In the past few years, the enterprise computing technology has changed dramatically. Virtualization, SaaS, and cloud computing are creating fundamental changes, and leading to an time in which enterprises distribute critical IT applications across multiple service providers and infrastructure. These changes are rendering legacy monitoring tools, which have their roots in the computing environments of a decade or more ago, virtually useless. This paper explores today’s computing trends and their ...

In part 1 of this blog, I mentioned that our customers often ask the question “What can really be done to improve network visibility?” I answered the question with regards to data and packet conditioning. In the 2nd part of this discussion, I’ll continue to answer the question with a second set of features that will deliver even more verifiable benefits to improve network visibility. I’ll provide you an in-depth view of features that will deliver true benefits. There are 5 fundamental feature se...

There’s no doubt that big data offers big benefits to the enterprise. Improved productivity, better insight into customer experience, and process optimization are just a few ways that teams can get ahead with the technology. In fact, the number of companies implementing big data projects has grown exponentially. According to a study by IDG, nearly half of 751 respondents said they are in the process of implementing, or likely to implement a big data project in the near future. The top ten percen...

Bell Canada Enterprises (BCE) has agreed a CAD594 million (USD520 million) cash-and-stock deal to buy independent cellphone retailer Glentel, the Globe & Mail reports. The deal will give Bell ownership of Glentel’s roughly 500 own-brand retail locations in Canada, as well as kiosks at Target Canada and Costco under the names ‘Wirelesswave’, ‘Tbooth wireless’ and ‘Wireless etc’. BCE previously bought another phone retail chain, The Source, with around 750 locations, in 2009. The Source now ex...

Canada’s fourth largest cellular operator by subscribers Wind Mobile has added a third domestic network roaming partner, Telus, to add to its existing partners Rogers and Bell, raising its combined on-net and roaming coverage footprint to 97% of the population, reports MobileSyrup. The company indicated that its roaming (‘WIND Away’) network coverage has expanded by 14% across the country and 40% in Telus’ home province of British Columbia via the deal. Earlier this year Canada’s telecoms regula...

“What can really be done to improve network visibility?” This is a question that our customers often ask us. They’ve heard about this and that and something else but are often left confused as to what capabilities actually exist in the market to solve their network visibility problems. In this multi-part blog, I’ll provide you an in-depth view of features that will deliver true benefits. There are 5 fundamental feature sets that we’ll cover: Data and packet conditioning Advanced packet filtering...

Is your performance management solution a target for attackers? With increasingly creative exploits, it is important to stay ahead of the curve when it comes to data protection. Performance monitoring tools that do not keep pace can leave your information vulnerable. TOTAL PERFORMANCE MANAGEMENT The Observer® Performance Management Platform is a fully integrated solution, purpose-built to support the highest level of network security. Its features include: TLS-based 256-bit encryption for data i...

Indebted Canadian cellco Mobilicity has received its eighth court-sanctioned extension to its creditor protection, from 1 December 2014 until 30 January 2015, while it continues to seek a buyer for its business, the Globe & Mail reports. In its latest court filing Mobilicity reported 154,900 active subscribers at 31 October, down by 1,400 since August, Canadian website MobileSyrup noted, as the struggling operator continues to compete via discount offers and promotions. The court document al...

Ixia's Visibility Architecture solution easily integrates into data center environments to help enterprises and service providers achieve greater visibility into and performance for rapidly growing complex networks. Today's networks continue to grow in size and complexity, presenting new challenges for IT and network administrators. More users are connecting using multiple mobile devices consuming more data from more sources – and many of those apps are hosted on virtualized infrastructure. What...

Although many people may perceive Network Management as an extremely complicated and diverse area of specialty, there really are only 5 questions that every Network Manager needs to think about. The main components behind every problem in Network Management, are as follows: What do I have? If you don’t know what you have how can you manage or monitor it. Most of the time in Network Management you’re trying to track down potential issues and how you’re going to resolve these issues. This is a ver...

Whether in the product business, or in services, a company’s brand image is shaped by how customers feel about interacting with the company. The impression they take away from a call to the business’s support or contact center has a lasting impact that can be either good or bad. Customer facing operations are crucial. As a business grows or undergoes other strategic changes, it may require updating its contact center operations as well. Signaling Change Arnab Mishra is Senior VP, Products and So...

PresenTense offers you an alternative to the limited functionality of synchronizing with Microsoft W32Time program. PresenTense, will not only synchronize all of the Windows PCs on the network, but also provides alert notification and a audit trail which is  not available from the Microsoft W32Time (Windows Time Service). PresenTense Client and Server software is a has Graphical User Interface (GUI) based program that can provide a primary and back-up time reference for redundancy. PresenTe...

High-stakes Monitoring Global finance moves fast. When data and transactions don't take place as smoothly or securely as expected, the company's revenues and reputation may instantly suffer, causing valued customers to seek more reliable providers. Regulatory requirements are also growing, creating a greater need for security and compliance monitoring. To mitigate risk and ensure performance, Ixia's network visibility solutions deliver the ongoing data needed to dynamically detect, avoid, and ad...

Many people believe they are best served by real people, not by voice robots. That’s the rationale behind GetHuman.com. But the economics and utility of self-service as an alternative to live agent interactions are so compelling that self-service solutions are here to stay. Providing multiple touchpoints is a huge technology investment. Technology is great, but you can’t just diligently manage the implementation process and then assume all is well with the customer service experience. Because no...

In a press release, Canadian full-service telco Telus announced it is introducing two new solutions to enable Canadian businesses leverage cloud-based technology ‘to improve how they communicate with their customers, employees and partners.’ TELUS Cloud Collaboration provides businesses with access to a full suite of unified communications services, and TELUS Cloud Contact Centre offers a fully featured contact centre solution hosted in the cloud. Both products are powered by the Cisco Hosted Co...

Security breaches are common today – from computer viruses, such as Bash Bug or Heartbleed, undermining the security of millions of websites, to credit card cyber theft experienced by big retailers. One effort to protect cardholder information is Payment Card Industry (PCI) Data Security Standard (DSS), which was created in October 2008 to protect personal cardholder information whenever used in a financial transaction. PCI DSS, which is applied wherever cardholder data is stored, processed or t...

Protect Your Critical Traffic with Fail-Safe Inline Security In our rapidly evolving landscape, networks must deliver more services and carry ever-higher volumes of multiprotocol traffic as data rates soar. Voice, data, and streaming video now travel on one wire, raising many security and compliance issues. All of this dynamic activity calls for inline monitoring and security tools to assess every packet and thwart incoming threats before they can manifest and do their damage. Inline monitoring ...

The Biggest Videoconferencing Challenge? Real-Time Performance Management Did you know that according to Enterprise Management Associates EMA™ analysts, 95 percent of organizations have VoIP on their network – and more than half have deployed videoconferencing? IP videoconferencing has strong appeal to businesses through its promise of significant cost and time savings. But how simple is the transition to video? For end users, video communications are expected to be smooth, seamless, and simple....

Canada’s Bell Media has reached its first distribution deals to deliver its new premium on-demand video streaming service to subscribers – with parent telco Bell Canada and newly merged Atlantic subsidiary Bell Aliant, alongside western Canadian incumbent telco Telus, while it says that the service, ‘codenamed Project Latte’, will be made available to ‘every TV provider in the country’ in due course. Customers will be able to access ‘thousands of hours’ of TV content including HBO’s entire off-a...

The key concept is that security isn’t something you purchase, it’s something you need to do – preferably on an everyday basis. There is no perfect security product that can stop intruders in their tracks. It needs to be a concerted process of best practices that are put into place and maintained. The first step is to put a visibility architecture in place that supports your security plan. A visibility architecture is essentially a cost-effective design that provides access to network traffic, i...