Resource Library

“Twisted Pair” is another way to identify a network cabling solution that’s also called Unshielded Twisted Pair (UTP) and was invented by Alexander Graham Bell in 1881. Indoor business telephone applications use them in 25-pair bundles. In homes, they were down to four wires, but in networking we use them in 8-wire cables. By twisting the pairs at different rates (twists per foot), cable manufacturers can reduce the electromagnetic pulses coming from the cable while improving the cable’s ability to reject common electronic noise from the environment.

The Cisco UCS is truly a “unified” architecture that integrates three major datacenter technologies into a single, coherent system: Computing Network Storage Instead of being simply the next generation of blade servers, the Cisco UCS is an innova­tive architecture designed from scratch to be highly scalable, efficient, and powerful with one-third less infrastructure than traditional blade servers.

That depends on their configurations. For example: While it makes very good sense to include redundant physical links in a network, connecting switches in loops, without taking the appropriate measures, will cause havoc on a network. Without the correct measures, a switch floods broadcast frames out all of its ports, causing serious problems for the network devices. The main problem is a broadcast storm where broadcast frames are flooded through every switch until all available bandwidth is used and all network devices have more inbound frames than they can process.

To understand the difference between Ethernet II and 802.3, you first must know how Ethernet works. While Ethernet cables transmit data, their role is relatively simple compared to that of the Ethernet card — also referred to as an adapter. It’s within the function of this card that you find the differences between Ethernet II and 802.3.

A range of factors can influence the data center you choose. You should consider all of the factors listed in this white paper before deciding where to place your servers.

In 2013, Cisco released their Software Defined Networking (SDN) solution for the data center known as Cisco Application Centric Infrastructure (ACI). For many years, the networking industry has been asking for an approach to configuring networking devices more efficiently than having to individually configure each and every router and switch.

Organizations are moving strongly toward Bring Your Own Device (BYOD) access, bringing outsourced activities back in-house, and finding ways to make use of the growing amounts of data flowing in from many new sources such as social media. These factors create an increasing shift in required and desired skills showing up in IT departments. Hiring and salary surveys, such as the 2014 IT Skills and Salary Survey from Global Knowledge and Windows IP Pro, TEKsystems' 2014 Annual IT Forecast, Foote Research Group's 2014 IT Skills and Certifications Pay Index, Computerworld's annual Forecast survey, Robert Half Technology Survey, and information from the US Bureau of Labor Statistics, Futurestep, Mondo, GovLoop, and Dice have presented a developing picture of the IT skills that will be in demand in 2014. Here, in survey order, are the top 10 major skills and why they made the list.

Cisco Internetwork Operating System (IOS) has been around since a little after the inception of Cisco Systems as a company. In 1984, Len and Sandy Bosack from Stanford University founded Cisco Systems with a small commercial gateway server. The first Cisco router that I touched was an Advanced Gateway Server (AGS), which was the first marketed product of the company. After this came the Mid-Range Gateway Server (MGS), the Compact Gateway Server (CGS) and later the Integrated Gateway Server (IGS) and AGS+. The first version of IOS that I touched was 8.2(7). The operating system was based on a Unix-based system and was designed as a monolithic operating system, meaning that processes are stacked and interrelated.

Accessing cloud-based resources, whether they be IaaS/PaaS/SaaS-based, is very convenient. With a browser and Internet connection, you are up and running. No driving to your work office, no need to log into the corporate network. Just open up your web browser and go. This convenience, however, comes with a security risk. All of your business work is conducted over an insecure communication network. Unlike your office network, where the network link between you and the data center is under corporate control and is physically secure, the cloud access link is over the Internet.

Every second of every day, data is being sent and received. Billions of data packets are processed by your company’s network every day. In fact, you received dozens of packets just to read this article, but the vast majority of us have no idea how this works. People have no clue as to what goes on behind the scenes to ensure data actually gets to the right device.