The IT Nerd

In light of COVID-19, businesses have turned to digital like never before with IT performance facing its toughest challenge to date. Today, AppDynamics, a Cisco company and the world’s largest and fastest growing APM vendor, released a special edition of its global research study, The Agents of Transformation Report, which reveals the pressures technology professionals are experiencing. 

The comprehensive study surveyed 1000 IT professionals across 10 countries. 

AppDynamics’ global survey of IT professionals found: 

• 81 per cent of Canadian technologists state that COVID-19 has created the biggest technology pressure for their organization they have ever experienced.  
• 64 per cent of Canadian technologists confirm that the pandemic has exposed weaknesses in their digital strategies, creating an urgent need to push through initiatives that were once part of multi-year digital transformation programs.  
• 69 per cent of IT professionals in Canada say digital transformation projects in their organization have been implemented within weeks rather than the months or years it would have taken before the pandemic. 
• 94 per cent of organizations changed their technology priorities during the pandemic. 

The report is very interesting and is worth your time to read today. Especially if you’re an IT professional.

Today, Cisco released its Annual Internet Report. The report forecasts the growth of users, devices and connections as well as network performance and key trends over a five-year period (2018 – 2023).

In Canada, the report forecasts that:

• Users are on the Rise: There will be 35.3 million total Internet users (91% of population) by 2023, up from 33.2 million (90% of population) in 2018.
• Faster broadband speeds: The average fixed broadband speed will grow from 48.2 Mbps in 2018 to 136.4 Mbps in 2023.
• A More Connected Everything: By 2023, there will be 423.1 million networked devices in Canada, up from 245.6 million in 2018.
• 5G Takes Hold: There will be 8.5 million total 5G connections in Canada by 2023 and will be 8.9% of total mobile connections by 2023.

The press release that is related to this report can be found here and the report’s interactive highlight tool can be found here.

Cisco Live 2020 Barcelona opens today, and runs through January 31, at Fira de Barcelona in Spain, bringing together nearly 20,000 customers, partners, IT professionals and visionaries. The event is designed to help customers realize the full realm of opportunities open to them, and give them the cutting-edge knowledge, skills, and technologies to make it happen.

Throughout the week, innovations across Cisco’s cybersecurity, networking and collaboration portfolios, as well as within its DevNet program will be unveiled – all designed to help businesses scale, stay secure, and drive digitization. Keynote presentations from Cisco’s President of Europe, Middle East, Africa and Russia (EMEAR) region, Wendy Mars, and the Executive Vice President and General Manager of Cisco’s Networking and Security Business, David Goeckeler, as well as other Cisco business leaders, will showcase the company’s strategy to help partners and customers seize new business opportunities in the era of digital transformation.

News highlights include:

• Accelerating Applications in a Hybrid Multicloud World : Cisco’s new multi-domain architecture offering brings together AppDynamics and Cisco Intersight Workload Optimizer to deliver full visibility within the application, network and data center, both on-prem and in the cloud. Cisco HyperFlex Application Platform delivers an integrated container-as-a-service platform that simplifies provisioning and ongoing operations for Kubernetes across cloud, data center, and edge.
• Comprehensive Security Architecture for Industrial IoT : Organizations need complete visibility into the most disparate of network environments in order to secure their industrial edge, lower the risk of cyber threats, and optimize industrial processes. Cisco’s new IoT security architecture provides enhanced visibility across both IT and OT environments, protecting industrial processes and enabling the collection and extraction of data from the IoT edge so organizations can increase efficiencies to make better business decisions and accelerate digitization projects.
• Revolutionizing Customer and Agent Experiences with New Contact Center Enhancements : The world’s best brands earn customer loyalty over years, even decades – only to lose it in a few seconds if the customer experience is not stellar. While customer needs and expectations have changed, the ways in which companies respond have not kept pace. Today, Cisco announced three developments that fundamentally transform the customer experience with contact centers, for the better: an AI infusion, a new customer experience solution, and a new cloud contact center product.
• Better and More Engaged Meetings Through AI Innovations : New AI-powered voice intelligence capabilities to Webex Meetings turns talk into action, turning Webex meetings into a digital treasure trove. Additionally, Cisco continues its commitment to security and data privacy by enabling customers with the ability to choose whether their Webex Teams data will be stored in Europe or the United States. The company also announced the new Cisco Webex Room USB, an entry-level video device offering smaller organizations collaboration without compromise.

Conference highlights include:

• Cisco Corporate Social Responsibility: Cisco will outline its social impact agenda, supporting the company’s commitment to accelerate global problem solving through technology and expertise. Cisco is proud to partner with o3e to improve access to education, medical and other essential services for refugees and the homeless. At “Build a Bike” located in The Park area, volunteers can help build 50 bikes which will be donated to homeless and refugee programs in Barcelona. The initiative aligns with Cisco Corporate Social Responsibility priorities and the goal to positively impact 1 billion people by 2025.
• DevNet Zone : Attendees will get hands-on experience with APIs, develop coding skills in the coding lab, and learn more about Cisco’s new DevNet certifications (launching February 2020). DevNet is Cisco’s software developer resource community aimed at helping developers and network engineers innovate using Cisco technologies and platforms.
• World of Solutions and Cisco Showcase : Attendees are invited to explore the latest innovations from Cisco and its ecosystem partners in this experiential space where over 130 exhibitors will be demonstrating their products and solutions.
• Innovation Talks : Cisco executives will discuss the latest innovations in solutions and services and great best practices.
• Walk-in Labs : Designed to provide a one-of-a-kind, hands-on experience on a variety of Cisco products and solutions, attendees can work on pre-designed scenarios, explore features, and access training.
• Cisco Customer Experience (CX) : Attendees can experience the “Digital Heartbeat” of Cisco Live, Cisco CX, to learn about Cisco’s lifecycle approach to performing and transforming toward better business outcomes.
• Technical Solutions Clinics : Experts from the Cisco CX Global Center will be on-hand to troubleshoot any implementation, application, and integration issues.
• Network Operations Center (NOC) : Visit the NOC, in partnership with NetApp, to speak with engineers and solutions experts to discuss how Cisco rapidly builds and centrally manages a secure Cisco Enterprise Network.
• Capture the Flag: Learn new technologies and get hands-on experience by playing the “Capture the Flag” game, designed to solve demanding challenges. Try your hand at ethical hacking of networks and systems, design and investigate the Software Defined Campus and WAN networks and enhance cloud skills learning and exploring Cisco’s Meraki platform.
• Cisco Investments Village : Meet eight of the most prominent start-ups in the industry and learn about their unique technology solutions and how they are changing the realm of what’s possible.

There is a Live stream that is available for a front row seat at Cisco Live 2020, Barcelona

Today, Cisco released its 2019 Global Digital Readiness Index, measuring the digital readiness of 141 countries across seven areas, including business & government investment, technology adoption and technology infrastructure.

So how does Canada stack up? Canada ranked second in the world for Technology Adoption, coming behind only the U.S., but is falling behind in Ease of Doing Business (18^th), tech infrastructure (18^th), Business & Government Investment (20^th) and Startup Environment (26^th).

The strongest components of digital readiness include: “Basic Needs,” “Human Capital,” and “Technology Infrastructure.” In general, improvements in these three components will have the most impact overall on a country’s level of digital readiness.

You can find a whitepaper detailing the index here and the interactive map here.

Cisco has unveiled further details behind its technology strategy for building a new internet — one designed to push digital innovation beyond the performance, economic and power consumption limitations of current infrastructure. A multi-year approach that is defining the Internet for decades to come, Cisco’s strategy is already delivering technology breakthroughs to pave the way for the world’s developers to create applications and services they have only begun to imagine.

Cisco introduced its latest innovation including Cisco Silicon One^TM, the industry’s only networking silicon architecture of its kind; released the new Cisco 8000 Series, the world’s most powerful carrier class routers built on the new silicon; and announced new purchasing options that enable customers to consume the company’s technology through disaggregated business models.

Building Blocks for the Internet for the Future

Over the next decade, digital experiences will be created with advanced technologies — virtual and augmented reality, 16K streaming, AI, 5G, 10G, quantum computing, adaptive and predictive cybersecurity, intelligent IOT, and others not yet invented. These future generations of applications will drive complexity beyond the capabilities current internet infrastructure can viably support.

For the past five years, Cisco has driven a technology strategy that is building the internet our customers will need for the future success of their business in an advanced digital world. Aimed at solving the toughest problems that will emerge as digital transformation taxes current infrastructure to its breaking point, this strategy will lead to the next-generation of internet infrastructure that combines Cisco’s new silicon architecture with its next-generation of optics. Cisco’s strategy will change the economics behind how the internet will be built to support the demands of future, digital applications and will enable customers to operate their businesses with simpler, more cost-effective networks.

Cisco’s strategy is based on development and investments in three key technology areas: silicon, optics and software.

Introducing Cisco Silicon One – Breakthrough Unified, Programmable Silicon Architecture

The new Cisco Silicon One will be the foundation of Cisco’s routing portfolio going forward, with expected near-term performance availability up to 25 Terabits per second (Tbps). This is the industry’s first networking chip designed to be universally adaptable across service provider and web-scale markets. Designed for both fixed and modular platforms, it can manage the most challenging requirements in a way that’s never been done before. The first Cisco Silicon One ‘Q100’ model surpasses the 10 Tbps routing milestone for network bandwidth without sacrificing programmability, buffering, power efficiency, scale or feature flexibility.

Traditionally, multiple types of silicon with different capabilities are used across a network and even within a single device. Developing new features and testing can be lengthy and expensive. Unified and programmable silicon will allow for network operators to greatly reduce costs of operations and reduce time-to-value for new services.

Introducing: Cisco 8000 Series Platform Powered by Cisco Silicon One– Industry Leading Performance

The new Cisco 8000 series is the first platform built with Cisco Silicon One Q100. It is engineered to help service providers and web-scale companies reduce the costs of building and operating mass-scale networks for the 5G, AI and IOT era. Standout features include:

• Optimized for 400 Gbps and beyond, starting at 10.8 Tbps in just a single rack unit
• Powered by the new, cloud-enhanced Cisco IOS XR7 networking operating system software, designed to simplify operations and lower operational costs
• Offers enhanced cybersecurity with integrated trust technology for real-time insights into the trustworthiness of your critical infrastructure
• Service providers gain more bandwidth scale and programmability to deliver Tbps in even the most power and space constrained network locations

Global Customer Deployments and Trials

Cisco is working with a group of pioneering customers on deployments and trials of the Cisco 8000 Series. STC, the leading telecom services provider in the Middle East, Northern Africa region, marks the first customer deploying the new technology. Ongoing trials include Comcast and NTT Communications among others.

Optics for 400G and Beyond

Building a new internet that can support future digital innovation will depend on continued breakthroughs in silicon and optics technologies. Cisco is unique in the industry with advanced intellectual property in both areas.

As port rates increase from 100G to 400G and beyond, optics become an increasingly larger portion of the cost to build and operate internet infrastructure. Cisco is investing organically to assure our customers that as router and switch port rates continue to increase, optics will be designed to meet the industry’s stringent reliability and quality standards.

Through the company’s qualification program, Cisco will test its optics to comply with industry standards and operate in Cisco – and non-Cisco hosts. With this program, customers can utilize Cisco optics in applications where non-Cisco hosts have been deployed and have confidence that the optics will meet the reliability and quality standards that they have come to expect from Cisco.

In addition, as silicon and silicon photonics advance, functions that were traditionally delivered in separate chassis-based solutions will soon be available in pluggable form factors. This transition has significant potential benefits for network operators in terms of operational simplicity. Cisco is investing in silicon photonics technologies to effect architectural transitions in datacenter networks and service provider networks that will drive down cost, reduce power and space, and simplify network operations.

Changing the Economics of the Internet with Flexible Business Models

Cisco also announced plans to offer flexible consumption models first established with Cisco’s Optics portfolio, followed by the disaggregation of the Cisco IOS XR7 software, and now including Cisco Silicon One. This new model is highly adaptable and offers customers choice of components, white box, or integrated systems to build their networks. This approach matches the evolving nature of operators selecting discrete or aggregated technology elements for their buildout and creates new economics of the Internet to provide significant business value.

View the event live broadcast here: https://www.ciscofeedback.vovici.com/se/6A5348A77925123A

A new report released today from Cisco finds that Canada ranks 11th of 13 countries when it comes to strategically implementing projects that would support digital transformation, with only 40% of Canadian IT leaders reporting their organizations have done so.

The findings are part of Cisco’s first-ever 2020 Global Networking Trends Report, which explores how advanced networking technologies are dramatically changing networking models and operations. The report also aims to help IT leaders understand their network’s critical multi-domain role facilitating new and emerging IT and business trends.

Additional findings from the report include:

• 23% of Canadian IT leaders and network strategists reported their network architectures are at the minimum maturity level, compared to only 8% on average.
• Canadian IT leaders believe that ‘lack of budget or resources’ and being ‘too busy maintaining current network’ are the biggest obstacles slowing down their organization’s transition to an advanced network.
• To achieve their ‘ideal’ vision of the network, 47% of network strategists report that investing in new network infrastructure equipment would help the most.

The full report can be found here.

By Lisa Richardson

Wireless advancements have enabled businesses and consumers to become increasingly connected and by 2022, it’s forecasted more than half of global IP traffic will be Wi-Fi. This poses a unique challenge for IT professionals as they strive to adapt to the unprecedented complexity of IT environments and the connecting of billions of devices.

This is especially pronounced in device-dense school environments. It’s what puzzled Jaymon Lefebvre, Director of IT Services at Alberta’s Wild Rose School Division (WRSD), as he sought a solution to expand the Division’s network, futureproof the environment, and empower students and teachers to experiment with new technologies in the classroom.

Evolving role of technology

Students are no longer passively using the internet at school. They’re viewing videos, making recordings, using VR headsets, creating with Raspberry Pis, and engaging with new applications to help them learn, using anywhere from two to three devices a day.

Additionally, the remote nature of WRSD means many students don’t have access to the internet at home – relying on the school network to download content for offline use, update their devices, and play games.

This additional bandwidth consumption can easily overpower the network if the right infrastructure isn’t in place. With an anticipated 30 per cent increase in IoT devices over the next few years, Lefebvre worked with Cisco as part of a global pilot to start deploying Wi-Fi 6, the new standard for Wi-Fi networks, compatible APs to prepare for this growth of student and IoT devices.

Bringing IT to the cloud

Wi-Fi 6 (also known as 802.11ax) will enable the IT team to support current technologies used by students and staff, while also making classrooms compatible with future technologies. Wi-Fi 6 provides a consistent, dependable network connection for a seamless experience, and also increases capacity – transmitting more data to more clients than previous Wi-Fi standards.

Lefebvre also deployed multigigabit Meraki aggregation switches to backhaul the high-bandwidth traffic coming from the Wi-Fi 6 APs, developing a robust network backbone that’s crucial in supporting situations where higher throughput and density are required.

Most important for WRSD’s IT team was the newfound ability to easily manage the network across distributed sites (key for the rural school division) through the cloud-managed Cisco Meraki dashboard, configuring and managing the network from anywhere through a web browser. This dramatically simplified day-to-day network maintenance and troubleshooting, reducing travel time and resolving issues across the network more quickly.

WRSD plans to install more than 380 Meraki MR access points (APs), 70 MS switches, and 200 MV smart cameras throughout the 20,000 square kilometer school division over the next few years, consolidating the number of systems IT needs to manage into one and letting the team focus on what’s most important: delivering services for students.

Networks are doing much more than serving business applications at WRSD, they’re providing a connected community for its students and staff. With Wi-Fi 6 and the growth of new classroom technologies, Lefebvre and his team have started building the classrooms of the future, today.

Lisa Richardson is the Vice President of Solutions Sales at Cisco Canada.

Today, Cisco was proud to recognize Windsor-based St. Clair College as the company’s number one Cisco Networking Academy partner in all North America, with 1,680 students enrolled in 2018 alone. The College’s computer networking program also continues to have one of the highest rates of female enrolment of Cisco-certified programs in Canada. President of Cisco Canada, Rola Dagher, visited the College’s students and faculty to mark the occasion and congratulate the school’s team on its ongoing success in supporting growth and diversity of the local and national tech sectors.

Cisco’s Networking Academy is a global program that helps deliver technology education, empowering students to change people’s lives, elevate their careers, and transform communities. First launched in Canada in 1998, the program has been helping to foster the technical and entrepreneurial skills that people, educators, and companies need to change the world for the better. In 2018 alone, 26,885 students were enrolled at 215 academies across the Canada.

The College’s commitment to support women pursuing careers in the science, technology, engineering, and math fields continues to put the school on the map. With the help of the Cisco network academy, St. Clair College has become a leader in North America in educating IT professionals.

For more information, please visit the St. Clair College website at www.stclaircollege.ca

Starting over 20 years ago at just a single school, Cisco Networking Academy has quickly grown to become an ever-expanding community of students, educators, employers, NGOs, Cisco employees, and customers. Now operating in 180 countries, the Academy has helped educate 7.8 million students worldwide and created a pipeline of technical talent ready to innovate and shape the future. Since its inception in Canada, over 200,000 students have completed the program, and Cisco has delivered $116 million CAD worth of in-kind support to partners through the program: https://www.netacad.com/web/ca-en/