These days, your network is as important to your business as any other item—including your products. Whether your customers are internal or external, you need a dependable and secure network that grows with your business. Without one, you are dead in the water. IT managers have a nearly impossible job. They must understand, manage, and secure the network all the time against all problems. Anything less than a 100 percent working network is a failure. There is a very familiar saying: Don’t miss t...

In our last blog post “Why you need NCCM as part of your Network Management Platform” I introduced the many reasons that growing networks should investigate and implement an NCCM solution. One of the reasons is that an NCCM system can help with automation in a key area which is related to network security as well as compliance and availability – Policy Checking. So, in this post, I will be taking a deeper dive into Network Device Policy Checking which will (hopefully) shed some light onto what I...

Nationwide operators Telus and Bell Canada were declared winners of residual AWS-3 (2100MHz/1700MHz) 4G spectrum licences at the end of August in the ‘leftover’ concession auction run by Industry Canada. Telus paid CAD58 million (USD43.8 million) for six additional AWS-3 licence blocks covering Manitoba and Saskatchewan, while Bell secured another nine AWS-3 concessions (three in each of the Far North territories: Yukon, Northwest Territories and Nunavut) costing CAD206,000. The two national ope...

Infosim® Global Webinar Day Why is this app so terribly slow? How to achieve full Application Monitoring with StableNet® Join Matthias Schmid, Director of Project Management with Infosim® for a Webinar and Live Demo on “How to achieve full Application Monitoring with StableNet®”.     This Webinar will provide insight into: Why you need holistic monitoring for all your company applications How the technologies offered by StableNet® will help you master this challenge Furthermo...

Canadian nationwide rural fixed-wireless broadband provider Xplornet Communications has agreed to acquire 100% of Calgary-based WiMAX network operator Platinum Communications for CAD0.16 (USD0.12) per share in cash. Platinum operates a wireless broadband network offering internet and digital phone services to residents and businesses across the province of Alberta, catering primarily to rural and near-urban areas that are often beyond the reach of traditional (fixed) internet providers. Bernard ...

Sapling’s IP Clock System is unlike your typical clock system. This synchronized clock system is powered by (PoE) or Power-over-Ethernet, receiving power and data through a CAT5 cable, there is no need for an additional outlet. This system allows for easy set up and operation for any user and has a number of unique features that make it stand out among the rest. One such feature is that each clock has its own built-in web interface. The web interface allows a user to adjust many different settin...

There is no doubt that virtualization is one of the hottest technology topics with communication service providers (CSPs) today. Nearly all the forecasts suggest that widespread NFV adoption will happen over the next few years, with CSPs benefitting from significantly reduced operational costs and much higher revenues resulting from increased service flexibility and velocity. So much for the hype – but where do NFV standards, guidelines and technology implementations stand today and when will th...

In the landscape of Enterprise Network Management most products (and IT Professionals) tend to focus on “traditional” IT monitoring. By that I mean the monitoring of devices, servers, and applications for performance issues and faults. That makes sense because most networks evolve in a similar fashion. They are first built out to accommodate the needs of the business. This primarily involves supporting access for people to applications they need to do their jobs. Once the initial buildout is don...

Our team is excited to represent Viavi Solutions during an industy (IT and cloud-focused) event, VMworld, in San Francisco at booth #2235. We’ll be showcasing our latest innovation – the GigaStor Software Edition designed for managing performance in virtual, cloud, and remote environments. Here are some topline thoughts about why this product matters for our customers and core technologies trending today, what a great time it is for the industry and to be Viavi! For starters, the solution is abl...

The working definition of a Network Operations Center (NOC) varies with each customer we talk with; however, the one point which remains unified is that the NOC should be the main point of visibility for key functions that combine to provide business services. The level at which a NOC ‘product’ is interactive depends on individual customer goals and requirements. Major equipment vendors trying to increase revenue are delving into management and visibility solutions with acquisitions and mergers,...

The Growing Impact of Social Networking Trends on Lawful Interception Lawful Interception (LI) is the legal process by which a communications network operator or Service Provider (SP) gives authorized officials access to the communications of individuals or organizations. With security threats mushrooming in new directions, LI is more than ever a priority and major focus of Law Enforcement Agencies (LEAs). Regulations such as the Communications Assistance for Law Enforcement Act (CALEA), mandate...

There are many famous debates in history: dogs vs cats, vanilla vs chocolate & Coke vs Pepsi just to name a few. In the IT world, one of the more common debates is “single platform vs point solution”. That is, when it comes to the best way to monitor and manage a network, is it better to have a single management platform that can do multiple things, or would it be better to have an array of tools that are each specialized for a job? The choice can be thought of as being between Multitaskers ...

Viavi Solutions Launches GigaStor Software Edition for Virtual and Cloud Environments Solution Delivers Fast and Accurate Troubleshooting and Assurance in Next Generation Network Architecture (NASDAQ: VIAV) Viavi Solutions Inc. (“Viavi”) today announced it is expanding its portfolio of software-defined network test and monitoring solutions with the new GigaStor Software Edition to manage performance and user experience in virtual and cloud environments. The new software configurations, which Via...

For high school students, the short break in between classes is no relaxing matter. They have only a few minutes to get from one classroom to the next. If a student needs to pick up their books for the next class and must stop at their locker, this makes the trip even more challenging. Those few minutes in between classes can get hectic with hundreds of students flooding the hallways sharing the common goal of reaching their next destination on time. Most students are even unaware of how much ti...

One of the major issues that IT organizations have with any form of external cloud computing is that they don’t have much visibility into what is occurring within any of those environments. To help address that specific issue, Ixia created its Net Tool Optimizer, which makes use of virtual and physical taps to provide visibility into cloud computing environments. Now via the latest upgrade to that software, Ixia is providing support for both virtual and physical networks while doubling the numbe...

Remember the “good old days” when everyone that worked got in their car and drove to a big office building every day? And any application that a user needed was housed completely within the walls of the corporate datacenter? And partners / customers had to dial a phone to get a price or place an order? Well, if you are as old as I am, you may remember those days – but for the vast majority you reading this, you may think of what I just described as being about as common as a black and white TV. ...

The production department in any company typically runs hand in hand with the company’s overall success. If the manufactures cannot produce goods fast enough then the company’s customer satisfaction will plummet if demand is not met in a timely fashion. The speed in which these manufacturers can produce a product relies heavily on their time management skills. If a manufacturer is not efficient in his or her time management then they will simply fall behind schedule. Emerging technologies has pr...

Flexible, Fail-Safe Inline Security Boosts Agility, Availability, and Resilience While Reducing Network Costs As networks deliver more services and carry ever-higher volumes of multiprotocol traffic, data rates continue to soar. Voice, data, and streaming video now travel on one wire, raising security and compliance issues. Today’s intense threat landscape demands multiple proactive security systems throughout the network for a strong, layered security posture. These proactive devices include fi...

Oh. My. God. This time it IS the network! How to prevent - or recover from - a network disaster Join Jason Farrer, Sales Engineer with Infosim® Inc. for a Webinar and Live Demo on “How to prevent – or recover from – a network disaster”.   This Webinar will provide insight into: Why is it important to provide for a network disaster? How to deal with network disaster scenarios [Live Demo] How to prevent network corruption & enhance network security Watch Now! A recording of this...

Much like monitoring the heath of your body, monitoring the health of your IT systems can get complicated. There are potentially hundreds of data points that you could monitor, but I am often asked by customers to help them decide what they should monitor. This is mostly due to there being so many available KPI options that can be implemented. However, once you begin to monitor a particular KPI, then to some degree you are implicitly stating that this KPI must be important (since I am monitoring...