Security consultant Joel Snyder cedes the advantage in NAC technology to Microsoft because its client software is interoperable with many other vendors' NAC schemes. While this might be seen as bad news for Cisco, it really strengthens Cisco's position against other NAC vendors. Microsoft clients are nearly ubiquitous. Cisco is selling the majority of enterprise switches. So the client in combination with Cisco's switches - potential NAC enforcement points - could create a scenario where the Microsoft client actually pushes NAC business toward Cisco. READ the chat transcript and decide for yourself. Will Cisco capitalize on Microsoft's success?
While Cisco is one of the big kahunas of networking and continues to roll as seen in its Q3 financial results released this week , it's easy to forget that Cisco isn't quite so big when you compare it to other companies of all types.
Pump and dump or slow economy? 05/08/08Mitchell Ashley weighs in on Brad Reese's stunning blog post about Cisco's 3Q financials. Ashley�says�that Cisco's razor 
thin margins may be the culprit. Very interesting! Ashley�writes:
Congrats to April giveaway contest winners! Congratulations to Jim Segal, network specialist at Networking Technologies! He won the Skyline-ATS free 
training. Jim says he's about to embark on his CCNP and is planning on taking a training course that will help him with that certification. His answer to the trivia question was correct. Answer: Cisco CEO John Chambers is making his first appearance in Barron's 30 "World's best CEOs"
Cisco gets an A- for posting a solid third quarter in the face of softness in US and European enterprise markets, and a macro US economy teetering on the
edge of recession. Revenues were up 10% and slightly better than Wall Street expectations;�earnings exceeded Street estimates by $.02 per share and were up 12%. Cisco tempered its guidance for the current fourth fiscal quarter � to 9% to 10% revenue growth, down from its long-term target of 12% to 17%. But Cisco is sticking to that long-term guidance with its usual cautious confidence and optimism.In specific markets and product areas, Cisco gets a B in Enterprie and a C in Service Provider. Enterprise product orders globally rose 9% but in the US, orders, excluding federal government, were only up in the mid-single digits due to the cautious environment on the overall economy. Cisco expects spending in the US to pick up by the end of the year.
Another great quarter for Cisco. In fact, Forbes reports that Cisco's results beat analysts estimates by about 2 cents/share. Really double digit growth is amazing for a company as large as, and as dominant as, Cisco. Of course, this is nothing new. Over the past eight quarter, the company has topped expectations, and, Forbes says, by an average of 2 cents a share. Weirdly, this hasn't resulted in much of a gain in the stock valuations. Of course, the stock jumps right after earnings are released but falls back the same-old-same-old price about a week later. All told, Forbes says the stock has been up only about a half a percent. Still, the stock is worth enough to keep Cisco happily acquiring the companies and technology it needs. As a bellweather company, Cisco's solid financial success is good news for the whole IT industry.
Installing Cisco NAC with a VoIP network05/07/08Security guru Joel Snyder from Opus One starred as the guest of a live Network World chat on Tuesday where he discussed the state of 
network access control. Questions regarding Cisco vs. Microsoft were asked, as were questios about implementing Cisco NAC within a network supporting Cisco VoIP. Here are Joel's responses. (Click here for the full transcript and read why Joel thinks Microsoft is winning the NAC war.)
Nortel's emphasis on green networking could make the vendor a more credible alternative to Cisco in the enterprise and data center. The company claims 
its products could provide a 50% boost in energy efficiency over competitive offerings -- Cisco being the No. 1 competitor in this market. Nortel also developed a TurboTax-like software program for evaluating the energy efficiency and resultant cost savings of its switches over Cisco's. So Cisco customers with green initiatives and contemplating a secondary or alternative source for their enterprise switches, may have to give the company a look.
Cisco is trying hard to update its nerd image into something more techno-hip, but you'll have to decide for yourself if it is succeeding. First the 
news: Cisco is offering a $10,000 purse, plus a $35,000 Aggregation Service 1000 Router, for the winner of its video game tournament, "EDGE QUEST." Qualifying began on Monday and will end June 11.
Alarming Cisco 3rd quarter 2008 channel stuffingIt should be an alarming and extremely ominous warning to Cisco stockholders, that the Cisco 3rd Qtr 2008 accounts receivable increase was $20 million more than the corresponding increase in ...Read more
Brad Reese is research manager at BradReese.Com, advancing the careers of 1 million certified individuals in the growing Cisco Career Certification Program.
CCNP Lab Series – Master LinksIt took me almost 3 months, but together we made it through a good discussion of how to build a CCNP lab. After I finished the CCNA lab series before ...Read more
Wendell Odom, CCIE No, 1624, splits time between writing books for Cisco Press and teaching classes for Skyline ATS. His books include titles on QoS, CCIE R/S, as well as several titles related to CCNA certification, including his newest book Official Exam Certification Library (CCNA Exam 640-802) (Read a sneak peek of chapter 7). Follow Wendell's blog here. More free chapters from other Cisco Press books here.
Is BUN Chewing Up Your LAN?One of the most interesting, and least known problems that can occur on a LAN is Broadcast-Unicast (BUN) flooding. And, it can cause a lot more problems than many ...Read more
Morris is a Technical Team Lead and Network Architect at a $3 billion high-tech company. His background is in enterprise WANs working with telcos, and developing large-scale routing designs.
IPv6 at the 2008 OlympicsIn my previous post I threw out a few thoughts about the idea of enticing users to switch to IPv6 – a sort of variation on the long-running “we ...Read more
Jeff is president of Jeff Doyle and Associates, an IP networking consultancy, and author of Routing TCP/IP, Volumes I (read an excerpt) and II. Read the transcript of our live online text chat with Jeff entitled "IPv6: Will matter to the enterprise in five years."
Ease of Use comes in Cisco's IPS 6.1 release. Should Cisco competitors be afraid?Cisco released the IPS 6.1 minor release upgrade early last week. It sports a newly minted GUI manager/monitor and has a couple new features worth noting. The ...Read more
Jamey Heary, CCIE No. 7680, is a security consulting systems engineer at Cisco. Jamey is the author of Cisco NAC Appliance: Enforcing Host Security with Clean Access. Read a chapter from the book here. Follow Jamey's blog here. More free chapters from other Cisco Press books here.
Missing laptop at Interop, not encrypted? What are these people thinking?Missing laptop at Interop, not encrypted? What are these people thinking? So this morning I am having some coffee in theHotel and a person sitting next to me is telling is ...Read more
Larry Chaffin, Ph.D, is the CEO/chairman and founder of Pluto Networks a consulting company specializing in VoIP, WLAN and security. He is also author of a number of books including Managing Cisco Secure Networks, Skype Me, Practical VOIP Security, and Configuring Check Point NGX VPN-1/Firewall-1.
Cisco SmartCare Examined The most interesting thing about Cisco’s new SmartCare announcement (see lead story) is not the fact that it can help prevent network outages before they emerge. It’s the way that ...Read more
Ken Presti is president of Presti Research & Consulting, Inc., which specializes in go-to-market strategies for technology vendors and service providers.
CCIE Voice/CCVP: Telephony Protocols - SIP MessagesLast time I gave a high level overview of SIP and also took a look at SIP network element types. This time, I'll be looking at SIP message and method ...Read more
Mark Lewis (CCIE#6280) is an independent consultant who helps service provider and large enterprise clients design and implement leading-edge technologies. Mark has designed and implemented a variety of large-scale technology solutions including VPN, MPLS, QoS, data center, and IP telephony. Mark is the author of Comparing, Designing, and Deploying VPNs; Troubleshooting Virtual Private Networks; and CCIE Voice Exam Quick Reference Sheets.
Become a Nerd! Build a Home Lab…It took me about 5 hours to do…but it was worth every minute. I’ve finally created a network diagram…of my house. Seriously. Every room is broken into its own, routed ...Read more
Jeremy D. Cioara, CCIE No. 11727, is the owner of AdTEC Networks, an IT consulting firm. We've got 15 copies of his new book CCNA Practice Questions (Exam 640-802), 3rd Edition, up for grabs. Go here for details on how to win a copy. Go here for a sneak peek of a chapter.
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The lost memo of a missing Cisco sales trainee found in Galactica
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Cisco Forums at Networking-Forum.com
Cisco issued an urgent security advisory warning users about a critical vulnerability that exists in the company's NAC appliance. The vulnerability could enable an attacker to gain complete control of the the Cisco Clean Access Server.
READ MORECisco security responses
Cisco security advisories
WIN FREE BOOKS. We're giving away 15 copies of the Cisco Press book CCNA Practice Questions (Exam 640-802), 3rd Edition by Jeremy Cioara (a $24.99 value). Read Chapter 2: Switching Foundations. Check out the author's guest blog here. Copies of the book are for sale here.
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Cisco has launched a support wiki for partners and customers to share their knowledge of Cisco gear on top of Cisco documents. According to Cisco: "This augmentation of knowledge gives our user community a medium to share knowledge and improve their overall effectiveness."
VIDEORob Salvagno, senior director of Business Development, discusses Cisco's Nuova acquisition, a follow-on to Cisco's initial investment in August 2006. Nuova's first product is the Nexus 5000.
VIDEOJapan's NTT Group deploys new Cisco ASR 1000 Series routers to deliver advanced services. (3:54)
PODCASTTop analyst discusses edge networking trends and environmental and cost of ownership benefits that new Cisco ASR 1000 Series routers deliver to service providers relative to competitive solutions. (10:37)
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