Apr 11 2008 3:31PM GMT
Posted by: Tony Bradley
Unified Communications,
UC,
SCS500,
SIP,
IBM,
Dell,
Nortel
Built on an open source foundation, with the collaboration of the open source community in the SIPFoundry Project, Nortel’s new SCS500 (Software Communications System) provides small and medium businesses from 30 to 500+ employees with an affordable unified communications solution. The SCS500 is a SIP-centric unified communications product that provides instant messaging, presence, IP telephony, conferencing, and other unified communications capabilities. Nortel believes that there are 5 key elements to unified communications for the SMB market: productivity, efficiency, flexibility, cost savings, and mobility. They believe that the SCS500 delivers on each of these elements. The SCS500 is offered on popular Dell and IBM server platforms. You can learn more about the Nortel SCS500 in this CNNMoney.com article.
Mar 23 2008 3:12AM GMT
Posted by: Tony Bradley
VoiceCon,
interoperability,
Unified Communications,
UCC,
Lotus Sametime,
IBM,
Microsoft
In my last post, I mentioned that the lack of standards and platform interoperability was one of the biggest issues for early adopters of Unified Communications technologies. Microsoft and IBM are two of the biggest players in the Unified Communications arena. Microsoft is aggressively pushing for its share of the Unified Communications pie with their UCC (Unified Communications & Collaboration) tools. IBM, with their Lotus Sametime product, recently announced that they are investing $1 billion in R&D and acquisitions to strengthen their Unified Communications position. However, there are reports that an impromptu discussion at a VoiceCon Orlando session may lead to the two titans working on testing the interoperability of their products. If they manage to organize the testing, a demonstration of the interoperability may be performed at VoiceCon San Francisco this Fall.
Mar 12 2008 3:18AM GMT
Posted by: Tony Bradley
IBM,
UCC,
VoIP,
Office Communications Server 2007,
Office Communicator 2007,
SIP,
Unified Communications
Not wanting to be left out of the next big wave in network / office communications, IBM this week announced that they have earmarked $1 Billion (With a ‘B’. The one with 9 zeros after it) for internal development and key strategic acquisitions to enhance and develop their unified communications offerings. I guess they are serious about jumping in to the deep end and taking on Microsoft and Cisco for their share of the UC pie.
Nov 24 2007 2:57AM GMT
Posted by: Tony Bradley
Google,
IEEE,
DataCenter,
Networking,
Ethernet,
Gigabit ethernet
When you’re an Internet juggernaut like Google, you can’t let simple things like the fact that a technology hasn’t been invented get in your way. Google has to transport a lot of data from Point A to Point B within their data center very quickly in order to work all of the magic they do that keeps the users coming back. The mortal world of networking has 1Gbps Ethernet networks, but that is the max for now. IEEE is working on developing both 40Gbps and 100Gbps standards, but it could be years before the standards are ratified and actual, functioning equipment hits the streets. Iconic organizations like Google can’t be sitting around, twiddling their thumbs waiting for standards to be ratified. The rumor is that their is evidence to suggest that Google has developed their own 10Gbps switches in-house for their data centers. Check out this Networkworld.com article for more about the story.
Nov 11 2007 4:31AM GMT
Posted by: Tony Bradley
DataCenter,
Networking
If you have gone through the exercise of architecting the power needs for your data center, or doing the math to determine how much power your backup generator needs to produce in the event of a data center power outage, then you know just how much juice it takes to keep the lights on in that room. The fact that you have to run air cooling units to dissipate the heat being generated from the network equipment tells you there is some power in there. Whether you are interested in shaving some dollars off of the bottom line to make sure there is more money in your compensation pool, or you are interested in saving and preserving our environment by not using electricity needlessly, there are steps you can take to reduce or minimize the amount of power being consumed in your data center. Gary Audin, President of consulting firm Delphi, Inc., was recently interviewed on SearchNetworking.com and provides some insight into the issues of power consumption and how to reduce the IT department’s electric bill.
