The Latest Cisco News
Product and Solution Information, Press Releases, Announcements

Meydan City Deploys Cisco's Fully Converged IP Infrastructure for Grandstand Campus and The Meydan Hotel.

- Cisco announced today that the Meydan Group, which oversees the development of the UAE's new iconic horseracing development in Dubai, is deploying Cisco® networking, security and unified communications technology solutions to deliver high definition video, audio, voice, data and wireless communication over a single network. Meydan City features a world-class grandstand, a 60,000 capacity landmark stadium incorporating a luxurious hotel, breeding and training facilities and six luxury restaurants. The world class horseracing development, the Meydan Grandstand, is also the home of The Meydan Museum, Imax Theatre and Dubai Racing Club. The Meydan Grandstand can comfortably accommodate 10,000 vehicles in covered car parks. All operations will be now centrally managed from the main control centre using Internet Protocol (IP) technology.

The Cisco technologies that have been deployed at Meydan include a fully converged IP infrastructure running data, voice, video, security, wireless, building management and physical security for the grandstand and The Meydan Hotel. The services also include unified communications for guest use in the hotel rooms, IPTV head end solution for interactive TV used at both the hotel and the grandstand.
Highlights / Key Facts:

* Cisco Unified Communications connects people, information, and teams, helping to enable comprehensive and effective collaborative experiences. Through the use of cloud computing-based technologies Cisco and the Meydan Group are demonstrating the benefits of adopting unified communications in the UAE.
* Cisco's next-generation "connected stadium" vision unifies all the disparate, proprietary networks and converges them into a single integrated technology platform capable of delivering next-generation sports and entertainment services. A stadium network can now share voice, data, and video capabilities across all business functions. It can now learn and adapt to a fan's personal preferences by displaying favorite menu choices, controlling the luxury suite climate, reserving parking locations, offering tickets to upcoming events of interest, or displaying statistics about a favorite player.

New Android-based Computing Device Uses Cisco Collaboration Architecture and Virtual Desktop Integration to Deliver Mobile Computing, Collaboration and Communication Services.

- June 29, 2010 - Cisco today unveiled Cisco Cius, a first-of-its-kind mobile collaboration business tablet that delivers virtual desktop integration with anywhere, anytime access to the full range of Cisco collaboration and communication applications, including HD video.

Cisco Cius is an ultra-portable device weighing just 1.15lbs (0.52kg) that extends the productivity benefits of Cisco collaboration applications to a highly secure mobile platform. In addition to full telepresence interoperability, Cisco Cius offers HD video streaming and real-time video, multi-party conferencing, email, messaging, browsing, and the ability to produce, edit and share content stored locally or centrally in the cloud.

Based on the Android operating system, Cisco Cius is an open platform for communication and collaboration whose form factor and applications are designed to more securely connect employees on-the-go with the right people in real-time, and to provide those workers with the ability to access and share the content they need from any place on the network.

Cisco Cius offers IT professionals new options when it comes to equipping mobile workers with computing devices. Through virtual desktop integration, Cisco Cius offers flexible computing options with cloud-based services, providing dramatically lower capital costs and cost-per-user for desktop maintenance.

Businesses can also tap into the growing Android developer community that is building business-class productivity applications with appropriate IT controls. The combination of applications and flexible computing options provides a compelling alternative to today's PC-on-every-desktop paradigm.

ANNOUNCEMENT HIGHLIGHTS

Product Features

* The Cisco Cius is a lightweight portable business computing tablet offered with an optional HD audio station equipped with a telephone handset speakerphone, HD DisplayPort and USB ports.
* The Cisco Cius tablet features a front-mounted 720p HD camera which refreshes at up to 30 frames per second; a seven inch, high-resolution widescreen super VGA touch-target display for real-time and streamed video, and single-button TelePresence interoperability that can be utilized either when the tablet is docked, or being used remotely via Wi-Fi.
* The tablet has a 5-megapixel rear facing camera that can transmit streaming VGA quality video and capture still images, and dual noise-cancelling microphones for audio conferencing.
* Cisco Cius features an eloquent contacts-driven user experience, designed to enables users to quickly reach their important contacts.
* An on-board accelerometer readily orients applications for viewing in portrait or landscape modes as the user rotates the device to their preferred viewing orientation
* Cisco Cius supports 802.11 a/b/g/n Wi-Fi for enterprise campus mobility and 3G cellular services when off-campus. 4G services will be available at a later date. Bluetooth and Micro-USB means users can work untethered and share data with a PC.
* A detachable and serviceable battery offers eight hours life under normal usage.

Integration with Business Applications

* Cisco Cius provides support for the comprehensive suite of Cisco collaboration applications including Cisco Quad, Cisco Show and Share, Cisco WebEx Connect, Cisco WebEx Meeting Center, Cisco Presence, and interoperability with Cisco TelePresence.
* Cisco Cius is supported by Cisco Unified Communications Manager and is easily integrated into existing Cisco customer environments.
* Cisco Cius helps ensure a more secure mobile collaboration experience by leveraging Cisco AnyConnect VPN Security, part of the Cisco Borderless Networks architecture.
* Virtual desktop integration provides IT organizations with the ability to host software applications securely in the data center and to utilize the Cisco network to deliver those applications 'as-a-service' anytime, anywhere. Cisco Cius thereby supports data center consolidation and reduced software licensing costs.
* Cisco Cius offers businesses the ability to take advantage of the ever-expanding ecosystem of cost-effective, third-party applications, supported by the Android operating system, while controlling user access policy.

Innovations Include FabricPath Technology for Data Center Scalability, WAN Optimization Solutions, and new Cloud Services.
CiscoLive! - June 30, 2010 - Cisco today announced new technology that supports its Data Center 3.0 strategy to help customers increase the flexibility of their data centers as they become more virtualized and cloud-based. The new technology advances Cisco's underlying unified fabric capabilities that help customers enhance the efficiency of information delivery in physical and virtualized data center environments, and manage public and private cloud resources more effectively.

Announced today is Cisco FabricPath®, networking technology that dramatically increases network scalability, resource agility, asset efficiency, and performance in the data center. Cisco also announced new enhancements for Cisco Nexus® and Catalyst® data center switching platforms, Cisco Wide Area Application Services (WAAS) extensions, and new Cisco services. Comprising the richest set of networked data center solutions in the industry, Cisco's data center and virtualization vision combines unified fabric and unified computing to provide a foundation for reliable, efficient, agile, and highly secure data centers.

Key Highlights
Data Center Scalability, Resource Allocation and Performance

* Cisco FabricPath: A feature of Cisco's data center operating system, NX-OS, Cisco FabricPath addresses emerging data center and cloud computing challenges posed by sophisticated virtualization requirements, dynamic workload mobility needs, and clustered application environments found in high-performance computing. Based on Cisco's efforts in support of the emerging Transparent Interconnection of Lots of Links (TRILL) standard, FabricPath provides ground-breaking data center-wide scalability, resiliency and performance.
* Cisco Nexus 7000 F-series I/O module: A new module for the Cisco Nexus 7000 data center switch provides next-generation performance with 32 ports of 10 Gigabit Ethernet connectivity with low latency, reduced power, and improved return on investment. Designed for access and aggregation layer applications, the I/O module delivers up to 320 gigabits per second of switching capacity and supports both Gigabit Ethernet and 10 Gigabit Ethernet connectivity, providing an easy migration path while protecting existing technology investments. It supports the Data Center Bridging and TRILL standards with Fibre Channel over Ethernet (FCoE) to be enabled in the near future through a software upgrade.
* Cisco FabricPath Switching System (FSS): The FabricPath Switching System is an integrated, validated, hardware and software system that delivers the FabricPath functionality to build massively scalable domains. It is based on the FabricPath feature of NX-OS and FabricPath-capable hardware, such as the Nexus 7000 with F-Series I/O modules.

Application Performance Optimization

Cisco WAAS accelerates application traffic over the wide area network, enabling enterprises to consolidate applications into data centers and utilize cloud computing, while ensuring performance and productivity for users in remote sites or on the go.

* WAAS as an on-demand service for the Cisco Integrated Services Router (ISR) G2: Cisco WAAS can now be deployed in the branch office as an on-demand service direct from select models of the Cisco Integrated Services Router (ISR) G2, providing increased business agility and greater operational simplicity.
* Web and software-as-a-service (SaaS): A new version of Cisco WAAS, version 4.2, offers performance optimization for Web applications deployed in the data center, or hosted in the cloud and delivered as a service (SaaS).
* Windows-server-on-WAAS (WoW): Cisco WAAS 4.2 provides better support for Windows-server-on-WAAS (WoW), with fast access to data center and cloud applications, and locally hosted Windows services, on a single platform.
* WAAS Mobile for the Cloud: WAAS Mobile 3.5 for the cloud can now be easily deployed in a public cloud infrastructure for faster application performance for mobile users.

Higher Performance Data Center Switching

* Cisco Catalyst 4948E Switch: Building upon the success of the Cisco Catalyst 4900 Series Switches with more than 10 million ports sold, Cisco introduces the 4948E Switch with increased capacity, superior performance, microburst protection for predictable latency, plus automation and visibility. The switch also supports wire-speed IPv6, in addition to auto-provisioning and smart call-home features.

New Cisco Services for Data Center Deployment

* New Cisco Cloud Enablement services: Backed by a broad ecosystem of industry-leading partners, Cisco today launched a set of services to help customers transform the data center. Cloud Enablement Services, including strategy, planning, design, and implementation, help customers successfully transition the data center to a cloud infrastructure to quickly realize the benefits of a cloud operational model.
* Cisco Intelligent Automation Solutions: Cisco is also introducing Cisco Intelligent Automation for IT Services, including new versions of the Tidal Enterprise Scheduler and Tidal Enterprise Orchestrator products that provide real-time IT process orchestration and batch automation to simplify data center management and increase operational efficiency and performance.
* Cisco Validated Design guides