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Author: Alan Sears

Two Great Things Come Together

Posted on by Alan Sears

“You got your chocolate in my peanut butter!” “You got your peanut butter on my chocolate!” Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups iconic marketing from the ‘80s demonstrates what can happen when two great things come together. So what is the latest combination creating excitement? Cisco Collaboration and Cisco Virtualization solutions. With its 8.5 release of the suite of communications software, Cisco now fully supports virtualizing its voice applications across the entire product portfolio on its Unified Computing System (UCS) platform. Virtualizing applications is nothing new. The benefits in operating expenses and consolidation of resources is well documented on this website and others. However, when those applications are the ones providing communications services to your entire enterprise from one or two centralized locations, then you have a chocolate-in-peanut-butter event.

While clearly this development is going to reduce the investment in hardware to support intricate Cisco Collaboration deployments, it’s the flexibility in design and adaptability of operation that has me comparing it to my favorite flavor merger. The ease of migration and replacement of hardware when the server is just a file on storage makes the last 10 years of rebuilding servers from scratch seem like a bad dream. Disaster recovery plans for business continuance are greatly simplified and easily assured with virtualized communications systems. And as Cisco continues to certify VMware advanced functionality for moving live virtualized servers from one hardware host to another without interruption in service – either at the push of a button from human intervention or automatically in response to system logic for resource availability or component failure – then the mixture only gets sweeter.

So which combination is my favorite? It’s hard to say for sure, which is saying a lot for those who know me well… or know my dog Reese.

An On-Demand World

Posted on by Alan Sears

Technology has radically changed our expectations of results over time, practically to the point where we expect instant gratification. We get our television shows and movies on-demand, we instantly tell the world what we are thinking and doing over social media, we communicate with our coworkers and partners on-demand over instant messaging, and we have on-demand mobile access to all these tools and applications on our smartphones. But much to the frustration of many CxOs, this technology revolution has been slow to impact the time to production of new services and applications their IT departments commit to spinning up to support the business.

Enter “the cloud.” Whether your definition of cloud computing involves software-as-a service (SaaS) hosted offerings from a public provider, or an on-premise private solution where a well-designed computing and virtualization infrastructure has abstracted the application from the hardware that serves it, the cloud has the potential to accelerate new service delivery for IT departments into the new on-demand world we live in today. Yes, consolidation of IT assets reduces operating costs, yes virtualization of servers reduces administrative costs, but I believe the true winning quality of cloud computing (public or private) will be its speed of new service delivery.

SAP’s co-CEO Hagemann Snabe was recently quoted as saying “On-demand has become more popular not because customers want to consume software over the Internet but rather because they wanted quicker time to value.” Many of us remember the quick ignition and almost immediate flame out of Application Service Providers (ASPs) in the 1990s. How was their business model any different from the SaaS offerings that are so successful today like salesforce.com? It’s not. So what has changed? Our perception of an acceptable time to value. Why wait 6 -12 months to order and build out a new server to run that new application when you can just provision another server instance on your public or private cloud and cut that time down to days or weeks? Our instant world of texting, smartphones, mobile applications, instant messaging, and social media has created our need for on-demand IT solutions. And cloud computing is here to stay.

Still Fighting to Cure Cancer

Posted on by Alan Sears

Back on July 1, 2010, TBL Networks turned on a 40 machine Virtual Desktop Infrastructure (VDI) environment on our Cisco Unified Computing System (UCS) dual B-series blade farm and dedicated all the spare computing power of the system to the World Community Grid and thier efforts to find a cure for cancer. The World Community Grid’s mission is to create the world’s largest public computing grid to tackle projects that benefit humanity. Their work has developed the technical infrastructure that serves as the grid’s foundation for scientific research, and its success depends upon individuals collectively contributing their unused computer time to change the world for the better. When idle, a memeber computer will request data on a specific project from World Community Grid’s server. It will then perform computations on this data, send the results back to the server, and ask the server for a new piece of work. Each computation that a computer performs provides scientists with critical information that accelerates the pace of research. Based on some personal connections at TBL, we decided to focus our unused capacity primarily on the fight against cancer, but our compute resources are available to all Community Grid projects when the cancer research teams are not sending work to TBL.

Shortly after joining the grid computing team, we posted a blog entry on our first two weeks of results at a little over 200 compute days. We estimated then that by the end of 2010, we would have provided a little over 7 years of results. With 10 days left in the calendar year, I am proud to report that TBL has donated 7 years and 201 days of computing power using Cisco UCS, which has allowed us to return 31,882 results to cancer researchers ranking us #1,777 of the over 300,000 organizations participating on the World Community Grid. In the spirit of the season, TBL received a warm “Thank You” from the World Community Grid today for all of our efforts this year, noting that our contribution to advancing research and helping humanity is making a difference every day.

Unified Computing ATP

Posted on by Alan Sears

Cisco Recognizes TBL Networks Data Center Unified Computing Qualifications

Congratulations to TBL Networks, Inc. for meeting all ATP program requirements and criteria necessary to earn the designation of Cisco ATP – Data Center Unified Computing Partner in the USA.

TBL Networks, Inc. has met the rigorous Cisco certified personnel levels required for a ATP – Data Center Unified Computing Partner. This helps ensure that TBL Networks, Inc. sales and support organizations are better prepared to properly sell, design, install, and support the ATP program specific technology and products.

This is an outstanding accomplishment for TBL Networks, Inc. and demonstrates their desire to develop expertise in this market. TBL Networks, Inc. and the Cisco account management team will continue working together to develop and enhance their mutual capabilities to support TBL Networks, Inc. and its customers.

TBL Networks, Inc. will be recognized for this specialization in the Cisco Partner Locator, located at: http://tools.cisco.com/WWChannels/LOCATR/jsp/partner_locator.jsp

Cisco values the commitment and expertise that TBL Networks, Inc. has demonstrated and looks forward to working together.

Cisco Partner Locator

Adv. Routing & Switching

Posted on by Alan Sears

Cisco Recognizes TBL Networks Advanced Routing & Switching Qualifications

Congratulations to TBL Networks, Inc. for meeting all criteria to achieve the Advanced Routing & Switching Specialization. TBL Networks, Inc. has met the resource requirements for the Advanced Routing & Switching Specialization and demonstrated that they are qualified to support customers with their Routing & Switching needs in the USA.

TBL Networks, Inc. will be recognized for this specialization in the Cisco Partner Locator, located at: http://tools.cisco.com/WWChannels/LOCATR/jsp/partner_locator.jsp

Cisco values the commitment and expertise that TBL Networks, Inc. has demonstrated and looks forward to working together.

Cisco Partner Locator

Harley Stagner Achieves VCDX

Posted on by Alan Sears

VMware Recognizes Harley Stagner as a Virtualization Expert with VCDX #46

TBL’s own Harley Stagner has become the first VMware Certified Design Expert (VCDX) in Virginia and only the 46th to achieve this elite virtualization certification worldwide. The VCDX is the highest level of VMware certification. After being invited through a pre-qualification process from eligible VMware Certified Professional (VCP) individuals, Harley had to pass two written examinations to make it to the final stage of the process. Harley traveled to VMware’s headquarters in Palo Alto, CA to defend his virtualization design and implementation plan to a panel of VMware experts on August 26th. Today, Harley was notified of his successful completion of the defense, and awarded VCDX #46. All of us here at TBL are so very proud of Harley’s accomplishment. His new designation is a testament to the talent that Harley lends to the TBL team.

Congratulations to Harley Stagner, VCDX #46.

iPhones and Cisco TelePresence

Posted on by Alan Sears

As a part of the new look of TBL, all employees received an upgrade to the iPhone 4… and no, we have not experienced any of the issues surrounding the iPhone 4 in the press. We have, however, enjoyed many of the new features of the iPhone 4 and iOS 4 – including FaceTime. FaceTime is a mobile video conferencing app that is embedded in the iPhone 4 and is a seemless integration into the phone calling interface. Any cell-to-cell call between two iPhone 4’s that are connected to WiFi networks will allow the callers to initiate a video call across the data network (thre are promises that this feature will be implented to work across the 3G network in the future). It is a new age for cell phones indeed when video is added to the mix, and while the recreational applications abound, there are definitive buisness uses as well. Once such instance recently inspired me to write this post.

David Cantwell and I were arranging the furniture in our two new Cisco TelePresence 1100 rooms, and wanted to be sure that the same amount of desk was visible across the bottom of the screen for both room – to complete the nearly in person exerience of TelePresence. The challenge is that while each of us could clearly see the amount of table the other room had showing on the 65″ plasma display in front of us, neither of us could see how much of the table we were sitting at was being captured by our own camera and displayed at the far end. While a tape measure could have easily remidied the situation, none was available. How about a FaceTime call? I suggested? Now eachof us could compare the view of ourselves captured on the other’s iPhone 4 and displayed on our own iPhone to the image right infront of us on the plasma screen. David slid his table back a bit more, and all was right. Scientific? Not nearly. Cool use of technology? Definitely.

The Power of Cisco Magnets

Posted on by Alan Sears

If there is any doubt as to the quality of products from Cisco, one must only examine the magnets that are included with the Catalyst 2960 and 3560 8-port compact switches. The magnets are intended to be used to mount the switches to the underside of desks, or to filing cabinets, etc. However, the amazing power of the magnet became a point of curiosity for the engineers at TBL today, and a series of hypothesis and experiments were quickly devised to determine the full load capacity of the mounting devices. I am happy to report that a mere 5 magnets were able to suspend a 53 lbs. IronPort server vertically from the side of a cubicle overhead. Now that is the power of Cisco!

Emerging Company of the Year

Posted on by Alan Sears

RichTech Honors TBL Networks at 2010 Technology Stars Award Gala for its Growth

At their 15th annual Technology Stars Awards Gala last night at the Greater Richmond Convention Center, RichTech honored TBL Networks as Emerging Company of the Year. RichTech serves to promote the region as a technology center and provides a vehicle for addressing the needs of Central Virginia’s dynamic technology community. RichTech’s Annual Technology Stars Awards Gala has become the premier event honoring outstanding individuals, corporate and community leaders, entrepreneurs and pioneers in Central Virginia. The Emerging Company Award goes the local technology company that has demonstrated recent growth in revenues and/or employees – a company whose recognized accomplishments and prospects demonstrates the ability to achieve commercial success. Cherry Bekaert & Holland sponsored the Emerging Company Award.

VMware Enterprise Partner

Posted on by Alan Sears

VMware Recognizes TBL Networks Enterprise Solutions Provider Qualifications

Congratulations to TBL Networks, Inc. for meeting all criteria to achieve the VMware Enterprise Solutions Provider partner level. TBL Networks, Inc. has met the resource requirements for the VMware Enterprise designation and demonstrated that they are qualified to support customers with their Infrastructure VIrtualization and Desktop Virtualization needs in the USA.

TBL Networks, Inc. will be recognized for this specialization in the VMware Partner Locator, found at: http://www.vmware.com/partner-locator

Vmware values the commitment and expertise that TBL Networks, Inc. has demonstrated and looks forward to working together.

VMware Partner Locator

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