Stories by John Dix

Cisco describes its SDN vision: A Q&A with Soni Jiandani

Soni Jiandani is one of Cisco's serial entrepreneurs, having been a key member of the teams that developed everything from the Nexus 5000 to Cisco's Unified Computing System (which in five years has leapt to the top of the x86 blade server market in North America, according to IDC). Today Jiandani is Senior Vice President of Cisco's Insieme business unit, the group pushing the company's Software Defined Networking vision. Network World Editor in Chief John Dix caught with Jiandani to get her take on how SDN plays out.

NetApp sets its sights on cloud data management: A Q&A with CEO Tom Georgens

Moving virtual servers around a hybrid cloud environment isn't hard, but managing the data is. That's why NetApp wants to be "the enterprise data-management standard across the enterprise," says CEO Tom Georgens. Network World Editor in Chief John Dix recently caught up with Georgens to get his take on what changes in the cloud computing world.

Early user of VMware NSX net virtualization tool extols fine grain controls

Canadian airline company WestJet is one of the earliest customers of VMware's NSX network virtualization tools, which initially reached for the tech to address a security issue. Network World Editor in Chief John Dix recently sat down with WestJet technologist Richard Sillito to learn what the company is learning about network virtualization and its broader NSX plans.

Securing the virtual world

Catbird Networks Director of Product Management, Malcolm Reike, talks about how virtualization changes the security game with Network World Editor in Chief John Dix.

SDN: The next steps

Software Defined Networking technology is maturing and there are several real world use cases, but for most shops it is still a question of figuring out how we get there from here. In this Network World special report we analyze the promise and the options:

Healthcare provider finds SDN is the proper Rx

William Hanna, vice president of technical services at the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center (UPMC), went out looking for a way to add capacity to a backup network and found what he wanted in Software Defined Networking (SDN) tools from Alcatel-Lucent. Network World Editor in Chief John Dix sat down with Hanna to learn about the process and experience.

How GE uses social tools to support its digital strategies

Rich Narasaki is global manager, digital marketing in the GE corporate global brand marketing group and, as such, works with and supports the digital strategy efforts of the company's eight primary business divisions. While not a member of the IT team, Narasaki works with IT and marketing constantly, so Network World Editor in Chief John Dix tracked him down to get his perspective on how digital strategy plays out in such a huge operation.

Unplugging the data center

Nathan McBride joined AMAG Pharmaceuticals in 2008 with an ambitious goal: to rebuild IT using as little internal infrastructure as possible. He succeeded.

Driving innovation at Fidelity Investments

Fidelity Investments is one of the world's largest providers of financial services, with assets under administration of $4.7 trillion, and it didn't get there by using yesterday's technology. In fact, the company has a standalone group, Fidelity Center for Applied Technology – more commonly referred to as Fidelity Labs -- whose job it is to take the long view, to examine technologies years before they become mainstream and help the firm get a leg up.

The promise of the seamless cloud

Using the cloud to complement on-premise IT resources is one of the nirvana states envisioned for cloud computing, letting you architect for normal workloads and then burst to the cloud when necessary.

New methods for addressing insider threats: A roundtable discussion

Technology advances have made it easier to detect subtle, anomalous end-user behavior, such as installation of unusual apps on endpoint devices, or suspicious deviations from baseline activity. This roundtable discussion examines methods to build monitoring, control and context into enterprise insider threat protection efforts – both when dealing with privileged users and regular employees.

Inside Cisco's private cloud

Do private Clouds work? You bet they do, says Cisco, which has more than two years of experience under its belt with its Cisco IT Elastic Infrastructure Services (CITEIS) Cloud.

Revisiting Cisco's newest data center

We were last in Cisco's new data center in Allen, Texas, in the fall of 2010 when the company was just putting the finishing touches on the 160,000 square foot building with 35,000 square feet of "raised floor" (they still use that lingo even though this facility doesn't use raised floors).

[]