Our President and Chief Technical Officer, Sgt. Craig Ganssle, once served with Det. 2 Comm. Co. / 4th FSSG with Gunnery Sergeant Tony Ruiz.  GySgt. Ruiz and these Marines designed an original emblem for their team in Afghanistan and were looking to get some shirts made; trying to figure out who could do it for them, arrange payment, etc.  Craig Ganssle stepped up and made sure these brave Marines got what they deserved.  ISC was honored to have these shirts made with their original logo.  

A special thank you to Jerry Hewitt at Just Graphics in Marietta, GA and the designer, Abe Levinson, who transformed the graphic from a pencil drawing into what you see below.  

Here's to a safe return to the Marines of 3rd Platoon / OEF 11-2

Afghanistan,  July 2011 - February 2012

Semper Fi, Gentlemen.

"If You Want Peace, Prepare For War"

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The Kinect Effect

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ISC Hits the Mark; Launches PacketTrap Earlier Than Expected!

ISC has implemented PacketTrap Managed Service Software as of 12/15/2011.  This solution is currently "LIVE" on all managed networks throughout the United States!

PacketTrap MSP, by Quest Software, is a robust and affordable remote management platform, purpose built to monitor and manage your customer's IT infrastructure in a secure and customized environment.

PacketTrap MSP provides affordable enterprise class remote server, application, and network management across your customers. It is an integrated monitoring, troubleshooting and remediation platform that enables you, the IT solution provider, to offer reliable and secure managed network monitoring services.

PacketTrap MSP ensures complete visibility and access so that you are the first to know about bandwidth clogs, server and device failures, connectivity issues, and are able to perform routine network maintenance.

With PacketTrap MSP, you'll spend less time worrying about your customer's IT and more time managing it.

Powerful

Remote network monitoring and management for the entire IT infrastructure for all your customers’ in a central view… network traffic, application performance, device events.

Accessible

Fast and easy anytime, anywhere access to any device for your customer. No more truck rolls out to sites to fix problems. PacketTrap MSP allows you to save time, improve productivity, and increase ROI.

Flexible

Agent and Agentless based deployment architecture for ultimate flexibility to meet the needs of you and your customer.

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At the Crossroads: Broadband in Developing Countries

With many cities in developing regions at a "flipping point," broadband can make the difference between progress and chaos. By Laurence Cruz

Of all the world's developing countries, Afghanistan may be the poster child for an economy struggling to emerge from the abyss of chaos. Following centuries of foreign occupation have left a legacy that includes rampant poverty, obliterated infrastructure and perhaps the greatest concentration of land mines on earth.

So when it comes to rebuilding countries like Afghanistan, one could be forgiven for questioning whether broadband should be a priority. Absent such basic infrastructures as water, sanitation and roads, should luxuries like broadband wait? If not, what role should broadband play? Can it somehow jump-start economies that have stalled or, like Afghanistan's, hit rock bottom?

A wide range of experts insist broadband has a key role to play in economies of all stripes. The Broadband Commission for Digital Development recently stated that expanding access to broadband infrastructure and services must be "a top policy priority for countries around the globe, developed and developing alike as well as least developed countries." In a similar vein, the Intelligent Community Forum (ICF), a New York-based think tank, identifies broadband connectivity as one of several "critical success factors" in the creation of any smart community, along with things like a knowledge workforce and digital inclusion.

Developing countries that ignore information and communication technology (ICT) by zeroing in only on perceived short-term needs are like towns in the Old West that ignored the advance of the railroad, says Louis Zacharilla, co-founder of the ICF, which studies the economic and social development of 21st century communities.

"You have to look at the future because you're going to be in it very soon—like next week," Zacharilla says, adding that lower-cost technologies like satellite and wireless mean that countries don't have to choose between addressing long-term and short-term needs. "The good news is you can do both in that it does not take a great deal of investment today."

Underscoring the point, the ICF in 2007 gave its Visionary of the Year award to Afghanistan's Communications Minister,Amirzai Sangin, for his agency's swift rolling out of broadband infrastructure that was used to support national elections. Over a period of 36 months and with the help of international companies including Cisco and Globecomm Systems, the agency deployed digital phone service to 11 provinces and connectivity to 34 provincial capitals via satellite and microwave networks, in addition to connecting 40 ministries and government offices via fiber optics and microwave. 

ICF Chairman John G. Jung called the endeavor "true nation building using broadband as one of its technical keystones."

Cities at the "Flipping Point"

The link between broadband and economic growth and job creation is well documented. But broadband is also key to solving a slew of other challenges facing developing regions, says Prof. Mel Horwitch, dean of the Central European University Business School in Budapest, Hungary.

"Emerging economies can deal with the issues of megacities, pollution, health, traffic, access to government, crime and terrorism by becoming smart—using broadband and ICT and having an engaged citizenry," says Horwitch, an expert on entrepreneurship and innovation management.

Furthermore, Horwitch says cities that have yet to adopt broadband and other smart technologies are at an all-important tipping point—a "flipping point," as he calls it.

"Cities will flip positively or they will not," he says. "I believe this is an important issue for the emerging world generally. If these regions don't come together and understand they need to change and get smart, they're going to fall further behind and maybe there's a point of no return."

The Eastern European region is a case in point, Horwitch says. It has produced just one contender in the annual crop of 21 nominees for the ICF's "Intelligent Community of the Year" award. That's something Horwitch and colleagues at CEU Business School aim to change. With the help of a $7.5 million gift from billionaire investor and philanthropist George Soros, the business school is creating an institute for entrepreneurship and innovation, part of which will be devoted to the fostering of intelligent communities in the region and beyond, Horwitch says.

Cities Leading the Way

In developing and developed countries alike, it's typically individual cities or communities that set the standard for use of broadband and ICT, with regional and national governments later catching their vision, Zacharilla says. Examples include the cities of Eindhoven in Holland, Taipei in Taiwan, Sunderland in the UK and Waterloo, Canada.

"These intelligent communities inspire regional and national governments to look at them and say, ‘Hey, that's a great lab we've got over there. It's getting international recognition—let's take a closer look,'" Zacharilla says. "It becomes viral and spreads throughout the region or country."

It can also "leap" to places in other countries due to a network effect among cities engaged in the intelligent community movement, Horwitch says, adding that cities should strive to be part of this community of communities. "It should be a part of the strategy of any community not to be left out," he says.

Experts say common characteristics among successful smart communities include strong participation and commitment by government, academia and the private sector, as well as a means for citizens to participate in the community's destiny—for example, via an e-government platform. "It's not simply technology—leadership and buy-in are essential," Horwitch says.

Broadband Targets

The Broadband Commission recently challenged governments to achieve several ambitious broadband targets by 2015. It called on countries to make their broadband policy universal and affordable; for 40 percent of households in developing countries to have Internet access; and for Internet penetration to reach 50 percent in developing countries and 15 percent in least developed countries. (Internet penetration in the developing world currently stands at 21 percent, according to theInternational Telecommunications Union—a specialized agency of the United Nations for ICT.)

"It is vital that no one be excluded from the new global knowledge societies we are building," the commission states. "We believe that communication is not just a human need—it is a right."

Horwitch echoes the need for developing countries to be proactive in determining their destiny. "Communities need to go beyond simply reacting; they need to have sense of strategy and mission," he says. "They need to make a decision that they're going to become smart."

Zacharilla agrees. "If Afghanistan can do it, certainly some of the other countries that are wrestling with this issue can think about it as well," he says.

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How Big Will The Cloud Be In 2015?

New Cisco Global Cloud Index Projects Cloud Computing Traffic to Grow 12-Fold by 2015; Cloud to be 51 percent of Data Center Workloads by 2014

SAN JOSE, Calif.– Nov. 29, 2011 – In the inaugural Cisco® Global Cloud Index (2010 – 2015) issued today, Cisco estimates globalcloud computing traffic will grow 12-fold from 130 exabytes to reach a total of 1.6 zettabytes annually by 2015, a 66 percent compound annual growth rate (CAGR. One zettabyte is equal to a sextillion bytes or a trillion gigabytes―1.6 zettabytes is approximately equivalent to:

• 22 trillion hours of streaming music.
• 5 trillion hours of business Web conferencing with a webcam.
• 1.6 trillion hours of online high-definition (HD) video streaming.

Cloudis the fastest growing component of data center traffic, which itself will grow 4-fold at a 33 percent CAGR to reach 4.8 zettabytes annually by 2015. Cloud is also estimated today to be 11 percent of data center traffic, growing to more than 33 percent of the total by 2015. Cloud is becoming a critical element for the future of information technology (IT) and delivery of video and content.

The vast majority of the data center traffic is not caused by end users but by the data centers and clouds themselves undertaking activities that are largely non-transparent to end users – like backup and replication. By 2015, 76 percent of data center traffic will remain within the data center itself as workloads migrate between various virtual machines and background tasks take place, 17 percent of the total traffic leaves the data center to be delivered to the end user, while an additional 7 percent of total traffic is generated between data centers through activities such as cloud-bursting, data replication and updates.

Overview

• The Cisco Global Cloud Index (2010 – 2015) was developed to estimate global data center and cloud-based Internet Protocol traffic growth and trends. As the network and data center are becoming intrinsically linked in the delivery of cloud services, this study complements existing network traffic studies to provide new insights and visibility into the emerging trends affecting data center and cloud architectures.
• The Cisco Global Cloud Index is generated from a modeling and analysis of various primary and secondary sources, including more than 30 terabytes of data generated each month over the past year from a variety of data centers around the globe, measurements of more than 45 million broadband-speed tests and third-party market forecasts.
• The Cisco Global Cloud Index also includes a "workload transition" forecast on the workload shift from traditional data centers to the cloud as well as a "Cloud Readiness" analysis of major geographic regions regarding their networks' abilities to support various types of business and consumer cloud-computing services.
  • The Cisco Global Cloud Index Forecast and Methodology, 2010 – 2015 white paper provides the detailed findings of the study and a description of the methodology.
  • The Cisco Global Cloud Index (2010 – 2015) Infographic provides a downloadable image available for use in blogs and social media.

Additional Cisco Global Cloud Index Details and Highlights

Cloud will account for one-third of total data center traffic

• Globally, cloud traffic will grow from just 11 percent (11 exabytes per month and 130 exabytes annually) of total data center traffic in 2010 to more than a third of total data center traffic (34 percent specifically--137 exabytes per month and 1.6 zettabytes annually) by 2015.
• Greater virtualization and improved economies of scale will be a key driver of the cloud transition.

Global cloudtraffic growing twice as fast as global data center traffic

• The transition to cloud services is driving global cloud traffic at a growth rate that is twice as great as global data center traffic. Global data center traffic will grow fourfold (a 33 percent CAGR) from 2010 to 2015, while global cloud traffic will grow 12-fold (a 66 percent CAGR) over the same period.
• Cloud data centers offer better performance, higher utilization and greater ease of management than traditional data centers. Virtualization serves as a major catalyst in enabling hardware and software consolidation, greater automation and an integrated security approach.

Global data center traffic growth: a four-fold increase by 2015

• Data center traffic is forecast to more than quadruple from 1.1 zettabytes in 2010 to 4.8 zettabytes annually in 2015, representing a 33 percent CAGR.

Data center traffic sources: Most stays within the data center itself

• Of the data center traffic in 2015, 76 percent stays within the data center itself, through such activities as storage and authentication across virtual machines.
• 17 percent is data-center traffic being delivered to end users.
• 7 percent is generated between data centers through activities such as backup and replication.

Peak end-user activity more than 2.5 times average in 2015

• Due predominately to the rise in video-based consumer services, data-center-to-user traffic has some significant peaks in activity. Much like prime time viewing hours, average amount of data center traffic per hour during peak periods is expected to rise up to 2.5 times, requiring the need to plan for additional capacity from data centers and the cloud as well as from the network. The on-demand model of cloud is perfectly suited to serve this type of variable demand.

Workload transition

• In 2010, 21 percent of workloads were processed in a cloud-based data center with 79 percent being handled in a traditional data center. 
• 2014 is the first year where the balance of workloads shifts toward the cloud for the first time – 51 percent of total workloads will be in a cloud environment versus 49 percent in the traditional IT space.
• Overall, the data center workload from 2010 – 2015 is growing 2.7-fold; however, the cloud workload from 2010 – 2015 is growing more than 7-fold over the forecast period.

Global cloud readiness

• To assess overall readiness, various attributes were analyzed: broadband ubiquity, average upload and download speeds, and average latency were assessed across each geographic region.
• All regions included in the study – Asia Pacific, Middle East and Africa, Western Europe, Central and Eastern Europe, Latin America and North America – are currently ready for basic cloud-computing applications, such as social networking and Web conferencing.
• For intermediate cloud-computing applications such as video chat and high-definition video streaming, Asia Pacific, Western Europe, Central and Eastern Europe, and North America were considered to have average network capabilities strong enough to support these services.
• No region was assessed to be able to support advanced cloud applications such as high-definition video conferencing and advanced gaming, in aggregate; however, certain countries within each region -- such as South Korea and Japan -- are currently able to do so.

Supporting Quote

• Suraj Shetty, vice president of product and solutions marketing, Cisco

"Cloud and data center traffic is exploding, driven by user demand to access volumes of content on the devices of their choice. The result: greater data center virtualization and relevance of the network for cloud applications and the need to make sense of a dynamically evolving situation. The Cisco Global Cloud Index provides insight into this traffic growth and trends so that organizations can make strategic long-term decisions. We will continue to develop and release the Cisco Global Cloud Index on a regular and ongoing annual basis, contributing to ‘cloud readiness' efforts worldwide."

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The Evolution of Search

Google posts a video on the evolution of search

By Laura June on November 29, 2011 01:11 pm

Google has posted a new installment of its recurring videos on search, and this one focuses on the evolution of search. As you'll see in the video below, in about six minutes, the company covers some of the biggest trends in search history over the past few years, including universal results and quick answers.

The video also delves into the future of search, which unsurprisingly includes things like Google Instant and voice-capable searching.

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Cisco, Telia to activate 'world's fastest internet connection' at 120Gbps, sounds pretty Swede

By Amar Toor  posted Nov 24th 2011 9:07AM