Following is some of what you can expect from Carousel at Enterprise Connect 2013.

Unified Communications on Display at Enterprise Connect

At the Carousel booth, no. 828, visitors will get a sense for the myriad ways Carousel and its partners can create a unified communications solution that includes video and desktop virtualization. We’ll be demonstrating how Avaya, Microsoft Lync, Polycom, Radvision and VMware can seamlessly integrate together to provide a complete UC solution.

You’ll see various first-hand combinations, including a Lync client calling a Polycom HDX or RMX video platform as well as a multivendor video call with Polycom Realpresence, Scopia Mobile/Desktop and Flare Experience all dialing into a Radvision VMR. Visitors can also check out our demo of various video clients, including Avaya’s VDI Communicator running in VMware View as well as Avaya Flare on iPad and on Windows.

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

Save 40% on a conference pass or get a Free Expo pass if you join us at the show!

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

We’ll also be demonstrating Polycom’s Cloud Access solution, showing customers how it helps them leverage current investments while using public or private cloud or premise-based solutions to communicate securely internally and outside the organization.

It’s all about making video usage as easy and reliable as possible for the end users in your organization, and at our booth you’ll be able to experience that first hand – no matter how complex your environment may be.

Core vs. Chore: The Role of SmartPoint Managed Services

Also in the Carousel booth (did we mention it’s no. 828?), customers will learn how to increase the level of support they provide to end users without increasing IT headcount – through Carousel’s SmartPoint Managed Service offering. SmartPoint provides a powerful, intelligent platform, access to industry experts and services for intelligent IT planning and ongoing operational support.

IT investments and efforts need to be based on an unwavering focus on competing in your target market. Part of this comes down to a “core vs. chore” decision-making framework.  IT needs to increase investment in core activities in order to build competitive advantage, and offload chores to external service providers.

Carousel’s SmartPoint Managed Service Offers allow for the offloading of many of your chore-based activities, such as:
•       Proactive monitoring
•       Patch management
•       Service desk
•       Incident management
•       Carrier management
•       Triage & troubleshooting
•       Configuration management
•       Custom reporting
•       Capacity planning

In his session on managed services, our own Mark Damphousse will explain how the typical IT staff spends 80% of its time on low-value “chore” activities, leaving only 20% for “core.” He’ll explain how the effective use of managed services can help reverse that ratio and turn the IT group into a profit driver instead of a cost center.  His session, “Managed Services – Innovating the Support Model” will be in the Market Leaders Theater on Wed., March 20 from 3:30 to 3:50 p.m.

Extreme to Demo Vendor Agnostic Virtualization Environment

Our partner Extreme Networks will also be in the Carousel booth, demonstrating ExtremeXOS Network Virtualization (XNV), a vendor agnostic virtualized environment. With XNV, customers can centrally view network-based virtual machine (VM) inventory for VMware, Microsoft and Citrix VMs. Visitors will see Extreme demonstrate the centralized network-based configuration and distributed enforcement of virtual port profiles (VPP) as well as a live migration of virtual machines on both virtualization platforms. We’ll also be showing off how XNV provides automated VM lifecycle tracking of virtual machines in the network as the VMs migrate from server to server. And visitors will witness how XNV can automatically move the VM’s VPP to the appropriate network switch and enforce the VPP-based parameters and policies in real time.

If you’re attending Enterprise Connect 2013, be sure to connect with Carousel at booth (if we haven’t mentioned it, we’re at booth #828). Come by and view one or more demos and you’ll be eligible to win a $100 Amex gift card sponsored by Avaya, Extreme and Carousel.  We’ll be holding raffles daily so be sure to make some time to come by. Hope to see you at the show.

Carousel Industries’ partners Juniper and Polycom are ready to help, with a video conferencing telemedicine offering suitable for even the most critical care applications, says Ryan Witt, the the Global Managing Director, Healthcare and Pharmaceutical at Juniper Networks.

Shift from Service Model to Results Model Changes the Healthcare Picture

Today’s health care model is very much service-based, Witt says, meaning doctors and hospitals are reimbursed for the services they perform. Under that kind of model, doctors have an incentive to encourage patients to come to their office for treatment. It’s there that doctors can conduct exams, run tests, do blood work, prescribe medicine and deliver all the rest of the services for which they insurance companies reimburse them.

“That will change over the next decade with the Affordable Care Act,” Witt says. “It will transform to an outcome-based model.”

Rather than get reimbursed for every service they perform, doctors will be reimbursed for improving outcomes. “Doctors will have to demonstrate improvements in patient conditions to get reimbursed,” he says.

New Incentives for Telemedicine

Under the service-based model, there’s little incentive to pursue the use of telemedicine because there’s limited reimbursement for treatments offered using the technology. “Less than 10% of telemedicine treatment is currently eligible for reimbursement,” Witt says.

As a result, it’s used mainly in special, non-critical care situations such as for dermatology and psychiatry – situations where there’s not a lot of stress to provide a bulletproof network to support the application. Tele-dermatology, for example, doesn’t really even require a live connection. Rather, sending photos back and forth can often work just fine.

The shift to results-based reimbursement will dramatically change that dynamic, however. Suddenly there will be more incentive to have experts remotely consult on cases and those experts will be more than willing to use telemedicine to share their knowledge because they will get reimbursed accordingly.

Critical Care Requires a Robust, Trustworthy Network

The more doctors come to rely on telemedicine, however, the more they will need a robust, high-performance and highly reliable infrastructure to deliver it. That’s where Juniper and Polycom come in.

Juniper has worked to integrate the Session and Resource Control (SRC) software that runs on its switches with the Polycom RealPresence Virtualization Manager (DMA), an integral component of the Polycom RealPresence video platform. The SRC is a policy engine that dictates the level of service each call gets. That enables critical telemedicine sessions to get a guaranteed level of service.

“We’ve both done development and written code to maximize uptime,” Witt says.  “We can now get to a point with Polycom that we can guarantee uptime of the video linkages for the duration of the consultation. We can now say to a hospital or caregiver, ‘You can deploy this against your most acute care scenarios.’”

The Juniper/Polycom solution is robust enough that it can be used, for example, to enable a faraway surgeon to guide another surgeon through an operation he’s never performed before, enabling experts at elite hospitals to work with others in more rural settings.

“Your talent can be made available globally,” Witt says. That’s important because the world is facing a shortage of doctors that is only projected to get worse, he notes. “Specialty care practices will become more refined and shareable across a region or nation.”

It’s an exciting time in the healthcare field and Carousel is proud to be working alongside partners like Juniper and Polycom to help make it happen. For more details on implementing a telemedicine solution in your healthcare organization, Contact Carousel today.

The Right Network Components for BYOD

To provide an optimal BYOD experience for end users, the core network needs to be robust enough to handle 3 to 5 devices per users, high traffic loads and employees and guests logging on from anywhere on campus and then moving around.

“You have to start by ensuring a solid foundation is in place,” says Wester. Wired routers and switches must be fast and capable, as well as provide redundancy. The network must provide failsafe capabilities and be able to identify outages and respond. “If your network backbone is not up to the task, the rest of your efforts will not cut it either.”

Enhancing your wireless network edge is key, Wester explains.  APs can now be tightly integrated with the core network with new technology Extreme offers called Direct Forwarding. This allows for AP’s to connect a device – think smartphone – directly to the wired network. This lowers the workload on the AP’s and puts the heavy lifting on the wired backbone which is much more capable.

BYOD On-Boarding Solutions Make Life Easier

“Often times, getting a new user on-board a network involves configuration that your typical end user isn’t capable of executing on. They are not expert in configuring WPA security with 802.11x”, says Wester. “This non-automated approach simply doesn’t scale and results in a lot of help desk tickets.”

We review putting in place on-boarding solutions, like that from Cloudpath, to streamline the process of getting users and guests onto the network. Leveraging dissolvable clients, these tools quickly authenticate, issue certificates and on-board users while establishing the correct parameters and policies. For guests, utilizing Facebook, Google or Twitter logins allow businesses to get a level of rudimentary identification for all individuals coming onto the network while making the process relatively pain free for the visitor.

Security and BYOD

We also review the evolving capability of Access Points.  APs now come with the capacity to have full Layer 3, flow based firewalls in the devices, allowing the network edge to identify potential viruses and odd packets and usage. They also interact with the network and can control policy for new users and devices coming on board.

Overlay Management Systems: These software solutions from companies like AirDefense can do wireless troubleshooting, device monitoring, forensic analysis, spectrum analysis, AP and client testing and full reporting that rolls up to a single pane of glass.

Other topics we discuss include reviewing the Total Cost of Ownership of an integrated wired / wireless network and how, especially with BYOD, an integrated system can save companies money.

Listen to the full interview now, or download it for your drive home. You’ll be glad you did.

ForeScout is a Carousel partner that has been in the NAC business for more than a decade and has been intimately involved in making the technology more effective and useful. To learn more about NAC, its benefits and what’s new in the latest version of CounterACT, we talked with Scott Gordon, Global VP of Marketing at ForeScout.

NAC At a Glance

As its name implies, NAC is all about controlling which devices are allowed to connect to the network as well as what resources the devices are allowed to access if and when they are granted access.

“With NAC, anything touching or requesting access to your network can be identified and assessed,” Gordon says. “A full-function NAC solution can identify not only the device, but who is using it, where the device is, what time of day it is, what the user is trying to access and how the device is configured. NAC then applies a policy to determine what resources the user is allowed to access, if any.”

For example, an executive may be authorized to access sensitive financial information while he’s in the office during business hours, but not while he’s using his iPad from a public Wi-Fi network.

What’s more, NAC can assess whether any given endpoint is properly configured, with the latest security patches and anti-virus software, for example. If not, the device can be sent to an isolated area of the network for remediation – all without IT getting involved. Such security checks don’t necessarily occur only upon network access. Gordon notes that devices can also be continuously checked for compliance to ensure they don’t pickup a virus or malware while they are connected to the network.

Benefits of Network Access Control

All of these features bring tremendous benefits to most any organization (the average company deployment is 500 endpoints for enterprises with about 250 employees). For one, NAC instantly enables IT to dynamically manage thousands of endpoints, automatically applying policies to ensure compliance with corporate security requirements. This is not only a boon for companies dealing with BYOD scenarios, it helps companies stay in compliance with government and industry security regulations from PCI to HIPAA.

NAC appliances such as ForeScout CounterACT also complement and interoperate with other IT security systems that companies already have in place, such as firewalls, virtual private networks (VPNs), intrusion prevention systems (IPS) and security information event management (SIEM) systems, Gordon says.

Consider host-based security systems such as antivirus or data leak prevention software. “Customers know that at any time, 10% to 30% of their endpoint protection investment may not be fully operational. Perhaps a user inadvertently disables a security capability, or an agent is malfunctioning. “You’ve opened the door to risk of a threat on the endpoint and to operational expenses to resolve the problem and get into compliance,” stated Gordon. A NAC solution will identify such problems when the device attempts to connect, ensuring continuous endpoint compliance.

NAC systems also work well with SIEMs. Gordon notes, “The majority of SIEMs have no actionable response; they can’t isolate an endpoint when it presents a security risk. CounterACT can be the enforcement arm that allows the SIEM to respond.”

Some customers had been wary of NAC because previous generations – and some current products – were complex and difficult to implement, requiring lots of hands-on effort. Some required multiple components and upgrades to other network components in order to work effectively. ForeScout CounterACT suffers from none of these issues, Gordon says. It comes in an appliance format (either hardware or software) and is simple to implement, starting in a monitor-only mode to ensure no network disruption, while permitting companies to gather deep insight into their environment, allowing for effective and streamlined policy deployment.

New Features in CounterACT 7

With its latest version of CounterACT, ForeScout is adding new capabilities such as a Hybrid Mode that combines 802.1X with other, agent-less authentication methods to ease deployments. This enables devices that don’t support 802.1X authentication to nonetheless participate in the NAC environment – again, a boon for the BYOD crowd. It also enables companies to take a phased approach to full 802.1X authentication, Gordon says.

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Dig Deeper: Download the Free Whitepaper – Network Access Control and 802.1x
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

CounterACT 7 also includes enhanced continuous monitoring and remediation, with features including the new tactical map. The map provides an at-a-glance view of compliance and security issues and allows operators to quickly drill down to get detailed information, he says.

“We have companies running more than 200,000 endpoints within one CounterACT Enterprise Manager,” Gordon says. “The tactical map makes it much easier for them to manage and respond to threats, violations and other issues.”

Interoperability with other systems is also improved in CounterACT 7, he says, including VLAN quarantine for Cisco, Aruba and other Wi-Fi vendors that support MAB and RADIUS for guest networking. Additionally, a new mobile device management (MDM) module allows two-way integration with MDM systems. This supports capabilities such as enrollment, inventory and policy checks as mobile devices are added to the network and delivers a broad range of controls for the devices – yet another welcome capability in the BYOD era.

NAC has come a long with in the 10+ years that ForeScout has been delivering the technology. To learn more, download the white paper, “Network Access Control and 802.1X: Advantages, Constraints and Capabilities.” And, as always, feel free to contact Carousel with any questions.

To get a handle on what SDNs are all about and the role they can play, we talked with Sameer Mohile, a senior product manager with Extreme Networks. Extreme is a network infrastructure vendor (and Carousel Industries partner) that in July announced some new initiatives relative to its own SDN strategy.

Explaining Software Defined Networking

SDNs bring to network infrastructure the kind of programmability that is common with software. Traditionally, every switch and router in a network has its own control and data plane, which means all routing decisions are made on the switch itself.

The idea behind SDNs is to abstract that control plane from the switches and routers and run it on a central controller. That leaves the switches with just the data plane that actually ships packets in and out; the decisions on where the packets will go is based on instructions coming from that central controller, Mohile says.

That setup gives you more control over data flows as well as multi-vendor support. Any switch that supports the OpenFlow protocol that is used to create SDNs will be able to work with an OpenFlow-compatible controller. “You can have a true multi-vendor deployment and interoperability,” he says.

The Role of SDNs in a Virtualized Environment

SDNs also play a key role in a highly virtualized environment, where it’s common for virtual machines to be added and moved regularly. Such an environment can be difficult to support with traditional network infrastructure, which relies on fairly static connections between switches and servers.

With SDNs, however, those connections can be made more dynamically, and with the proper level of security. It’s similar to the multi-tenant concept of server virtualization, where a single server can support multiple virtual machines, Mohile says. SDNs enable a single switch to have separate data planes, each with its own service level that is appropriate for each data flow. “You are giving resources to different tenants at different times,” he says. “Every tenant doesn’t get the same resources each time.”

SDNs Are All About the Applications

For its own SDN initiative, Extreme decided to focus on four areas, he said. First, it opted to support the OpenFlow protocol and associated APIs, as the company deemed it the most open, fully baked protocol for SDNs. Secondly, Extreme supports OpenStack, which is a set of services that essentially provides the orchestration on top of a controller that enables the controller to interact with various switches.

Extreme also decided to strictly follow the OpenFlow 1.0 specification. “We don’t want to restrict customers to using just one or two vendors, so we have to strictly follow the 1.0 spec,” Mohile says. That means Extreme won’t be adding any “special sauces” on top that might disrupt interoperability. “Any controller that’s compliant with the OpenFlow 1.0 spec will work with our switches.” Initially, Extreme has marketing relationships for controllers from NEC and Big Switch Networks.

But the real value-add with SDNs, he says, is the applications that run in the environment. It’s similar to the smartphone environment. While the phones themselves are nice, it’s the applications that run on them that make the phones truly useful. Just like Apple and Google, Extreme is taking an open approach to application development by launching xKIT, a new application and knowledge base portal for sharing applications. “Anyone can contribute applications and work with our infrastructure,” Mohile says.

A security application, for example, could help companies address the bring your own device trend. An OpenFlow application could identify a device when it connects to the network and immediately apply the appropriate security policy, and ensure the policy remains in place as the user moves about the network. “The central controller knows the device has moved and applies security policies on the fly,” he says.

Extreme will support OpenFlow and OpenStack across its entire line of switches, and Carousel will be on hand to help customers make the most of this exciting technology. To learn more, contact Carousel.

In the webinar, Scott Yewell, senior product line manager for Acme Packet, explained that SBCs help companies deal with the challenges inherent in moving to an all-IP network and SIP trunking. Those challenges fall into three categories: integration, security and support.

How SBCs Help with IP Network Integration

One of the problems companies run into when they look to implement SIP trunking to replace PRI or T-1 lines is getting all the IP-based equipment in their various branch or regional offices to work with one another. Maybe some offices have voice and video equipment from Avaya while others use Cisco. That’s not an issue when the offices are connected via PRI or T-1 lines, but when using SIP it’s all IP all the way – so the equipment has to interoperate.

That leaves companies with two options, one of which is to rip and replace some of the equipment so that it’s all from the same vendor. That, of course is expensive and fails to protect existing equipment investments.  The other option is to use an SBC to enable interoperability between the equipment.

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Dig Deeper:  Watch the recorded webinar on Session Border Controller now!
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

For example, an SBC will enable interoperability between SIP and the older H.323 protocols previously used for video. Even if all the equipment supports SIP, vendors tend to implement the standards slightly differently. Acme Packet has worked to understand the various nuances of these implementations and ensure they all work with Acme Packet SBCs, essentially providing integration among multivendor equipment.

SBCs Add Security to All-IP Networks

Going all IP exposes companies to risks they don’t face with T-1 or PRI lines. One such threat Yewell mentioned is reconnaissance scanning, where an intruder tries to index the IP network to find open extensions from which they can make outbound phone calls. Another is protocol fuzzing, which is the use of malformed SIP messages to try to take down communications equipment.

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Dig Deeper:  Check out details of the Q&A about Session Border Controllers from the Webinar
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

SBCs from the likes of Acme Packet have features to protect against such security threats. In part that’s because the SBC acts as a demarcation point between the service provider and the enterprise network. All inbound calls terminate at the SBC, which then forges a new connection to the enterprise side. So when an intruder tries to scan the network, they can only see as far as the SBC. The SBC can also recognize SIP-based and other protocol-based attacks and will terminate them before they cause any harm, Yewell says.

Improve Troubleshooting and Support with Session Border Controllers

When something goes wrong in a SIP-based network, an SBC can be crucial in troubleshooting the problem, he notes. Consider a company that has SIP connections to two service providers, a primary and a backup. If there’s a glitch, trying to troubleshoot the cause can be a problem.

But the SBC continually tracks and logs all communications that come through it, creating a wealth of historical information that can be valuable in troubleshooting. What’s more, it can measure the quality of a call, including jitter and dropped packets, to further help troubleshoot problems. The SBC will also make intelligent decisions based on all the information it collects. If the primary SIP trunk starts acting poorly, it will proactively switch traffic to the secondary trunk – before users are impacted.

Check out the Carousel Webinar to learn more about the role SBCs play in SIP-based networks. And click here to get a taste of the many questions and answers about session border controllers Yewell fields during the event.

To get a handle on these trends, we talked with Phil Magnuszewski, director of virtualization and cloud solutions for Carousel Industries. To understand the concepts, he says it’s helpful to start with a refresher on what server virtualization is all about.

Understanding Storage and Network Virtualization

The goal of any kind of virtualization is to build a pool of resources that are abstracted from the underlying physical environment. For servers, that means the operating system and applications are abstracted from the physical CPU, memory, I/O cards and other attributes of a physical server. “By virtualizing that environment, I build a pool of compute resources that I can carve up in any way that makes sense for my applications, taking into account performance, high availability and the ability to move things around based on the load on different applications,” Magnuszewski says.

The same concept applies to storage and network virtualization, although they deliver different benefits.

Storage Virtualization Implementation and Benefits

With storage virtualization, the idea is to pool various storage resources – everything from a high-end EMC array to a low-end HP storage system – and make them look like a single pool of storage. “I put a hypervisor in place and make all of my storage resources look like a single storage resource that I can carve up based on the demands of my data and requirements of their applications,” Magnuszewski says.

Such pooling has historically been possible only if you use a single vendor’s storage arrays. But now companies such as F5 Networks and DataCore Software are coming out with solutions that encompass multiple vendors’ storage systems.  “With a hypervisor in front, I can now tier my storage based on the requirements of the application and leverage storage from multiple vendors,” he says.

The way Magnuszewski sees it, the solutions not only provide more flexibility and agility – just like server virtualization does – they can also help extend the useful life of existing storage systems. “If I bought an HP or IBM storage array years ago, chances are the drives are still good but the performance maybe isn’t what it needs to be,” he says. “But if I just want to put user data or maybe images or something like that on those systems, that’ll work fine.”  Then companies could use their high-end arrays to handle applications that require high performance.

Getting to Know Network Virtualization

The network virtualization area is a bit more fuzzy, Magnuszewski says, with vendors taking varying approaches – and with good reason. “The challenge with the network is you’re still dealing with physical connections. On paper I could say I’m going to pool a set of networking resources, but I still need a switch to plug into server A and server B, and have redundant paths and such,” he says. “I haven’t seen anyone come out with a third party plug-in for networks to provide true hypervisor functionality.”

One approach is software-defined networking, which allows a network to be configured through software – an idea which Magnuszewski points out is not exactly new. But today vendors are accomplishing it via technologies such as OpenFlow, an open source API that enables multivendor switches and routers to be programmable. OpenFlow and the SDN concept was the focus of the Open Networking Summit last fall, host to some 25 demonstrations of the technology, according to Network World.

As for pure network hypervisors, though, Magnuszewski is correct that there are few options, although one vendor is getting some play, as SearchNetworking reports:

Probably the best known is the Nicira solution, which is a distributed software suite that creates scalable, fully featured, isolated virtual networks that are completely decoupled and independent from the underlying physical network. Nicira’s solution can work across any physical network and is compatible with any server hypervisor. Nicira’s open, programmable approach not only delivers Layer 2 and Layer 3 networking, it also supports Layers 4-7 services within virtual networks.

As Magnuszewski says, we’re not entirely sure how you “completely decouple” networks from the underlying physical infrastructure, so let’s color this space still in the nascent stage. Nonetheless, it bears watching.

Data Center Containment: Assessment

As with with most technology projects, Davis says it is critical to start with a clear eyed assessment of where you are starting from, the goals and objectives and the assets and liabilities that must be taken into consideration prior to execution. “There are many types of containment systems – vertical containmnet, horizontal containment, hot aisle, cool aisle, rear door, etc.” Davis explains.  “When Carousel sits down with customers to discuss updating or upgrading their containment systems, the first thing we do is ask questions and discuss options.  It is amazing how often the result of the initial discussion results in an approach that bears little resemblance to what the team was initially considering.”

Issues that should be taken into consideration are things like:  The existing data center layout, how cabling is run, how racks are built, energy density per rack, the type of floor in the data center, the type of CRAC system, how their CRAC system works, where the vents and returns are, how much energy is being used by the CRAC unit(s), how many people work there, whether the are leasing or own the space, how the fire suppression system works and is layed out.

Out of this assessment phase comes potential scenarios, as well as issues that need to be taken into consideration.  For example, in a recent conversation with customer, it was determined that a hot aisle containment approach would result in some necessary upgrades.  “They had such a high energy density per rack, that effectively containing the hot air in the hot aisle meant that they needed to upgrade they type of cables they were using to withstand the heat over time.”

Data Center Containment: Planning and Modeling

Once the assessment is complete, it is time to develop potential redesign scenarios.  Although it does not work out in every instance, Davis says that a hot aisle containment system is preferrable.  “CRAC systems work better when hot air goes into them.  Air goes into the front of a server at 75 degrees and comes out the back at 90.  If you can contain that 90 degree air and get it out of the building, up to the condenser on the roof and release that energy into the atmosphere, your costs will come down.

Dig Deeper: Carousel partner APC/Schneider Electric concurs that hot aisle containment is the way to go when given the choice.

Now that potential scenarios are defined, prior to investing in the project to change layout and improve racks and containment systems, Davis suggests taking the opportunity to model the system with Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD).   CFD provides a very accurate look at how the different layouts and scenarios will perform.  “Modeling the new layout with CFD can quickly pay for itself.  In many cases, relatively inexpensive changes identified in the CFD model can dramatically improve air flow and eliminate the need for costly increases in hardware or cooling capacity that were being considered.”

Dig Deeper: To learn more about Computational Fluid Dynamics, take a listen to the podcast with Jamie Davis.

Data Center Containment: Execution

After defining the scenario and layout that is going to meet the company goals and provide the biggest bang for the buck, it is time to execute.  This is (literally) nuts and bolts time.  Will the design require new racks?  Some racks are air tight, while others may need to be updated to be air tight with gaskets, sweeps, and blanking panels.  Will you need a vertical containment system that will keep hot air from escaping over over the tops of the racks and infecting the cool aisles?  Will you need to make modifications to your fire suppression layout to compensate for the new hot aisle / cold aisle configuration?

“Plan for some rewiring, and for putting in blanking panels and wiring opening pillows to keep air moving into locations you don’t want it to go,” says Davis.  “And when it comes to racks, remember that cheaper does not necessarily mean better.  The right rack can make a tremendous difference in keeping your energy costs down, and it they don’t fit in your budget in the short term, considering racks that can be upgraded over time with gaskets and add ons will allow you to easily adapt to future requirements.”

For more information deploying an effective containment system in your data center, contact Carousel’s Physical Infrastructure experts today.

Those are some of the key takeaways from Telework Week 2012, co-sponsored by Cisco and the Telework Exchange, a public-private partnership focused on demonstrating the tangible value of telework and serving the educational and communication requirements of the Federal teleworker community.  This was the second year of the weeklong event and participation was up fairly dramatically, with an 80% increase in the number of workers pledging to participate – more than 70,000 of them in all, the vast majority (94%) being federal government workers.

Telework Delivers Big Savings

The results they report are nothing short of astounding. Consider these stats from the benchmark report on the event:

• Telework Week 2012 saved pledges a total of 6,413,006 miles; 251,774 hours; 3,453 tons of pollutants; and $5,651,890 on commuting
• Telework Revolution: If all Telework Week 2012 pledges teleworked two days a week for one year, they would collectively save: $282,594,515 or $3,962 individually
• Growing Benefits: 71% of Telework Week 2012’s participating organizations saw improved productivity (up from 60% in 2011), and 71% saw increased continuity of operations (up from 52% in 2011)
• Telework Gets Smoother: Just one in five organizations encountered challenges – such as technical issues – during Telework Week 2012, versus nearly one in three during Telework Week 2011

Asked whether their management team was more open to and encouraging of telework this year than last year, 62% said they were, up a bit from last year’s 60%. The report says that may be because companies are getting better at proving the ROI of telework efforts, using metrics such as employee productivity, reduction in commuting time and costs, real estate cost savings, employee satisfaction, employee retention and energy savings.

For years Carousel has been helping our clients realize the benefits of teleworking through data networking solutions, VoIP infrastructure and Unified Communications solutions.  So it came as no surprise to us that organizations are truly beginning to realize the tremendous upside that teleworking can provide in the right situations.

GSA Proves Value of Telework

The report includes case studies on a few of the event participants, most of which were government agencies. The GSA, for example, had almost 8,000 staffers participating, about 65% of the agency – pretty impressive. Of those, 93% said they and their teams were as productive or more productive than normal and 97% said the experience was positive overall. In total, GSA saved 273,000 miles in commuting during the week.

The report doesn’t say how much time those commuting figures translate to. Just for kicks, let’s say it comes out to one minute per mile, a conservative estimate. That translates to 4,550 hours.  That means each of the employees effectively got more than 30 minutes of extra free time for the week, and many of them probably a lot more.

Creating an Effective Telework Plan

Asked what they believe is most important to a successful telework effort, the participants gave responses such as:

• “Good communication infrastructure and good IT support.”
• “A definitive plan, two-way communications, and management involvement in the planning process.”
• “Collaborative tools like workgroup chat rooms, desktop video meetings, and online presence indicators.”
• “Transparency and accountability.”
• “Ensuring connectivity to our Intranet and other internal networks.”
• “A good working relationship with staff, clear expectations, and measurable work.”
• “Leadership support.”

Only 21% of the participants reported having any challenges during the week, down from 32% last year. Most of those challenges (61%) were technical in nature while others were trust issues (11%) and communication issues (10%).  That’s an indicator that, for the most part, IT is doing a good job in delivering the kinds of technology that makes telecommuting possible, most notably VPNs.

Increasingly, though, other technologies are going to enter the telecommuting mix, such as desktop virtualization, which can give workers access to the exact same desktop remotely as they have in the office. Unified communications technology will also play a role – and will help address those communication issues by ensuring workers can keep in touch with one another no matter where they may be. (Check out our previous post for how to achieve a successful UC implementation.)  And, as we’ve reported previously, it’s also important to keep in mind not all remote workers have the same requirements, so you’ve got to classify each type of worker and give them the support they need.

If you need additional help getting your telework plan together, contact Carousel. Clearly there’s a movement afoot here – don’t miss out on it.

Carousel Industries partner Riverbed Technology has changed that equation, as we cover in this information packed podcast with Joe Ghory, senior product manager at Riverbed. His company recently partnered with Akamai, the Web acceleration company, to offer an acceleration solution targeted at companies that use SaaS providers.

WAN Optimization – an Overview

WAN optimization technology improves performance in a number of different ways, Ghory says. First, it gets rid of lots of duplicate data. Riverbed’s Steelhead appliances, for example, can recognize patterns that it has seen before, such as a company logo. Instead of transmitting the logo across the wide-area, it sends only a 16-byte reference to it and the logo is then taken out of a local cache at the destination end. The technology also performs protocol manipulation to reduce the number of handshakes that a protocol such as TCP/IP typically requires, which can hinder performance over long distances. Taken together, these techniques enable LAN-like performance over wide-area networks, improving application performance from 5 times to 100 times while reducing bandwidth requirements by as much as 99%.

The SaaS and Hybrid Cloud WAN Optimization Challenge

To do all that, customers need to have a Steelhead appliance at each of their locations. That’s where companies often run into a stumbling block when they employ SaaS applications or other forms of hybrid cloud offerings. “As you move to a third party vendor, what you trade for costs savings is they may offer a little less control,” Ghory says. “One thing that’ll be most immediately noticeable is control on a performance level. You have to think of end user performance. It it’s not as good as what they’re experiencing currently, your entire project is at risk of failure.”

The distance between the SaaS provider and the end user will “absolutely” affect performance, he notes. But the opportunity to put in something like a Steelhead appliance is probably going to be limited. “They want to offer a turnkey solution,” Ghory says. “So you’re limited by both geography and accessibility and both can wreak havoc on performance.”

A WAN Optimization Solution for the Cloud

To address the issue, Riverbed has partnered with Akamai to offer Steelhead Cloud Accelerator, an optimization solution that works to improve the performance of three big SaaS providers: Salesforce.com, Microsoft Office 365 and Google Apps. Customers order the service online, priced on a per-user basis like most SaaS applications. They then upgrade the code on their existing Steelhead appliances and enter the URL of the SaaS provider. At that point, “we install a Steelhead Cloud Accelerator right at the edge, in the Akamai network, mere milliseconds away from the SaaS provider so that from that point you can offer end-to-end optimization that would otherwise be impossible,” Ghory says.

For most people, access to SaaS providers means connecting via the public Internet. With the Riverbed offering, you’re instead connecting via the Akamai network, which provides far greater availability, security and performance. And customers will also realize all the usual Steelhead benefits, including LAN-like performance and up to 99% bandwidth savings.

To learn more about Steelhead Cloud Accelerator, check out our full conversation with Joe Ghory. For details on how to make this solution a reality inside your company, contact Carousel today.