Cisco to buy Tidal Software for app management

Cisco Systems Inc. Thursday said it intends to acquire Tidal Software Inc., an application management software provider, for US$105 million in cash and incentives.

Products from Tidal, based in Palo Alto, Calif., and Houston, will help advance Cisco’s Unified Computing data center strategy, Cisco officials said in a statement.

“With the acquisition of Tidal Software, Cisco equipment will accelerate its ability to help customers optimize the performance of their business applications and automate operational best practices. … which will lead to significantly reduced operational costs,” said Gary Moore, Cisco’s senior vice president of advanced services, in a statement.

Tidal’s software provides management and automation of application performance as an application moves from a server through the network to the desktop.

The acquisition is expected to close in the fourth quarter, and Tidal’s workers will become part of Cisco’s Advanced Services group.

Fortinet releases modular enterprise endpoint security suite

Fortinet® – a market-leading network security provider and worldwide leader of unified threat management (UTM) solutions – today announced the latest release of its FortiClientTM Endpoint Protection Suite, which introduces a host of enterprise-class features to support the largest and most performance-intensive environments. In its latest version 4.1 release, FortiClient offers new features including SSL VPN, WAN optimization, application detection and endpoint control, while providing a fully manageable compliance infrastructure to help businesses reduce exposure to cyber security threats. As a full-featured solution, FortiClient 4.1 can provide broad protection for laptops and PCs or be implemented modularly to co-exist with other dedicated security products for endpoints.

Buy Used Fortinet  go Knowledge Computers and bizinetworks

Core Knowledge Waiver for Cisco 360 Candidates

As the only CCIE training program authorized by Cisco, the Cisco 360 Learning Program is designed to accelerate expert-level competency and provide the tools that are needed to prepare candidates for the rigorous CCIE Routing and Switching and Voice lab exams.

Beginning April 1, 2010, Cisco will allow students who attend a Cisco 360 Learning Program workshop to request a waiver and skip the Core Knowledge section of the CCIE R&S or Voice lab exam.

Participating Cisco Authorized Learning Partners now also offer discounted Cisco 360 Learning Program bundles of R&S Self-Paced Lessons and Performance Assessments, providing students with additional training options. Check with your local Learning Partner for details. Finally, the eight Cisco 360 Learning Program R&S Self-Paced Lessons and four comprehensive lab-quality Performance Assessments are now available on the Cisco Learning Network Store.

Customers to benefit from Cisco-HP divorce

The networking giant announced late last week, would be remembered as a channel and HP Services Global Alliance Partners.

In an initiative announced the report published Tuesday in Cisco, John Byrne, director of Network Business Quarterly, TBR, clients expressed more favorable terms, and better support to see, and greater reductions resulting from the additional competition.

The move is a clear marketing strategy pushing Cisco UCS (Unified Computing System) Data Center Strategy, which will be its blade servers marries network services. However, Mr. Byrne said, large organizations will likely choose from HP, Cisco, when pressed, to switch between the server and newcomers courageous decision UCS Cisco announced in March.

He noted that Cisco was the split with HP “inevitable”, since the move from Cisco in the market for servers.

Keith Goodwin, Senior Vice President of Cisco partners worldwide organization, said in an e-mail to ZDNet Asia: “In recent years, our relationship with HP by a partner for companies with different and conflicting visions of how d ‘ deliver value to develop the customer. ”

HP maintained as a network of certified partners, would give the company access to confidential information from Cisco, such as roadmaps, Goodwin noted. “Given the development of the supply of our relations is simply no meaning to these benefits for HP,” he said.

HP has also pushed his arm ProCurve Networking. The technology giant in the past year brought the ProCurve division in collaboration with its divisions of server and storage within its Technology Solutions Group.

Last September, HP has released a new range of ProCurve switches designed to integrate with its blade servers. An HP executive said at the time was in an interview with ZDNet Asia that the company would primarily compete with IBM and Dell Computer in the data center space and Cisco does not see as a threat.

In a reply by e-mail Tuesday a spokesman for HP told ZDNet Asia, the company would push the global reach and scale to use ProCurve portfolio to customers.

HP converged infrastructure architecture, announced in November last year on offers networking and HP’s target market segment identical to UCS is unfounded.

Following the announcement by Cisco to separate relationships, HP said: “We do not take it in the best interest of the client in a proprietary attitude.

“We will provide clients with consulting, integration, management and support services for their heterogeneous environments, and ensure that our hardware and software platforms for all major network platforms are optimized.

TBR Byrne said, Cisco and HP, however, continue to be committed today, with divergence time. “As both companies to take first place in their respective markets, they share many companies with which they are a very strategic relationship.

“Therefore it is up to each company to” play nice “for now, to avoid negative impact on the activity of their customers,” he said.

An opportunity for Cisco in emerging markets
In the view of analysts, the first opportunity for Cisco to lie with small businesses or new data centers.

Mike Allen, director of the chain in Asia for Cisco, said the company expects growth in emerging economies. “In our last earnings announcement, we saw two years of double digit growth over the year in the Asia-Pacific countries like China and India.”

Cisco plans to focus on his message of virtualization and collaboration with customers in the region, Allen.

In a previous interview with ZDNet Asia, Michael Warrilow, Hydra SightSpeed CEO, said Cisco needs to convince customers to its network and server teams work together to ensure the adoption of products of UCS.

The IDC said to offer a comment at the time also focused UCS ‘is for customers to build data centers from scratch to appeal.

Cisco announced earlier this month, has 400 people gathered at the NGC.

IDC for the third quarter 2009 figures showed that 50.7 percent of worldwide server blade market HP, IBM with 29.4 percent and Dell with 8.9 percent.

Juniper’s enterprise business hums in Q3

CEO Kevin Johnson said those results for the enterprise business represent “a starting point for a level of momentum” Juniper believes it can achieve in that market.

“Our vision of the data center architecture of the future is resonating,” Johnson said in a conference call with analysts. Johnson added that the IBM-branded Juniper products offered under a recent OEM arrangement are now available.

Juniper’s EX LAN switching line, which debuted in the first half of last year, accounted for $50 million in sales in the quarter and is on a $200 million annual run rate. The MX series Ethernet router, deployed mostly in carrier networks but also in some enterprise data centers, is on a $400 million annual run rate. The MX debuted in 2006.

The SRX firewall, which was unveiled a year ago, is on a $100 million annual run rate. Together, the EX, MX and SRX product lines accounted for $180 million of Juniper’s $634 million in product revenue in the quarter.

“We are executing better, and that’s coming mainly from the US,” Johnson said of the enterprise results in the quarter. Sales were particularly strong in the US federal government marketplace.

“We will continue to throttle up execution globally. We’re share takers in the enterprise market, we’ve got a lot of upside. As the economy improves, enterprise investments will improve, but at a slower rate than service providers.

“The level of buzz with customers in the enterprise continues to grow,” Johnson added. “It’s indicative of our opportunity. But we’ve got to execute and engage with customers.”

Juniper experienced increased sales of its Service Layer Technology products – traditionally enterprise security and WAN acceleration gear – to service providers in Q3 as well. SLT revenue was a record for the quarter at $229 million, Denholm said, an increase of $11 million from 2008’s Q3.

In general, Juniper sees the economy and its business improving.

“Our visibility has improved in key areas of our business,” Johnson said. “We’re in an economic recovery. The pace varies across geographies” with improvements domestically, stabilization in Asia and a slower uptick in Europe.

For the fourth quarter, Juniper expects revenue of $860 million to $895 million, and earnings per share in the 23 cents to 26 cents range.