, Cisco Study Materials, Cisco Online Exam
Cisco Tutorial and Material, Cisco Guides, Cisco Learning, Cisco Study Materials, Cisco Online Exam

Cisco Tutorial and Material, Cisco Guides, Cisco Learning, Cisco Study Materials, Cisco Online Exam
Cisco Tutorial and Material, Cisco Guides, Cisco Learning, Cisco Study Materials, Cisco Online Exam