Cisco Data Center 3.0 – Changing the economics of the Data Center

Data center professionals are being challenged to address major market, globalization, and technology trends that will drastically change the way data center infrastructures are deployed and operated over the next decade. The primary challenges are: risk management and regulatory compliance, cost and power efficiency and business alignment.

Cisco has recently delivered some of the most disruptive technologies to hit the network floor of the Data Center. Most of you today are paying more to cool your Data Center than you are to power the internal components that comprise the systems within the Data Center. Cisco offer’s a Major TCO reduction in the Data Center.

Cisco’s Nexus Data Center switches solve three basic problems in the Data Center.

• Reduction of Rack Space and required to support the growing server connections which in-turn reduces the amount of power and cooling required for connectivity
• Increased, secure bandwidth per server through Cisco’s new “Data Center Ethernet” technologies and 10Gig connections.
• Decrease in the cost and complexity of cabling in the Data Center

Combine this with direct integration of VM-Ware’s V-motion at the Hyper-Visor level, and now you have the ability to move or provision applications into production in real-time. Cisco’s Nexus 1000V software provides you the ability to create policy based rules for their virtual environment that can be instantly applied to new Virtual Machines, that include all of the required network mapping and security policies that used to take hours to create.

So whether you are dealing with regulatory compliance, decreasing rack space, or increasing power and cooling costs, Softchoice can show you how Cisco’s Nexus Data Center switches are solving many basic problems.

Learn more about Cisco Data Center products

Unified Communications and Collaboration
Bring People and Information Together

Unified Communications help companies contend with growing communication complexity and increasingly mobile workers who now work everywhere. Without unified communications, disparate voice, video, data, and mobility applications are not as effective as they could be. The result is information overload and misdirected communications that delay decisions, slow down processes, and reduce productivity.

Business Benefits:

• Cisco Unified Communications Streamlines Communications – empowers people to choose when, how, where and with whom they wish to communicate. Ensures information reaches recipients quickly.
• Be Productive Everywhere – instant connections and on-demand collaborations
• Integrated Applications for Ease of Use – access information and reach key-decision makers quickly. Communicate spontaneously.

To stay competitive in today’s market, Softchoice understands you are looking for ways to reduce cost while increasing value to your business. Let us show you how Cisco’s Unified Communication and Collaboration suite offers you a Centralized Communications platform that leverages the investment of your current Cisco Data Infrastructure.

Find out more about Cisco’s suite of Unified Communications and Collaboration products, including WebEx and Telepresence

Security – Streamline IT Risk Management for Security and Compliance

Cisco security balances protection and power to deliver highly secure collaboration. With Cisco security solutions, you can connect, communicate, and conduct business securely while protecting users, information, applications, and the network.

A connected world presents complex network security challenges. Business technologies such as interactive Websites, collaborative tools, service-oriented architectures (SOA), and virtualization proliferate within an increasingly sophisticated threat environment. Threats from an eroding perimeter, unsolicited e-mail, botnets, malware, and information theft disrupt productivity, adversely affect customer relationships, and erode profits. IT departments must manage security risks while ensuring regulatory compliance.

Today's security and compliance challenges require a systems approach. The Cisco Self-Defending Network enables companies to:

• Design a trusted infrastructure that protects against business disruption
• Evolve and operate effectively while maintaining a secure, compliant environment

A hallmark of this comprehensive, flexible approach to security is the ability to integrate new services in spite of increasing external and internal threats.

The Cisco Self-Defending Network enables IT organizations to:

• Rapidly identify and respond to evolving threats
• Enforce business policies
• Protect critical assets
• Decrease complexity
• Ease the administrative burden of IT
• Lower total cost of ownership

We believe Security is not a product, it is a process that derives from a policy that is created to protect corporate assets. No one product can stop all threats. Let Softchoice show you how a “Defense in-depth” security strategy can protect your environment, and take advantage of all of the features that our existing Cisco Network should be providing your organization.

Learn more about Cisco Security

Wireless and Mobility – Putting Business in Motion

Mobility solutions let your employees conduct business anywhere, anytime, from any device delivering three key capabilities to the organization: insight, collaboration, and awareness. The technology underpinning mobility spans the spectrum of network capabilities: wired and wireless IP networks, unified communications, and location tracking solutions, each of which has integral security capabilities to protect both the device and the enterprise network.

Increasing globalization, flat budgets, and growing customer demand for immediacy are leading organizations to use mobility as a way to gain business advantage. Mobility solutions can potentially help you increase revenue and control costs, to facilitate:

• Increased customer responsiveness
• Faster reaction to market events
• Competitive edge through real-time data access

Wireless networks are a key component of a mobility solution, helping to increase productive time inside the enterprise:

• Wireless networks facilitate real-time access to people, applications, and network resources across campuses, branch offices, and remote locations using a variety of devices
• Solution providers recognize the demand and are offering new, innovative wireless services
• As high-speed municipal networks and public hot zones expand, rich enterprise application experiences are becoming available to mobile workers, whether they're on transportation systems or in cafés, restaurants, or hotels

Softchoice understands all of this - we have designed and deployed solutions that give customers the ability to roam from office to conference room while maintaining connectivity to critical applications, or students the ability to gain access to research material while on campus. Give us a call to learn more about what we can do for you.

Learn more about Cisco’s Mobility strategy at:
http://www.cisco.com/en/US/netsol/ns175/networking_solutions_solution_segment_home.html

Network Systems

Today’s businesses require a network platform that enables technology innovation and business-critical services across the entire network. Cisco stands alone in its ability to provide an end-to-end network platform tied together by a common infrastructure and a common operating system, and manageable as a single, cohesive entity.

Only Cisco can provide the platform for campus, branch, data center, and wide-area networks that are highly available while integrating security at all levels of the network, helping to ensure the optimized delivery of application and communications, and providing inherent manageability. This platform includes:

• Routing: Cisco offers the only routers that allow organizations to build a foundation for an intelligent, self-defending network, featuring best-in-class security services and routing technologies for the lowest total cost of ownership and highest return on investment.
• Switching: Cisco offers one of the industry’s most comprehensive portfolios of intelligent network switches, providing a continuously expanding suite of intelligent services and advanced technologies to strengthen, simplify, and extend the value of the network infrastructure.
• Cisco IOS Software: Cisco IOS Software operates across routers and switches to enable an infrastructure that is highly available, secure, manageable, flexible, and scalable, and upon which businesses can quickly and confidently deploy advanced technologies.
• Network Management: Cisco offers management tools and applications that ease network deployment, improve operational efficiency, increase network uptime, and reduce total cost of ownership.

As a Cisco Gold Partner, Softchoice is able to help you with all of these needs. Whether it be the core switches or routers for your corporate or branch offices or the Cisco Energy Wise products.

Learn more about Cisco’s Green Practices

Learn more about Cisco’s Network System Product Portfolio

SMARTnet - Cisco SMARTnet Service for Rapid Problem Resolution

Cisco SMARTnet Service is an award-winning technical support service that offers direct, anytime access to Cisco engineers and an extensive range of technical resources. SMARTnet delivers rapid issue resolution, flexible device-by-device coverage, and premium service options to help maximize operational efficiency.

• Around-the-clock, global access to the Cisco Technical Assistance Center (TAC)
• Access to the extensive Cisco.com knowledgebase and tools
• Next-business-day advance hardware replacement (premium options available for business-critical devices, such as 2-hour replacement and onsite parts replacement and installation)
• Ongoing operating system software updates including both minor and major releases within
  the licensed feature set
• Proactive diagnostics and real-time alerts on select devices with Smart Call Home

Softchoice understands that Cisco SMARTnet is essential to keeping your business-critical functions available, secure, and operating at peak performance. Let us help you find the right service contract for your Cisco hardware or renew and consolidate your existing SMARTnet contracts.

More information on Cisco SMARTnet