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Volume 2, Issue 1

In thIs Issue • Supporting business transformation • Turning on “dark assets”

Insight, guidance, and resources for maximizing the business value of It

Services Perspectives

Ready for anythingnatural disasters, peak demand, meteoric business growth: Mark Cressey of Liberty Mutual Insurance is prepared for all of it. Page 3

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Volume 2, Issue 1

Pulling more value out of existing assets

Welcome to the second edition of Cisco’s Services Perspectives magazine, which is all about pulling more business value out of existing systems, processes, and assets.

Creating a better product or service, reaching new markets and customers, and acquiring new assets are the traditional methods of pushing a business forward. But truth be told, business value doesn’t have to be built, sold, or purchased.

Sometimes it can be found.

The companies and strategies highlighted in the following pages showcase what can be accomplished when the resources on hand are optimized or utilized in new ways. Liberty Mutual Insurance, for example, has fine-tuned its network infrastructure to deliver new customer services and support meteoric growth (page 3). Alestra, one of Mexico’s leading information and communications technology providers, is tapping its technology resources and partners to reinvent its business and transform its service offerings (page 6). Some companies are finding a wealth of business value by connecting people and machines in novel ways (page 8). And others are using their collaboration solutions as a new source of business intelligence (page 12).

How do organizations realize this hidden potential? By working with industry experts who know where to look, what to tap, and how to maximize the value contained within existing systems, processes, and resources.

We look forward to being that expert for your organization.

Sincerely,

Marcy Blair VP, Enterprise Services Sales Cisco Systems, Inc.

To find out how Cisco Services can help your organization, contact [email protected] or visit: www.ServicesPerspectives.com.

Services Perspectives is published by Cisco Systems, Inc. To receive future editions of Services Perspectives and provide feedback on the articles in this edition, visit: www.ServicesPerspectives.com

©2014 Cisco and/or its affiliates. All rights reserved. Cisco, the Cisco logo, Cisco Domain Ten, and Cisco Unified Computing System are trademarks or registered trademarks of Cisco and/or its affiliates in the U.S. and other countries. To view a list of Cisco trademarks, visit: www.cisco.com/go/trademarks. Third party trademarks mentioned are the property of their respective owners. The use of the word partner does not imply a partnership relationship between Cisco and any other company. (1402)

Experiences

03 Helping customers in times of crisisLiberty Mutual has optimized its technology infrastructure to support business growth and peak demand.

06 When change is the only constantHow a prominent Mexican company has made the transition from telecommunications to data services.

Approaches

08 Maximizing the value of connectionsBy turning on “dark assets,” organizations can capture their share of the $14.4 trillion in IoE value.

10 Supporting the application economyTransforming IT operating models to enable application-centric business opportunities.

12 Collaboration traffic: The new BI toolMeasuring collaboration usage and patterns for business insights and informed adjustments.

14 The case for infrastructure modernization Making the move to a modern x86 platform can create a wealth of new business possibilities.

15 New fingers for the pulse of a network infrastructureSoftware-based services help IT organizations continually monitor the vital signs of a vital business engine.

Insight, guidance, and resources for

maximizing the business value of IT

Services Perspectives

Cover: Mark Cressey, Senior Vice President and General Manager of IT Hosting Services, Liberty Mutual Insurance

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insight, guidance, and resources for maximizing the business value of it 3

helping customers in times of crisis

SERVICES PERSPECTIVES

above From peak demand to international expansion, Liberty Mutual Insurance is well prepared

When hurricanes hit shore, when floodwaters rise, when tornados touch ground, and when wildfires rage, the pressure is on. In times of disaster, torrents of claims inundate insurance companies like Liberty Mutual.

“We can’t predict crises or control peak demand,” says Mark Cressey, Senior Vice President and General Manager of

IT Hosting Services at Liberty Mutual. “But we absolutely must be prepared for them. Our customers depend on us.”

Insurance is a highly regulated and competitive industry, he explains, and success is a matter of differentiation. For Liberty Mutual, the third largest property and casualty insurer in the U.S., important areas of differentiation

are easy access to services and fast response to customers in emergency situations.

“Our job is helping customers in their time of need,” says Cressey. “And our communications and technology infrastructure is central to this. There is no excuse for not being available during a crisis.”

With a standardized, optimized technology infrastructure, Liberty Mutual Insurance is growing its business and delivering superior customer service.

above Liberty Mutual’s IT infrastructure supports more than 500 offices in the U.S., and a growing number of locations overseas

Supporting meteoric growth

Recent natural disasters and substantial business growth have placed significant demands on Liberty Mutual’s technology infrastructure. The company has doubled in size over the past decade and continues to grow. Acquisitions have added to the scale and complexity of Liberty Mutual’s infrastructure.

“With more than 7,000 network endpoints across 500-plus locations in the U.S. alone, we had to address complexity,” Cressey says. “We needed a standardized technology foundation and a proactive approach for implementing new releases, bug fixes, and other network changes.

Not just to improve infrastructure resiliency, but to free us to focus on new customer services and international expansion.”

To address network complexity and support ongoing growth, Liberty Mutual turned to Cisco Services.

“Cisco has been a major system supplier for us for a while now, but they were mostly a silent partner because we weren’t actively working with them to tap their expertise,” says Cressey. “We wanted to bring them to the table, get their input, and take a more systematic approach to network management.”

Liberty Mutual signed up for three years of Cisco Network Optimization Services

and is also using Cisco Services to improve its data center, security, mobility, voice, and video systems as well as network access control.

With the help of these services, Liberty Mutual has been able to standardize and fine-tune the network upgrade and maintenance processes supporting its 500-plus U.S. offices, and consolidate the data centers supporting its rapidly expanding international operations.

Delivering new services

With a more uniform, optimized infrastructure in place, Liberty Mutual can pursue growth—both domestic and international—without compromising its ability to support

4 cisco services perspectives




left A high-volume business, CCBCC sells 14,700 cases of Coca-Cola products every hour, or four cases per second


customers in times of need. In fact, Cressey and his team can now focus on new capabilities to help drive customer loyalty and launch new customer services.

“In the past, we were focused on network administration and change management processes,” he says. “Today, we are spending more of our time on value-added activities.”

These include call center upgrades and new online capabilities like click-to-chat, all of which help advance Liberty Mutual’s primary goals of superior customer support and growth.

“Our environment and business requirements are constantly changing,” Cressey notes. “The

pressure is on us to keep the engine running smoothly and help facilitate change, and this pressure is only increasing. But we feel comfortable with Cisco in our corner, and the results have been clear.”

High-priority incidents were down 60 percent in 2013, due in part to help from Cisco’s optimization services, he says. Technology changes and implementations are faster, easier, and less risky. And Liberty Mutual has been delivering superior customer service and claims processing amidst a number of natural disasters.

“It’s not hard to see that a more proactive approach is working,” says Cressey. “From Hurricane Sandy

to Colorado wildfires to Oklahoma tornados, there have been several events over the past year that put our technology infrastructure to the test. The stability and performance of our systems speak for themselves, and I know I’m getting value from Cisco Services.”

above By standardizing and fine-tuning its systems, the insurance titan can pursue business growth without compromising its ability to support customers in times of need

For a Forrester Research study on the total economic impact of Cisco Network Optimization Services, visit the resource center at: www.ServicesPerspectives.com

Get the Forrester economic impact study


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Change is the only constant for Alestra. Founded as a long-distance telephony provider 17 years ago, the Mexican conglomerate has made the shift from consumer to enterprise markets during that span, and from telecommunications to networking and data services in recent years.

“Telecommunications is a very mature industry. To push our company forward, we must continue to evolve,” says Rogelio Ancira, CTO of Alestra. “Advanced IT services are still relatively new in Mexico. It’s an exciting time and opportunity for Alestra to continue innovating.”

If growth is any indication, the shift to enterprise IT services is working. The company has grown 14 percent annually over the past four years. Demand for Alestra’s IT services grew 70 percent in 2013. And company leaders have set an aggressive goal to increase this portion of the business by another 60 to 70 percent in 2014.

“Our challenge is keeping up with technology trends and market demands,” says Ancira. “We must reinvent ourselves to take advantage of the different cycles of the industry.”

A different animalThere are stark contrasts between telecommunications and IT service delivery, of course. Different infrastructures are required. Performance and support expectations—bonded by service-level agreements (SLAs)—are more difficult to satisfy with IT services. And the underlying platforms, business applications, and connecting devices continue to change.

“It’s not just connectivity anymore,” says Miguel Anderson, Director of Engineering and Connectivity at Alestra. “It’s all about managed services, data infrastructure, and business applications, with tight integration and security. Quality of service is essential, because it leads to trust and growth.”

As Alestra evolves its service offerings—bundling connectivity, infrastructure, and management—it looks to its technology partners for guidance and best practices.

Alestra, one of Mexico’s leading information and communications technology providers, continues to evolve and grow—one service at a time.


When change is the only constant


“After 17 years of business, change and transformation are hard,” Anderson says. “That’s why we need partners like Cisco.”

Change isn’t just hard, it’s also risky. With big, complex data networks supporting a host of client environments and services, one change can have ripple effects that negatively impact customers. Alestra is utilizing Cisco Smart Net Total Care Service for network hardware, software, and patch management. With Cisco supporting ongoing change, Alestra can consider new services and solutions.

“We want to customize our solutions for specific vertical industries and customers,” says Anderson. “But to create different flavors of different services, we need to handle all of the complexity in our environment. Cisco is enabling this. They are making the management of our network infrastructure simple for us so we can make our services simple for our customers.”

Anticipating customer needsEach year the goal is different, for both Alestra and its customers. There is no end point, just ongoing change.

“Our customers’ needs are evolving, and we must evolve to help and enable them,” explains Alejandro Irigoyen, Vice President of Network Operations and IT at Alestra. “We must stay in front of technology changes and anticipate customer needs and opportunities.”

To do so, Alestra is not only using Cisco Smart Net Total Care Service for network management, but also for business intelligence. By continually auditing the network, applying analytics, and extrapolating intelligence, Cisco is helping Alestra identify—and take advantage of—customer trends and sales opportunities.

“Cisco gives us advice and insight on how to align our infrastructure and service offerings with market trends,” Irigoyen says. “And we sometimes take Cisco with us when we visit customers to show them

what we can do together; show them the power behind our offerings.”

Quality of service is Alestra’s ultimate goal. It leads to customer trust and loyalty, which pave the way for greater market penetration, sales, and growth.

“We are a counselor for our customers, and Cisco is a counselor for us,” says Ancira. “They understand our business and our environment, they actively optimize our networks, and they help us plan for the future. All of this has a direct impact on the quality of our services and the success of our business.”


To learn more about Cisco smart services, access the Smart Talk webinar series or request a meeting with a Cisco Services expert at the resource center:www.ServicesPerspectives.com

View the webinars, request a meeting with Cisco

left page Alejandro Irigoyen has helped transform Alestra’s business

above (From left) Alestra’s Miguel Anderson, Alejandro Irigoyen, and Rogelio Ancira are working to anticipate and satisfy customer needs


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Over the next 10 years, private sector companies will rise and fall based on their ability—or inability—to capture value from the largest technology transition since the introduction of the Internet: the Internet of Everything (IoE).

According to recent economic analyses by Cisco, $14.4 trillion of value (net profit) is “up for grabs” over the next decade. And it is entirely driven by IoE, the networked connection of people, process, data, and things.

These are intriguing claims and enticing forecasts, to be sure. But discussions and possibilities surrounding “everything” are inherently broad. Many companies are seeking to understand the tangible opportunities presented by IoE—and how to quantify and pursue them.

“IoE is an expansive concept,” says Joseph Bradley, Managing Director of the IoE Practice for Cisco Consulting Services. “But in the simplest of terms, it’s about maximizing the value of connections.”

By connecting machines to machines, people to machines, and people to people in new ways, organizations can generate unrealized efficiencies, intelligence, and value. These connections can be used to improve asset utilization, employee productivity, supply chain and logistics, customer experiences, and innovation.

“The question isn’t, ‘Are you using IoE today?’” Bradley says. “More appropriate questions would be, ‘Are you fully connecting your supply chain?’ or ‘If you connected X, Y, or Z to your network, what benefits can be gained?’”

turning on “dark assets”In Bradley’s estimation, these trends and opportunities are the byproduct of a continually evolving Internet.

“IoE is all about connecting previously unconnected resources, also known as ‘dark assets,’” Bradley explains. “Then it’s a matter of collecting and

Maximizing the value of connections

how Cisco is helping companies capture their share of the $14.4 trillion in value created by the Internet of everything.





analyzing data, and sending actionable information to the right people or machines at the right place and time.”

Within every company and every industry, there are myriad dark assets that can be “turned on” to gain business insight and value.

In retail, for example, countless resources can be connected to the network, from shelves and shopping carts to video cameras and parking lots. Even consumers and their shopping lists can be connected using Wi-Fi-enabled mobile devices. Doing so creates business insights that help drive better customer experiences, operational efficiency, and new up-selling and cross-selling opportunities.

Machines, tools, and pallets can be connected in manufacturing environments to improve systems maintenance, minimize downtime, and increase production. Some manufacturers are even connecting employee clothing to gather intelligence that helps enhance workflows and improve safety.

In the energy industry, everything from power plants to transmission lines to meters can be connected to better understand and optimize

energy delivery, consumption, pricing, and billing. And the automotive insurance industry can connect vehicles, analyze the driving habits of their customers, and fine-tune insurance policies accordingly.

According to Bradley, IoE isn’t just about putting sensors on machines. It’s about creating information flows that weren’t previously possible. Individuals and teams can be considered dark assets in many cases, and connecting them can generate new forms of collaboration and new sources of business intelligence.

“By turning on dark assets, companies in all industries can become hyper aware and more agile,” says Bradley. “They become more aware of their assets, their operations, and their customers. And they can quickly identify and pursue opportunities for improvement, whether that’s cost reduction, new consumer experiences, more efficient processes, or revenue growth.”

Identifying and quantifying opportunities

To help companies identify possible connections and the value therein, Cisco Consulting Services has established a new IoE Practice. Engagements typically include a brainstorming session with

both business and IT executives to discuss organizational priorities and explore the entire realm of possibilities. Opportunities are then prioritized and a formal value assessment is conducted to quantify them.

“We start with the art of the possible and then distill it down to several tangible solutions,” says Bradley, “with a roadmap and anticipated business value for each one.”

By defining concrete steps that lead into the Internet of Everything—and aligning and connecting key assets internally and externally—the IoE Practice begins the process of transforming businesses in extraordinary ways.

“In an increasingly connected world, you can’t win if you don’t play,” Bradley says. “As technology accelerates the pace of determining the winners and losers, preparing for IoE is not a question of if, but of when.”

For a white paper on how to get the most value from the Internet of Everything, visit the resource center at: www.ServicesPerspectives.com

Get the white paper


http://www.servicesperspectives.com/go/?GSB1


“Applications have become the lifeblood of our economy,” Cisco CEO John Chambers recently wrote. “They are how business is done; how partners and suppliers interact; how employees connect; how consumers share, learn, and buy. Every business is becoming an applications business. Every industry is becoming an application-centric industry, and the business model shift is only accelerating. We all truly live in an application economy now.”

Truth be told, applications have been driving business for decades. But today, the volume, interconnectedness, and impact of applications are mushrooming. And what used to be carefully controlled by IT teams has been opened up to

business groups and individuals who can access countless applications, any time, from a growing number of devices.

While this introduces additional complexity and new risks for organizations to consider and manage, it also creates tremendous opportunity. From employee productivity and operational efficiency to new customer experiences and competitive differentiation, modern applications are helping strengthen and expand the foundations of business success.

One thing is clear. As the application economy swells, businesses in all industries need new models for supporting and riding the wave. Or it will inevitably cascade on top of them.

A historic announcementCisco recently introduced a number of Application Centric Infrastructure (ACI) offerings that help enable this transition. The offerings give every administrator—whether they are focused on networking, security, storage, platforms, or network services—the same view and the same single point of management for the entire IT infrastructure. This includes both physical and virtual networks, all built around the needs of applications.

“On the surface, this seems like a technology announcement focused on network virtualization,” says Scott Clark, Vice President of the Data Center and Cloud Practice for


supporting the application economyAs IT teams make the transition from reactive systems maintenance to proactive application and service delivery, help is available.


Cisco Services. “But it’s really about transforming IT operating models.”

The complexity and inflexibility of IT is slowing business down, he explains. IT professionals work in separate, inefficient silos because current technology doesn’t support a shared architectural model, and there is no way to gain a single view of all the technology components that impact application performance. As a result, the IT components are difficult to configure, complex to troubleshoot, and cumbersome to adjust. That has to change. Complexity must give way to speed and agility.

“In addition to making networks more application-aware, we are unifying, simplifying, and automating infrastructure management,” Clark explains, “which gives more time, attention, and resources to application delivery and support.”

“ACI is a silo buster,” Chambers wrote. “I believe [it] represents the most disruptive architectural innovation in IT that I’ve seen in more than a decade.”

Making the transition

Transitioning from systems administration to application-centric business enablement is no small feat. Change is difficult, especially when entrenched behaviors and longstanding operating models are at stake.

Fortunately, assistance is available. Cisco offers a variety of data center and virtualization services that help IT organizations support the new application economy. Cisco Services can analyze all operational aspects of an organization’s data center networks and prepare detailed migration plans for the transition to ACI. These services not only consider technologies, but the people and processes that utilize them.

“ACI transcends technology products and administrative silos,” says Clark. “We add the greatest impact and value at a macro level, helping transform IT operating models, establish policy changes, and gradually transition from reactive systems maintenance to proactive service delivery.”

As IT teams become service bureaus, their focus shifts. Instead of being technology implementers and fixers, they begin to act as higher level consultants for their business community. They are able to focus on the applications that address business priorities instead of the underlying systems that support the applications. And they can do so with far greater speed, security, and cost efficiency.

“At the end of the day, we want our customers to have a unified, easy to manage infrastructure that drives their business forward,” says Clark. “From a services standpoint, our job is to put ourselves out of a job.”


For a paper on how Application Centric Infrastructure provides a robust transport network for today’s dynamic workloads, visit the resource center at: www.ServicesPerspectives.com

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We know communication and collaboration help drive business forward. But how do we measure and improve it? How do we know which methods work best, and when?

With the rise of data analytics, many organizations are beginning to quantify and evaluate their use of collaboration technologies, from phone and web conferencing to email and instant messaging (IM). Doing so reveals which tools and capabilities are being used, and which ones aren’t. It provides a clearer picture of return on investment (ROI). And it helps fine-tune collaboration solutions, policies, and user training.

But these are largely tactical measurements and adjustments. A number of companies are tapping their collaboration traffic to attain more strategic and influential insights. Some are even using collaboration analytics as an indispensable business intelligence tool.

“Collaboration usage and patterns can give a tremendous amount of business insight,” says Dave Bauhs, General Manager of the Analytics and Adoption Practice for Cisco Services. “And they become even more interesting when correlated with other business systems, data, and processes.”

Organizations have an opportunity to see how collaboration usage is affecting business outcomes, he explains, from sales performance and operational efficiency to innovation and time-to-market. Benchmarks can be developed, best practices can be identified, and areas of needed improvement can be uncovered.

For example, it’s not uncommon for large companies to spend $1 billion or more on travel expenses each year. By correlating collaboration usage with travel expenditures, organizations can see if their collaboration investments are effectively reducing these costs. They can make informed adjustments, whether it’s more training and marketing to increase the adoption of collaboration tools, the deployment of new capabilities, or the refinement of travel policies. And they can measure the efficacy and progress of these adjustments thereafter.

“Collaboration has traditionally been seen as a soft benefit for organizations,” says Hans Hwang, Vice President of Strategy, Product Management, and Collaboration for Cisco Services. “But with analytics, we can see how collaboration impacts and influences hard business benefits.”


With advanced analytics, organizations can measure collaboration usage and patterns, and the impact on business outcomes.

Collaboration traffic: the new business intelligence tool



By measuring the collaboration patterns of a sales team, for instance, the following questions can be answered with certainty and in detail: How much time is being spent with the selling ecosystem versus actual prospects and customers? Are internal processes and operations limiting selling performance? Is the sales force transactional or strategic? Is feedback from customers shared across the company? Are sales best practices shared across the organization? Are collaboration tools improving sales results, and if so, how and by how much?

“We conducted these analyses at Cisco and the results were surprising,” reveals Stori Hybbeneth, Engagement Manager for Cisco Services. “In one group, 50 percent of sales reps’ outbound emails were going to partners, and only two percent were direct customer communications. Those insights can help us educate our sales leaders and teams to optimize our communications and processes.”

Collaboration analytics can also be used to measure the effectiveness of merger and acquisition processes, to make sure customer feedback is being leveraged for new product development, and to evaluate executive talent based on their business networks

and communication patterns. The options are practically limitless.

Granularity, anonymity, and real-time guidance

Collaboration analytics can be performed at an increasingly granular level. Email, phone, web conferencing, video, IM, and social networking traffic can be evaluated based on volume, frequency, duration, and time of day. The number of contacts, quality of contacts, how often and when they were reached, and by whom, can all be dissected. These analyses can be bubbled up to particular geographies, teams, and roles or whittled down to each individual.

“Most of this is for user groups, not individuals,” says Hybbeneth, acknowledging that some user communities and employees may have privacy concerns. “There is a lot of insight to be gained from aggregated, anonymized data.”

Cisco offers Collaboration Analytics Services for companies wanting to glean new business insights from their collaboration traffic. The services provide detailed usage and opportunity maps, customized to each organization’s priorities and desired investigations.

“The ability to correlate collaboration usage with business impact is a big breakthrough,” says Bauhs. “It’s a huge opportunity to turn an existing asset into a valuable business intelligence tool.”

And eventually, this intelligence can be turned into real-time guidance and recommendations, with automated prompts that help users communicate and collaborate with the right people in the best way at the opportune time.

“As collaboration solutions, analytics, and automation mature, they will be more like GPS devices that provide direction and advice in real time. They will be able to pull data about a particular contact or an entire audience—correlating personality scores, preferences, mediums being used, best practices, etcetera—and give hints to the user,” says Hwang. “But it all starts with analytics.”


To get a Forbes Insights paper on collaborating in the cloud or to request a meeting with a Cisco collaboration analytics expert, visit the resource center at: www.ServicesPerspectives.com

Get the paper, request a meeting with Cisco


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A Fortune 500 retailer recently made the switch from a legacy RISC UNIX environment to a Cisco Unified Computing System™ (Cisco UCS®) and will save an estimated $50 million over the next five years as a result. With 560 workloads being migrated to the new platform, the company is slashing the cost of each workload by a staggering $19,000 annually.

“Moving from a legacy environment to an x86 platform almost always results in lower operating expenses,” says Krishnan Subramaniam, Director of Migration Services for Cisco Services. “But the value of infrastructure modernization goes well beyond cost savings.”

The true benefits of migration, Subramaniam explains, surround the possibilities it creates. Beyond cost reductions and technology efficiencies, they include opportunities for business transformation, innovation, and growth.

“Many companies are finding they can use their new infrastructure in tandem with the cost savings achieved to push their business forward,” Subramaniam says. “Organizations can bolster their innovation activities to deliver new products and services. And they can increase their agility and ability to respond to customer and market changes.”

The aforementioned retailer is using its $10 million in annual savings to invest in a new e-commerce solution that will extend the company’s online selling and customer

experience capabilities. The deployment is a key enabler of the company’s desire to increase growth, revenue, and competitive differentiation. And it would not have been possible without the retailer’s new, unified infrastructure, or the cost savings that are funding the project.

“It’s really not about the platform or the immediate benefits of migration,” says Jonathan Knudsen, Client Services Manager for Cisco Services. “It’s about business enablement and the new opportunities that can be uncovered and pursued.”

Despite such compelling advantages spanning cost reduction and business innovation, many companies are reluctant to make a change after years of legacy infrastructure investments.

“Some are afraid of change, afraid of the unknown, afraid of the perceived risks and consequences,” says Subramaniam. “But a transition to an x86 environment is the first critical step to adopting private or public clouds, which can be a catalyst for agility and flexibility.”

There is often a gulf between infrastructure and application teams within large enterprises, adds Knudsen, which can increase apprehension and indecision.

“Infrastructure teams don’t always understand the application environment and all of the interdependencies,” Knudsen explains. “And application teams are typically wary of changes that could impact

availability, performance, or data integrity.”

Truth is, these are largely human problems. When done correctly, with careful planning and guidance, infrastructure modernization almost always improves application performance. It also typically increases the speed and efficiency of application testing, deployments, and updates.

“Planning is the key,” says Knudsen. “Successful migration requires a proven methodology that reduces risks, maintains SLAs during and after migration, and delivers the anticipated cost, technical, and business benefits.”

Cisco Services offers a pragmatic, step-by-step approach for infrastructure modernization utilizing the Cisco Domain Ten™ Framework. It not only considers hardware, but also applications, data, users, and the interdependencies among them. With careful planning and preparation and experienced guidance along the way, enterprises can modernize their infrastructure without fear or risk.


The business and technology case for infrastructure modernizationTransitioning from a UNIX environment to an x86 platform can significantly reduce costs, improve application performance, and enable business opportunity.

For a complimentary analysis of your data center, subject to qualification, and migration and application services briefs, visit the resource center at: www.ServicesPerspectives.com

Complimentary data center analysis, migration briefs


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According to Ratan Tipirneni, Senior Director and General Manager of Cisco Smart Services, enterprise networks and infrastructure environments are “living, breathing things.” With an ongoing cadence of moves, adds, changes, and deletes, they are constantly changing.

They have also become vital engines of business continuity. When the network goes down, applications stall, user productivity plummets, and business operations screech to a halt.

“Users are reliant on business applications,” Tipirneni says. “But applications are more distributed than ever before, with different components residing in different parts of the infrastructure. The network is the fabric that pulls them together, so it’s essential to keep the environment up and running.”

Unfortunately, many companies are “flying in the dark,” he explains. After years—and in many cases, decades—of network and infrastructure growth, countless organizations don’t have a comprehensive understanding of their network assets and

potential service and support gaps. And many still operate in a reactive fashion, waiting for a problem and then scrambling to fix it—or calling for help.

“With every hour of downtime costing millions or more in lost productivity and revenue, the old way of network administration and support is no longer sufficient,” Tipirneni says. “IT organizations must constantly monitor the vital signs of their network to proactively identify and avoid problems. Taking the temperature once a day isn’t enough.”

Advanced software that continually monitors network devices can provide a new finger for the pulse of an enterprise infrastructure, says Mala Anand, Senior Vice President of Cisco’s Services Platforms Group. Cisco smart services, for example, all utilize software to proactively gather network intelligence, apply analytics, and make actionable recommendations—pinpointing potential problems and helping prevent them before they occur.

“Cisco smart services use intelligent automation to collect network data,

analyze it against our deep knowledge base, and proactively address issues discovered,” says Anand. “Our software-enabled services automate network operations, reduce risk, and lower costs.”

More than 1,500 companies are utilizing Cisco smart services, she adds, and 70 percent of Fortune 100 companies are maintaining their network with the help of Cisco Smart Net Total Care.

“To drive business continuity, mitigate risk, and pursue new opportunities, companies must reduce uncertainty,” says Anand. “Cisco smart services provide visibility, knowledge, and recommendations that lead to informed decisions and actions.”

New fingers for the pulse of a network infrastructureA variety of Cisco smart services helps IT organizations continually monitor the vital signs of a vital business engine.

To access a Smart Talk webinar series or request a meeting with a Cisco Services expert, visit the resource center at: www.ServicesPerspectives.com

View the webinars, request a meeting with Cisco



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TOMORROWstarts here.

Today, it’s easy to marvel at how far we’ve come.

Our phones talk to our TVs to record our favorite shows. Doctors in Estonia diagnose patients inDenmark. Social networks help companies improve customer service.

And yet, up to now, more than 99% of our world is not connected to the Internet.

But we’re working on it.

And tomorrow, we’ll wake up pretty much everything else you can imagine.

Trees will talk to networks will talk to scientists about climate change.

Stoplights will talk to cars will talk to road sensors about increasing traffic efficiency.

Ambulances will talk to patient records will talk to doctors about saving lives.

It’s a phenomenon we call the Internet of Everything—an unprecedented opportunity

for today’s businesses.

Tomorrow?

We’re going to wake the world up. And watch, with eyes wide, as it gets to work.

#tomorrowstartshere

©2013 Cisco Systems, Inc. All Rights Reserved

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