Bill Kish, Chief Technical Officer of Ruckus Wireless, talks with Nick Lippis about enterprise Wireless LANs and the new 802.11n standard. With the increase in bandwidth, spectrum and power of 802.11n many IT leaders are now starting to think through how to incorporate 802.11n into their network architecture. Backbone link speeds, access point and WLAN controller placement, security, power over Ethernet, wireless bandwidth and spectrum power are all factors which plug into the calculus of next generation WLAN deployments. Bill Kish is uniquely qualified to talk on 802.11n as he is an active participant on IEEE project 802.11, the organization creating the standard. He is also a co-founder of Ruckus Wireless, and their CTO. Bill offers a vision for how the industry will progress that I buy into. Here’s a hint, think of 802.11n as a platform not just a product.

Charles Kolodgy Research Director, Security Products for IDC and Jim Doherty Chief Marketing Officer and Senior Vice President for CipherOptics join the Lippis Report Podcast to discuss network defenses and threat mitigation strategies that are effective in protecting IT assets. Charles Kolodgy believes that “protecting the network� has reached a point of diminished returns. He believes that the biggest vulnerability that exists in most of today’s networks is “protecting data�. Charles acknowledges that there are two aspects of data protection: “data at rest� and “data in motion�. While many companies are currently engaged in projects that provide protection for “data at rest�, most are neglecting the “data in motion� aspect of protection altogether. I talk with Charles and Jim about this and all agree that its time pervasively encrypt data in motion. Find out why by listening to this podcast

Ben Goldman, Director, Network Systems and Tere Bracco, Senior Manager, Network Systems both from Cisco Systems join the Lippis Report Podcast to discuss its Campus Communications Fabric 2 announcement. This is one of the most significant network infrastructure announcements from Cisco in recent years which launches two significant new products. The first is the Catalyst 6500 Virtual Switching System 1440, bringing simplified operations and improved network availability and utilization to the Catalyst 6500 through network system virtualization. The second is a technology extension of the Catalyst 4500, an extended line of modular switches called the Catalyst 4500-E Series, delivering greater performance and service flexibility. No company knows network infrastructure like Cisco Systems or listens to customers like Cisco does. While Cisco competitors try to leap frog technology to gain an edge, Cisco delivers solutions that are based upon customer demand and feedback and extend the investment they already made. The result is innovation on top of next generation technology. If you have a dual backbone network or are in the market for modular switching, you have to listen to this podcast.

Evan Jafa, Chief Technical Officer of The First American Corporation is a thought leader and visionary. He joins the Lippis Report podcast to talk about virtualization and the value it brings to First American’s operations. Network virtualization represents a new IT paradigm, which challenges existing assumptions and IT deployment models. Evan shares his thoughts, experiences and network virtualization strategies for First American. With a long-term goal of a dynamic and flexible First American IT infrastructure, which ramps applications up and down based upon demand, Evan discusses pragmatic steps, which are bringing First American toward this goal. If you have a network virtualization project in progress or are just planning one, then you have to listen to this podcast.

Richard Wood, Global Vice President of Portfolio Marketing, and Shayna Kaneshiro, Global Product Marketing Manager, both from Siemens Communications, join the Lippis Report Podcast to discuss Siemens’ unified communication solution for Small-to-Medium sized Businesses or SMB called HiPath OpenOffice ME. The OpenOffice ME appliance integrates messaging, mobility, presence plus voice communications and conferencing into one box, simplifying the deployment of these rich services to a market with little IT support allowing SMBs to be more productive and responsive to their customers. I was impressed with OpenOffice ME’s integration with outlook and its visual voicemail and I’m sure you will too.

Inbar Lasser-Raab Director of Marketing for Network Systems at Cisco joins me to discuss the recently announced Empowered Branch 3. The Wall Street Journal noted correctly that Cisco is providing branch offices with the same level of networking services as headquarter offices with its large Empowered Branch 3 announcement. Cisco introduced new Catalyst 2960 switches with LAN Lite IOS plus the new Cisco 1861 Integrated Services Router or ISR for small branch offices and a flurry of additions to its flagship 2800, and 3800 ISRs. With the integration of IPS/NAC security, application intelligence, unified communications, and mobility into its branch office routers; netops is simplified while design choices are expanded. Inbar and I discuss the new network design options available to network architects afforded by the latest empowered branch announcement.

Zeus Kerravala, of The Yankee Group and I discuss the Oct 16 Microsoft unified communications event in San Francisco where Office Communication Server and client as well as a host of other editions to existing products were announced. We debate the impact upon the communications and IT industry due to the event and ponder the question of what happen to the Mircosoft-Nortel ICA relationship. For sure the event was an ecosystem announcement and one that put the industry on notice that there is a new way to do communications. In short we are at the early stages of a systemic and worldwide shift in communications that promises simplicity in the use of multiple modalities of communications through software and in particular presence and identify. We define the new battle lines. You have to listen to this.

On October 16, 2007 Bill Gates will make his last product announcement with Microsoft’s Office Communications Server (OCS). This event will change the communications industry accelerating its shift toward software economics and professional services. Siemens has been a long term Microsoft partner specifically around its OpenScape software. Siemens is the largest enterprise Microsoft customer in the world too granting it a unique position with the software giant. Siemens Communications has focused its investments on open communications software and professional services to address new market needs. It has strong unified communication relationships with IBM Lotus Sametime and Microsoft’s OCS. Mark Straton, Senior Vice President of Product Marketing at Siemens Communications talks with me about OCS and the Siemens-Microsoft relationship. You’ll be just as surprised as I was to hear what Mark has to say.

Risk Management techniques to increase network availability has become an important topic as Risk Management Executives have become engaged in network design. This thoughtful analysis is available in both white paper and podcast media. The white paper, can be found here http://lippisreport.com/2007/09/24/risk-management-techniques-to-increase-network-availability. The white paper abstract follows. The white paper provides risk management techniques to increase network availability and reduce network outages. The paper explores the tools and techniques available to business and IT leaders who seek to increase network availability through management, device feature exploitation and network design. The mixed network vendor approach to diversity and redundancy is explored and brought into question. The paper takes the position that a common network based upon mixed network supplier platforms paradoxically reduces network availability by increasing complexity, which increases Mean Time To Repair (MTTR) and operational cost. The paper further identifies that a mixed network vendor environment restricts design options, increases security vulnerabilities and limits the ability to optimize application performance. A single network platform supplier is recommended for mission critical operations as this approach reduces complexity, increases design options, and simplifies trouble isolation, hastening resolution while optimizing operational resources.

Zeus Kerravala, SVP of The Yankee Group Enterprise Research joins Nick Lippis to discuss Microsofts pending Oct 16th announcement of Office Communications Server or OCS. This will be an event that will change the communications industry accelerating its shift to an industry driven by software economics and professional services. Zeus and I pontificate on the impact OCS will have on the communications industry. Our apologies that the quality of the recording is below our standards, but the content is outstanding. Enjoy

Ajay Kapoor, Director Enterprise Communications in the Consulting and Systems Integration group for Avaya joins the Lippis Report podcast to discuss unified communications operations. Along with UC vendor selection are elements of integration and on-going solution management. Selecting a communications partner who has proven expertise and capabilities to take a holistic view of your business needs and work along side you to ensure optimal solution success will result in a competitive advantage. The key is to not just design a perfect symphony but to make sure that all of the pieces in the orchestra are playing seamlessly together and harmonizing to meet the required result.

Zeus Kerravala, SVP of The Yankee Group’s Enterprise Research joins the Lippis Report podcast to discuss Juniper Networks and their enterprise initiative project; code named Hurricane. Juniper approaches the enterprise market tactically, entering market niches where they can add value. Not a bad approach, but a collection of niches does not sum up to be a serious enterprise provider. It seems that Juniper recognizes that it needs a complete enterprise product portfolio and seeks to jump in at the high end of the market by providing high density Gigabit and 10 Gigabit LAN products scalable to 100 Gigabit when standardized, based upon a new set of custom designed silicon, code named Hurricane. Zeus and I tell you want we know about Hurricane and provide a forecast as to its strength and the potential damage it will do to competitors. In short is Hurricane a category 5 storm or when it hits the market will it degrade to a tropical depression.

With wireless networking being more secure then wired, IT leaders have been able to deliver solutions to meet a global mobility need; and there are multiple mobility need drivers. For starters business process knows no time zones, thanks to corporations seeking competitive advantage by creating global virtual teams and personalizing customer experiences. A new generation of workers demand mobility solutions in their work environment and personal lives. Unifying wired and wireless networks also delivers business continuity attributes. And as on-line communications reduces face-to-face meetings, travel and real estate requirements, unified networks contributes to a lower carbon foot print and a Green friendly work environment. For CIOs and CFOs unified networking is smart business too as it enables cost reduction through network and service integration. Chris Kozup Senior Manager Mobility Solutions Marketing for Cisco Systems is my guest as we discuss strategies for unifying wired and wireless networking. Enjoy, Nick

There is an industry trend to integrate unified networks and unified communications to improve reach and business responsiveness. Industry insiders describe the extending of IP telephony features to mobile end points such as cellphones, PDAs and smart phones with the term fixed mobile convergence. The level of integration associated with fixed mobile convergence is usually limited to providing the user a single v-mail box and ringing either their mobile or desktop phone when an inbound call is placed. The linking of unified networking and unified communications offers a richer set of business experiences such as collaboration, calendar synching, data application access and much more. This experience is called Seamless Mobile Collaboration. Lynn Lucas, Director of Mobility Solutions for Cisco Systems joins me to discuss how mobility plus unified networks and communications are evolving to deliver business value. Enjoy, Nick

I invited Jim Cairns, VP of Marketing and Business Development for Spanlink Communications to talk about unified communications in a Cisco IP telephony environment. Spanlink was just designated by Cisco with their Master Unified Communications Specialization which recognizes an elite group of Cisco channel partners who have the most in-depth technology skills built on a track record of customer success in selling, deploying and supporting sophisticated Cisco Unified Communication solutions. Clearly Spanlink sees a lot of Cisco UC deployments and since we don't hear much about custom or complete business solutions built on Cisco UC, I wanted to find out what Spanlink customers are building. You will be surprised by what you hear, like I was. Enjoy Nick

According to the International Crime Complaint Center or IC3 the number of cyber crime complaints has skyrocketed from a little over 6,000 in 2000 to over 1 million as of June of 2007 with a total dollar loss from these crimes, which are usually fraud, estimated at $647 million. Many of the complaints involve reports of identity theft, such as loss of personal identifying data, unauthorized use of credit cards or bank accounts, etc. The threat for corporations is that cyber crime not only steels its intellectual property and customer data, but its reputation and trust relationship with customers which have a much large material impact then the initial crime. I talk with Jim Doherty Chief Marketing Officer and Senior Vice President for CipherOptics about strategies to defend against cyber crime. This issue is too important not to listen to. Enjoy, Nick

Zeus Kerravala, Yankee Group SVP and I review the enterprise IP telephony market and discuss the latest industry changes including the ShoreTel IPO, Inter-Tel & Mitel merger, Avaya going private, Nortels implosion, Siemens reasserting, Microsofts overhang and Ciscos strong position. It is becoming very clear that the enterprise IP telephony business model is in play as it shifts to a software and services industry forcing consolidation and attrition. We get to the heart of the matter and provide the insight you expect from a Lippis Report podcast. We squeezed a little time in for Cisco’s major Data Center 3.0 announcement too. The audio quality is not as good as we normally deliver, but the content is great!! Enjoy.

Unified Communications or (UC) deployment is well underway. With the IP telephony, telecommunications and application industries focused on taking their share of the emerging $35B to $40B annual UC market it is inevitable that UC will soon be a fact of corporate life. So the question is: are you ready? Is your infrastructure secure enough to support UC? What specific vulnerabilities need to be mitigated within a UC infrastructure? Is NAC and NAP enough or do you need more? To answer these questions I am joined by Scott Lucas Senior director of solutions marketing of Extreme Networks, Shrikant Latkar Director of Enterprise Architecture at Juniper Networks and Kamal Anand VP Marketing and Corporate Strategy of Meru Networks. It is a jam packed podcast that will help you keep UC flowing. Enjoy, Nick

Zeus Kerravala of the Yankee Group joins me to discuss Avayas announcement to enter into a definitive merger agreement with Silver Lake and TPG Capital for approximately $8.2 billion. Avayas acquisition by a private equity company is the largest in the enterprise networking and communications space. What will it mean to customers, partners, employees and shareholders? Also how is the industry changing now that Avaya will no longer be a public company? Get two of the top industry analyst view on the topic by listening to this Lippis Report Podcast.

Nick Lippis, President of Lippis Enterprises, delivers the alumni commencement speech to the Boston University College of Engineering 2007 graduating class on May 20th. Mr. Lippis predicts that engineering resources and talents are shifting from enhancing the human experience to improving the human condition. As engineers invest their careers in biotechnology, nanotechnology, green energy sources and terrorist defense this generation of engineers are presented with an unprecedented opportunity to improve the human condition by extending healthy life spans in a clean environment while in the process changing the world.

Zeus Kerravala, Yankee Group SVP and I look around the industry and compare notes. We express concerns over the lack of progress that Microsoft/Nortel ICA has made. We touch on Cisco, Avaya, Siemens, ProCurve, Foundry and Force 10. Who�s doing well and who�s falling apart. Listen in to find out.

David Butler, Director of Business Solutions and Partners in Emerging Technologies for Avaya and Julien Courbe, Managing Director of Financial Services Technology for BearingPoint join the Lippis Report podcast to discuss the emerging communications enabled business processes or CEBP market. CEBP promises to deliver a new kind of agile and competitive organization that can respond to business events quickly, satisfy customers more deeply and in the process create competitive barriers of entry. But how will CEBP be brought to market? Is CEBP customized for every corporation or will there be packaged or partially pre-defined and integrated solutions?

Lynn Lucas, Director of Mobility Solutions for Cisco Systems joins the Lippis Report podcast to discuss a strategy to unify enterprise mobility. Wireless LAN architecture choices have shifted from thick to thin, to integrated vs overlay and now from a unified approach to wireless LANs to a unified approach to enterprise mobility. A discussion of mobility usually stirs up a range of topics including cell phones, PDAs, G3, VoWLAN, WLANs, RFIDs, cellphone-unified Communications links etc. Mobility is primarily about the experience of gaining access to corporate applications and services anywhere, which transcends all of these technologies. But we need a way to think about how all these technologies come together. We need a Mobility architecture for Enterprise Networks. Listen to this podcast and gain a unified approach to enterprise mobility.

Wenceslao Lada, VP & Americas GM and Andre Kindness, both from ProCurve Networking by HP join the Lippis Report podcast to announce major product and organizational additions to their ProActive Defense strategy. ProActive defense claims to deliver a trusted network infrastructure that is immune to threats, controllable for appropriate use and able to protect data and integrity for users. ProCurve with their number two position in enterprise networking will change the NAC market with this launch. I give my take during the interview. Listen in as the internal network security market just changed.

Wenceslao Lada, VP & Americas GM and Andre Kindness, both from ProCurve Networking by HP join the Lippis Report podcast to announce major product and organizational additions to their ProActive Defense strategy. ProActive defense claims to deliver a trusted network infrastructure that is immune to threats, controllable for appropriate use and able to protect data and integrity for users. This podcast dives into the technical aspects of the ProCurve announcement. We address NAC, NAP, supplicants and more. Listen in as the internal network security market just changed.

Inbar Lasser-Raab Cisco's Director of Marketing for Enterprise Routing joins the Lippis Report podcast to discuss strategies to extend your networked business platform to branch offices. The economy has forced businesses to be closer to customers, prompting leaders to shift resources into branch offices. Branch office employees demand the same level of IT services as headquarter offices. Branch offices are spread out over large geographic distances driving up wide area network and operational cost; challenging IT solutions with low bandwidth and spotty support.  But there are winning strategies that eliminate these traditional trade-offs. Hear about them by downloading this podcast.

IPS, SIMs and NBAD devices will evolve into a post-NAC monitoring function. Their days as single function devices are over. NAC is an architecture and approach to internal thread defense and not a fancy way to authenticate a user and their end point. NAC will subsume IPS, SIM and NBAD functionality into an overall IT security architecture. I explain my thinking in this Lippis Report podcast.

Zeus Kerravala, SVP of Yankee Group's Enterprise Research and Consulting and I provide another layer of analysis to the Networked Business Platform. We discuss the changed role of networking within IT and provide solid examples of why it�s the network that�s the business platform and not an OS or piece of software. We discuss Cisco�s acquisition of WebEx, Five Across and Utah Street Networks and their significance. We voice our disappointment with VoiceCon too. The folks defining the conference are too rooted in legacy telecommunications and don�t get the new era the industry has entered. One indicator was that the buzz on the exhibit floor and conference content were disconnected. Either CMP should shake up the VoiceCon staff or the industry needs a new venue. Enjoy it�s a good one.

We’ve received a lot of e-mail request that the Lippis Report newsletter analysis, the part that I write be available as a podcast. So we’ll try it with Lippis Report Issue 78: The Chief Communications Officer and please give us your feedback on the lippis.com site. I wrote this piece because I’m convinced that the there will be a need for a new position within IT executive management to deal with all the changes that are occurring in networks and communications. I’ve been writing about the network as a business platform which means that networking is evolving from a connectivity service to a service of services which is callable from a WebServices based programming language. Also Communications is undergoing a revolutionary change with unified communications and comm.-enablement. All of this change means that IT executive management needs to focus on it to extract the most value for their corporation. Without any future ado, here is Lippis Report Issue 78: The Chief Communications Officer

Zack Taylor, Avaya Vice President of Global Strategic Solutions, joins the Lippis Report Podcast to discuss how corporations can lower the cost of raising the customer experience through virtualized contact centers. Contact centers are being virtualized to expand an agents pool of knowledge workers that can service customers and quickly resolve issues thus improving the overall customer experience with the firm. How does an organization implement a virtualized contact center? What are the impacts of standards such as SIP, Web Services & SOA on customer service? How can a virtualized contact center enable enterprises to reach beyond the traditional contact center environment to bring more business assets and value into supporting customers? In short how does a corporation create a customer facing organization to deliver competitive advantage through improved customer experience? Zack and I discuss these issues and opportunities, site several customer examples who have deployed this model and explore how Avayas IP contact center enable enterprises to differentiate themselves from competitors and enable them to provide an improved customer experience. Enjoy, Nick

Denzil Samuels, VP & GM of Global Managed Services for Avaya joins the Lippis Report podcast to discuss managed communication applications. As contact centers move toward IP and unified communications plus communications-enabled business applications start to be implemented, many firms are seeking approaches to mitigate risk and manage total cost of ownership. Denzil and I discuss the expertise, tools, and knowledge to consult, design, build and manage a converged environment in a way that will deliver a competitive advantage for enterprises. We end the discussion by introducing Avaya�s services value chain approach. If you are experiencing gaps in the required skills to manage a converged network, then listen up. Enjoy Nick

I�m joined by Kumar Srikantan Senior Director of Cisco�s Internet Switching Business Unit to discuss systemic IT changes, which are driving new design principals for campus networking. IT departments are required to support real-time multimedia services, multi-directional traffic, seamless wired and wireless connectivity, virtualized resources, automated management etc. In this podcast Kumar and I discuss how these IT trends have forced campus networking to evolve beyond a connectivity service to a strategic business platform by delivering network services. One key attribute of new campus network design is the ability of the network to detect specific applications and alter its configuration to deliver the best performance and experience to users. Now that�s strategic. You need to listen to this podcast. Enjoy Nick.

Marie Hattar, Ciscos Senior Director, Network Systems Marketing joins the Lippis Report Podcast to explore issues of network architecture as the blue print and framework for the new networked business platform. The increased stature and value of networking within corporate IT is discussed as well as its attributes and business value. Lippis and Hattar propose that networking is the new business platform and provide guidance to IT executives on how best to leverage their networking investment for corporate advantage. Enjoy, Nick

Zeus Kerravala, SVP of The Yankee Group’s Enterprise Research joins Nick Lippis to discuss the Microsoft/Nortel ICA CEO event, RSA, VoiceCon and Interop. Zeus and I talk about the major industry events coming up and what they may and may not bring. Enjoy Nick

John McHugh, VP and GM of ProCurve Networking by HP joins the Lippis Report podcast to discuss the network business platform and ProCurves Adaptive Network Vision. Adaptive Networking is the ProCurve industry commitment to add value to users, applications and organizations through its networking products. In this podcast John and I discuss the value delivered though Adaptive Networking and ProCurves investments are targeted toward making networking address the rapid change of business. Enjoy, Nick

Zeus Kerravala, SVP of The Yankee Group’s Enterprise Research joins Nick Lippis to discuss and define the network as the new business platform.  Networking is evolving well beyond its initial role as a connectivity service as location, unified communications, network access control, network virtualization, mobility, application fluency etc are embedded into the network fabric and are “callableâ€? entities to application developers.  This increased value in networking that can be molded and shaped by IT developers to achieve corporate goals is the genesis of the new business platform.  Zeus and I define and discuss the importance of this new role for networking within IT and the boardroom.

Arnold Solomon, Information Technologies Architect for the Southern Company joins the Lippis Report podcast to discuss its SIP phones based IP telephony deployment. The Southern Company is the largest utility company in the Southeast US and among the top 3 in the US. They have more than 85 locations served by HiPath 4000s. The Southern Co corporate HQ, which opened in downtown Atlanta in Oct 2005, features a 4000 v2 serving 600 optiPoint 420 Advanced phone sets. All users, including corporate officers, are using IP phones. They have a large deployment of SIP terminal adapters serving electric substations in GA, all off two 4000 v3s. Also installed are more than 100 Hicom 300s, which along with the 4000s serve more than 90% of all Southern Co desktops. They just introduced SIP phones in to this environment and you will want to hear what Arnold has to say about the deployment. Enjoy, Nick

I am joined by Arnold Solomon, Information Technologies Architect for the Southern Company to explore the interest in open source IP telephony.  There is a growing interest in the opening up of IP telephony architecture through the open source approach.  Arnold attended and spoke at Astricon this year and he shares his views and opinions on open source IP telephony and how Southern Company is using it.  There are lots of new companies such as Star2Star, Trixbox, Fonality, Asterisk and we talk about them all.  Enjoy Nick

Protecting data in "motion" has become top of mind for most IT executives as they look to close network security vulnerabilities and protect communications.  Being able to meet regulatory compliance requirements is also driving encryption sales.  Encryption has come a long way as users would pay the encryption penalty of delaying traffic as data passed through encryption devices.  But thanks to faster ASCIS this penalty has been all but eliminated.  Ron Willis, CEO of CipherOptics joins the program to discuss the encryption market.  Enjoy, Nick

Al Baker, US Vice President Product and Service Management and Martin Northend, Director of Portfolio Marketing for Small and Medium enterprise, both from Siemens Communications joined me on the Lippis Report to discuss SIP phones.  Siemens just launched its OpenStage SIP phones which interoperate with BroadSoft and Cilantro Softswitches.  These SIP phones allow Service Providers to offer hosted IP services based upon their existing softswitch investments to the small to medium sized business market.  The phones are sleek with i-pod like control, mobile phone directory services, large screen size and XML development environment.  You can download the Siemens presentation here.  This is the first SIP phone offering that is not linked to an equipment supplier's SIP proxy allowing a degree of freedom we have not seen in the industry thus far.  Enjoy, Nick 

Nick Lippis, of the Lippis Report and Zeus Kerravala, Senior Vice President of The Yankee Group�s Enterprise Research join the Lippis Report podcast to discuss the state of Unified Communications.  This term has received a renaissance with many companies using it to describe their approach to IP telephony applications.  Kerravala and Lippis define unified communications, discuss the problems it solves and it associated benefits to both end user and corporate productivity.