One of the exciting technology trends as we enter 2012 is the increasing ubiquity of touch technology. Introduced to most of us via Apple’s iPods, iPhones and iPads, touch has quickly expanded to non-Apple consumer technology such as Amazon’s Kindle Fire and various other Android devices. In addition, the use of touch technology continues to expand into the enterprise and beyond.
In a recent blog post “The Power of Touch,”Dannette Veale discussed how researchers at the University of Munich are developing “a solution that enables anything to be touch driven.” As the video demonstrates, you can finally use your spare bucket as steering wheel for video games.
For more practical and immediate use, the Cisco TelePresence Touch 12 allows you to integrate touch technology into your TelePresence solution. This 12-inch device works with the entire end point line of Cisco TelePresence line.
As touch technology continues to progress into the enterprise, it’s novelty will fade as it becomes commonplace. The truth is simple. You’ve got the touch. You’ve got the power.
New Richmond, Virginia office location provides more facilities to demonstrate advanced technology solutions
TBL Networks today announced that they have moved their headquarters to a new location at 1801 Bayberry Court, Suite 202, Richmond, VA 23226. With this move, TBL Networks, a Cisco Gold Certified Partner, becomes suite neighbors to the Richmond Cisco office.
“We are very fortunate that our growth has necessitated this move,” said Alan Sears, President and CEO of TBL Networks, Inc. “This new office will allow us to continue to provide the highest level of support to our clients, in addition to providing more facilities to demonstrate the advanced solutions that TBL provides. These advantages will help TBL continue to bring the best information technology solutions to businesses in Central Virginia, while never forgetting the importance of customer service and community.”
TBL Networks is the only technology integrator in the Commonwealth of Virginia with five Cisco Voice CCIEs. TBL’s Voice Engineers have personally deployed over 30,000 IP Phones and more than 2,700 Call Center Call Seats. In addition, TBL Networks employs Central Virginia’s only VMware VCDX, and two EMC Technical Architects.
In 2011, TBL Networks was named to the CRN’s Next-Gen 250 and the Inc 500. In addition, TBL’s CEO Alan Sears was recently named as one of Richmond’s Top 40 under 40, and two TBL Datacenter engineers were recognized as VMware vExperts.
TBLpursues the goal of techumanity, the positive synergy between technology and humanity. TBLlives this ideal by working with the international World Community Grid for cancer research and local charity CJ’s Thumbs Up Foundation, which supports families with children facing chronic and life threatening illness.
TBL’s new office space will provide more room for examples of the latest technology in Voice, Virtualization, Storage and Disaster Recovery. The new office will have two Cisco TelePresence System 1100s, a 65″ plasma display, camera, microphones, and integrated lighting system for immersive video meetings. Also, TBL’s new office will house a VCE Vblock, the world’s first completely integrated infrastructure for rapid virtualization deployment offering that is comprised of technology from VMware, Cisco, EMC and Intel.
About TBL Networks, Inc. TBL Networks is about moving forward with innovative technology. With over 60 years of combined technical expertise, we empower clients’ collaboration, virtualization and data centers to do more with less. TBL delivers these advanced solutions directly where it counts the most – the desktop. Building secure and reliable solutions that introduce efficiencies in human interaction is how we see the future. Let us take you there at http://www.theblinkylight.com.
Thanksgiving means many things to me. Turkey. Family. Stuffing. Pie. More Stuffing. Football. Napping (also stuffing).
In addition, Thanksgiving marks the time to remember the things for which you are thankful. On this day, I celebrate the mobile applications that make my life better.
With all the things that a smartphone can do, it is important to not forget the simple things. Case in point, this flashlight application, which allows you to use your phone’s camera flash as a flashlight. As a father of a two-year old, this application has increased my proficiency at quietly moving through the house, while still providing me access to crucial applications for business like …
With Cisco’s WebEx application, you can take your WebEx with you wherever you are. You can host meetings and presentations, or just attend them if you are out of the office, with a click of a button. This application is if you often travel by car, but still need to attend meetings.
I recently downloaded this application in anticipation of my holiday binge eating. Nike+GPS uses your smartphone’s GPS capability to help you keep track of distance and time. Unlike other applications that I have used, this one does not lock up. This application easily integrates with your music playlists, and also keeps your history so you can chart your progress.
Cisco Mobile allows you to take your office phone with you, without the downsides (lost voicemails, sending calls from your cell phone number) that come with using just call forwarding. This application allows you to achieve single number reachability – the ability place and receive calls using your work number only. Also, you can use the Wi-Fi feature to make calls without using your mobile minutes.
ooTunes allows you to listen to most radio stations across the US from your smartphone. You can search for stations by location, format or name. I find this application a great alternative to the iHeartRadio application, which limits you to Clear Channel stations and requires to you use your Facebook account. ooTunes also provides you the ability make recordings, and to integrate your Last.fm account.
Turkey. Family. Stuffing. Pie. More Stuffing. Football. Napping (also stuffing). At a certain point (or as I call it, Friday), you have to eat something else. This applications allows you to break up the monotony of turkey with the power of pizza.
I have been hearing a lot of interest from my clients lately about stretched vSphere clusters. I can certainly see the appeal from a simplicity standpoint. At least on the surface. Let’s take a look at the perceived benefits, risks, and the reality of stretched vSphere clusters today.
First, let’s define what I mean by a stretched vSphere cluster. I am talking about a vSphere (HA / DRS) cluster where some hosts exist in one physical datacenter and some hosts exist in another physical datacenter. These datacenters can be geographically separated or even on the same campus. Some of the challenges will be the same regardless of the geographic location.
To keep things simple, let’s look at a scenario where the cluster is stretched across two different datacenters on the same campus. This is a scenario that I see attempted quite often.
This cluster is stretched across two datacenters. For this example let’s assume that each datacenter has an IP-based storage array that is accessible to all the hosts in the cluster and the link between the two datacenters is Layer 2. This means that all of the hosts in the cluster are Layer 2 adjacent. At first glance, this configuration may be desirable because of its perceived elegance and simplicity. Let’s take a look at the perceived functionality.
If either datacenter has a failure, the VM’s should be restarted on the other datacenter’s hosts via High Availability (HA).
No need for manual intervention or something like Site Recovery Manager
Unfortunately, perceived functionality and actual functionality differ in this scenario. Let’s take a look at an HA failover scenario from a storage perspective first.
If virtual machines failed over from hosts in one datacenter to hosts in another datacenter, the storage will still be accessed from the originating datacenter.
This will cause storage that is not local to the datacenter to be accessed by hosts that are local to the datacenter as shown in the diagram below.
This situation is not ideal in most cases. Especially if the datacenter is completely isolated. Then the storage cannot be accessed anyway. Let’s take a look at what happens when one datacenter loses communication with the other datacenter, but not with the datacenter’s local hosts. This is depicted in the diagram below.
Prior to vSphere 5.0, if the link between the datacenters went down or some other communication disruption happened at this location in the network, each set of hosts would think that the others were down. This is a problem because each datacenter would attempt to bring the other datacenter’s virtual machines up. This is known as a split-brain scenario.
As of vSphere 5.0, each datacenter would create its own Network Partition from an HA perspective and proceed to operate as two independent clusters (although with some limitations) until connectivity was restored between the datacenters.
However, this scenario is still not ideal due to the storage access.
So what can be done? Well, beyond VM to Host affinity rules, if the sites are truly to be active / standby (with the standby site perhaps running lower priority VM’s), the cluster should be split into two different clusters. Perhaps even different vCenter instances (one for each site) if Site Recovery Manager (SRM) will be used to automate the failover process. If there is a use case for a single cluster, then external technology needs to be used. Specifically, the storage access problem can be addressed by using a technology like VPlex from EMC. In short, VPlex allows one to have a distributed (across two datacenters) virtual volume that can be used for a datastore in the vSphere cluster. This is depicted in the diagram below.
A detailed explanation of VPlex is beyond the scope of this post. At a high level, the distributed volume can be accessed by all the hosts in the stretched cluster. VPlex is capable of keeping track of which virtual machines should be running on the local storage that backs the distributed virtual volume. In the case of a complete site failure, VPlex can determine that the virtual machines should be restarted on the underlying storage that is local to the other datacenter’s hosts.
Technology is bringing us closer to location aware clusters. However, we are not quite there yet for a number of use cases as external equipment and functionality tradeoffs need to be considered. If you have the technology and can live with the functionality tradeoffs, then stretched clusters may work for your infrastructure. The simple design choice for many continues to be separate clusters.
The recent accolades and achievements of TBL Networks caught the eye of the business editor of the Richmond Times-Dispatch, who assigned special correspondent Joan Tupponce to the story.
Joan contributes the Trade Names column to the Metro Business section on Mondays of the Richmond newspaper. The article on TBL, entitled “TBL Networks a bright light in IT field” was published in this morning’s edition.
The full text may be found on the periodical’s website at http://www2.timesdispatch.com/business/2011/nov/07/tdmbiz11-tbl-networks-focuses-on-it-solutions-for–ar-1439607/.
Cisco recently released their 2011 Connected World Technology Report. In this report, Cisco used college students and recently employed college graduates as their sample group to gauge the importance of technology to their lives. TBL President Alan Sears discussed the findings regarding the importance of the Internet to this group. When I read the report, I was stuck by the value that the respondents placed on social media and mobile devices.
Two-thirds of college students will ask about social media policies during interviews.
56% will not accept a job from a company that bans social media, or they will circumvent the policy.
50% would rather lose their wallet or purse than their smartphone or mobile device.
More than two of five would accept a lower-paying job that had more flexibility with regard to device choice, social media access, and mobility than a higher-paying job with less flexibility.
At least one in four said the absence of remote access would influence their job decisions, such as leaving companies sooner rather than later, slacking off, or declining job offers outright.
Three out of 10 feel that once they begin working, it will be their right- more than a privilege -to be able to work remotely with a flexible schedule.
My initial thought was to see if Cisco planned on polling these same people in 10 years when they have 2.3 kids, a minivan and mortgage to see if they changed their position on social media access versus higher pay. However, after my old man rage subsided, I wrote down some productive thoughts based on these findings.
Embrace social media
While it will continue to evolve, social media is here to stay. Companies need to embrace it in a manner that allows employees to use it, but with guidelines that maintain professionalism and brand integrity.
At TBL Networks, we embrace social media via blogs (like the one you are reading right now), in addition to using various channels like Facebook, Tumblr and Twitter. However, if your company is not ready to embrace social media externally, you can reap the benefits of social media by using it internally.
Cisco Quad is a tool developed to combine the four cornerstones of the modern workforce: social, mobile, visual, and virtual. With Cisco Quad, your employees can collaborate internally, in a secure yet mobile environment. Cisco Quad comes with Cisco Enterprise Policy Manager, which help you enforce security and compliance while allowing mobility and flexibility in your collaboration environment.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j_DHOqcavIo
Foster SECURE mobility
Remember when mobility meant that you had a laptop? Perhaps even more so than social media, mobility is driving the changes in technology. Smartphones and tablets empower your employees to work more effectively and efficiently when away from the office. However, unlike times past when business first provided employees with new technology, odds are that your employees are going to have, and also want to use, their own tablets and smartphones before you provide these devices. The “Bring Your Own Device” (BYOD) trend raises mainly new issues for employers, with security challenges at the forefront.
To deal with issues brought forth by BYOD, Cisco has introduced Cisco SecureX architecture. Cisco SecureX enforces security policies across the entire distributed network, not just at a single point in the data stream. Also, according to this video, this service also comes your own referee!
While seeing the demands of the younger generation might release your inner Judge Smails, the fact is that social media and mobility are driving changes in technology. However, the good news is that you get to choose the vehicle.
In their Connected World Technology Report, Cisco surveyed 2,853 people split between college students and recently employed college graduates ages 21 to 29 in fourteen countries and asked them “How important is the Internet to you?” Cisco offered three options and asked respondents choose the best: (a) I could live without the Internet, (b) I could live without the Internet but it would be a struggle, or (c) I could not live without the Internet.
Among college students, 55% say they could not live without the Internet compared to 62% of those recent graduates with jobs. Over 30% in both categories say they could survive, but it would be a struggle. 40% of students rank the Internet as most important as compared to partying, dating, and music. 64% would rather have Internet access than a car. A big thing they rely on the Internet for is news, with 77% of students saying they get their news and other information from the Internet. TV comes in a distant fourth at 7% with newspapers, magazines and books behind that. The results are similar for the recently employed.
How is your business building an environment to support this new Internet generation of workers? Are your business apps web-ified? Can your data centers support mobile access to these applications on any device, anywhere? These will be critical components to recruiting the next top talent for your organization. Are you ready?
As I blogged earlier this year, there has been a rift for collaboration enabled users migrating from the traditional desktop computing model to a virtual desktop environment. Specifically many collaboration clients require some time of local media processing for either video or audio. In either case, when the desktop is moved to a centralized datacenter and is separate from the client with low speed connection, a degradation in these features can be experienced.
Now, after much anticipation, Cisco’s VXI consortium has produced a client that will solve this. Enter the VXC 6215 client.
Rather than being a zero client like the previous VXC 2100 and 2200 models, this client contains a local linux image that will allow for local media processing while simultaneously communicating with the upstream VDI infrastructure, whether it be Citrix or VMware View.
Out of the gate this thing will support video termination with Cisco Unified Personal Communicator or any of the Cisco Client Services Framework integrations with Microsoft Lync. Initial protocol support will include RDP7, ICA Agent 11+, XenDesktop 4.x,5.x, and PCoIP compatibility with VMware View 5.x.
This product announcement finally lets us realize what VXI is meant to be. Product availability Q4CY2011 to Q1CY2012.
In light of the recent passing of Steve Jobs, I have found myself looking both forward and backward at technology. New advances in video technology, collaboration and mobile computing demonstrate that the future is now, and that future means moving away from the restrictions of the PC Era. At the same time, I find myself looking back at where we have come from.
I found two great examples below to give perspective in where we have advanced in the last thirty years. Good bye PC Era. It’s been a good ride.
Alan Sears named to prestigious list of leaders in Richmond
Richmond, VA, October 19, 2011 – TBL Networks today announced that Style Weekly has named Alan Sears to their 2011 Top 40 Under 40. The Style Weekly Top 40 Under 40 is an annual list of men and women under the age of 40 who seek to make change and serve the community of Richmond, Virginia.
“On behalf of TBL Networks, I am honored to be named to the Top 40 Under 40,” said Alan Sears, President and CEO of TBL Networks, Inc. “This distinction reflects TBL’s commitment to bring the best information technology solutions to small and medium businesses, while never forgetting the importance of customer service and community.”
In naming Alan Sears to the 2011 class, Style Weekly discussed his professional successes at TBL Networks, including earning a spot the on 2011 Inc. 500 list and being named to CRN magazine’s Next-Gen 250. In addition, the magazine mentioned his pursuit of techumanity, the positive synergy between technology and humanity. TBL lives this this ideal by working with the international World Community Grid for cancer research and local charity CJ’s Thumbs Up Foundation , which supports families with children facing chronic and life threatening illness.
“In a city that sometimes seems obsessed with trading business cards and sidling up to the right crowd, or organizing new events for more trading and sidling, the talking can overshadow the action,” said Style Weekly editor Jason Roop. “Some of them are used to making headlines, while others’ efforts are quietly rendered. But they all offer stories that inspire — and perhaps serve as a call to action.”
About Style Weekly
Style Weekly is Richmond Virginia’s alternative for news, arts culture and opinion. For nearly 30 years, Style Weekly has been a significant part of the Greater Richmond community through its journalism, community involvement and business presence. Learn more at http://www.styleweekly.com.
About TBL Networks, Inc.
TBL Networks is about moving forward with innovative technology. With over 60 years of combined technical expertise, we empower clients’ collaboration, virtualization and data centers to do more with less. TBL delivers these advanced solutions directly where it counts the most – the desktop. Building secure and reliable solutions that introduce efficiencies in human interaction is how we see the future. Let us take you there at http://www.theblinkylight.com.
