FastTrack Training. "Network Basics". "Area of use of network switches, the value of Cisco switches". Eddie Martin
About a year ago, I noticed an interesting and fascinating series of lectures by Eddie Martin, which, thanks to its history and real-life examples, as well as its tremendous learning experience, is amazingly comprehensible and allows you to gain an understanding of quite complex technologies.
We continue the cycle of 27 articles based on his lectures:
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01/02: “Understanding the OSI Model” Part 1 / Part 2
03: "Understanding the Cisco Architecture"
04/05: “The Basics of Switching or Switches” Part 1 / Part 2
06: "Switches from Cisco"
07: "Area of use of network switches, the value of Cisco switches"
08/09: "Basics of a Wireless LAN" Part 1 / Part 2
10: "Products in the field of wireless LAN"
11: The Value of Cisco Wireless LANs
12: Routing Basics
13: "The structure of routers, routing platforms from Cisco"
14: The Value of Cisco Routers
15/16: “The Basics of Data Centers” Part 1 / Part 2
17: "Equipment for data centers"
18: "The Value of Cisco in Data Centers"
19/20/21: "The Basics of Telephony" Part 1 / Part 2 / Part 3
22: "Cisco Collaboration Software"
23: The Value of Collaboration Products from Cisco
24: "The Basics of Security"
25: "Cisco Security Software"
26: "The Value of Cisco Security Products"
27: "Understanding Cisco Architectural Games (Review)"
And here is the seventh of them.
Let's continue our conversation about network switches (switches). Consider the difference between customer perceptions about switches and how Cisco applies to switches. What do customers even think about switches?
Switches - a commodity in demand, product in demand. But why? Maybe you woke up in the morning with the thought that the switch on the table would help you do business differently, help you avoid problems, and immediately wanted to buy one? Not at all! In fact, this question deserves a separate discussion. The fact is that we could not become leaders if we literally didn’t drag our switches into the business!
What is the need of "pulling" switches? In the early 1990s, this was a unique technology, everyone wanted switches, and your business flourished only through the sale of such equipment. But later the market was overflowing with offers, since everyone bought switches. Therefore, to successfully sell network switches, we had to make them unique! We provided PoE capability and developed IP telephony.
How did we do it? We connect the physical layer, which provides power via Ethernet, with the network layer - IP telephony. By selling equipment for IP-telephony, we sell switches, we “pull” switches into the business process. For 1 dollar of IP-telephony equipment, we “drag” 6 dollars of switching equipment.
But what do you think about expanding the use of switches today? What else are they for?
Video! That's right, video content is gaining popularity, network traffic is increasing, the network is “falling apart” and an upgrade of auxiliary equipment of the video broadcasting system, that is, network devices, is required. Thus, switches are in demand because they are part of a global technical solution. We loved Tandberg long before it was purchased, as they were broadcasting video to the network and it was “falling apart”, a demand was born for new switches and routers immediately after that. So, once again, it was not just the sale of switches to the business, it was the sale of a much larger part of a large solution.
What does Cisco do in this regard? It becomes an innovator in the use of switches, expanding the scope of their application. We could not lead in this area if we were not engaged in innovations.
At the beginning we came up with PoE, and for the video we came up with Medianet, which was, as we remember, the next stage of development :
Medianet is developing dynamically, so our network equipment should not lag behind this process. We introduce our switches and routers into the process of transferring and sharing media files.
The next area of use for switches is energy saving. It is now investing heavily. In this case, the switches provide economical power to devices via Ethernet, they contribute to the introduction of "green", environmentally friendly technologies, thereby saving money. This technology is already actively used in data centers, and is being implemented in remote offices and offices, "smart" homes, and so on. In other matters, we have already spoken about this with you here .
Another area where switches are used is security systems. This is an important aspect for customers. We all use network equipment, exchange information using electronic devices, so protection against unauthorized entry, viruses, prevention of information theft is important for everyone and we implemented it, ensuring the operation of 802.1x protocol and encryption at the network level and the entire route, extremely well implemented. We are accustomed to the fact that we often have a day of sales of security systems. Break some customer and he writes an article that there is a threat of hacking. My account manager calls me and reports this. We drop everything and go talk to our customers, some of whom we couldn’t persuade to buy one solution or another, show them information about what happened, competitors, what they can offer and what we can offer.
How else can you continue the process of innovation, the process of product introduction? Add the scope of services and technical support!
Cisco is really good in this area, and this is one of the reasons why customers use our hardware. We have excellent service and competent technical support.
Next comes the pricing policy of the company. The customer is interested in Cisco prices.
He wants to know why we have them, and someone else, he is surprised that he needs to pay 890 thousand dollars every 3 years to upgrade the switch software, because this is an unimaginable price for him, each year the cost of one port decreases , and it may well be worth buying a new one.
Therefore, we are forced to fight for every dollar of profit, reducing the cost of services annually. Because the customer is looking for someone who can provide cheaper equipment or give more equipment for the same price. This is a general trend in the IT industry. Business people know this and therefore take this trend into account when planning their business. They are forced to literally "teeth and nails" to fight for their place in the market of IT technologies. Figuratively speaking, what was a tree in the 90s has now shrunk to the size of a toothpick.
We have a paradoxical situation. On the one hand, switches are used in each network, in each segment of information technology, and on the other, we have to spend 3 months of development on each new product in order to compete and stay afloat. Therefore, we must “push” our devices wherever possible, and create our own ASIC chips. After all, the client is not interested in our problems, he doesn’t care how we achieve the result. If we discussed our difficulties with customers, we would not become leaders in the field of network technologies and equipment.
Innovations, media networks, energy saving, safety - these are the areas where we have to develop. Video communication, voice communication - these are also our areas. Here, the customer must see how Cisco products differ from other companies. We do a lot of research and development (R & D), how much R & D does HP do? Less than 3%.
The main feature that our switches provide and which users especially appreciate is network security. This is where Cisco really leads. We have a very powerful hardware and very powerful processors.
You need to focus your customers on the three indisputable advantages of Cisco: the highest network availability, ease of troubleshooting and absolute reliability. Indeed, networks based on Cisco equipment are considered the most reliable in the world, so we have to invest in maintaining our reputation in this area.
Continued:
FastTrack Training. "Network Basics". "Basics of a wireless LAN". Part one. Eddie Martin December 2012
Thank you for staying with us. Do you like our articles? Want to see more interesting materials? Support us by placing an order or recommending to friends, 30% discount for Habr users on a unique analogue of the entry-level servers that we invented for you: The Truth About VPS (KVM) E5-2650 v4 (6 Cores) 10GB DDR4 240GB SSD 1Gbps $ 20 or how to share the server? (Options are available with RAID1 and RAID10, up to 24 cores and up to 40GB DDR4).
Dell R730xd 2 times cheaper? Only we have 2 x Intel Dodeca-Core Xeon E5-2650v4 128GB DDR4 6x480GB SSD 1Gbps 100 TV from $ 249 in the Netherlands and the USA! Read about How to build an infrastructure building. class c using servers Dell R730xd E5-2650 v4 worth 9000 euros for a penny?
We continue the cycle of 27 articles based on his lectures:
')
01/02: “Understanding the OSI Model” Part 1 / Part 2
03: "Understanding the Cisco Architecture"
04/05: “The Basics of Switching or Switches” Part 1 / Part 2
06: "Switches from Cisco"
07: "Area of use of network switches, the value of Cisco switches"
08/09: "Basics of a Wireless LAN" Part 1 / Part 2
10: "Products in the field of wireless LAN"
11: The Value of Cisco Wireless LANs
12: Routing Basics
13: "The structure of routers, routing platforms from Cisco"
14: The Value of Cisco Routers
15/16: “The Basics of Data Centers” Part 1 / Part 2
17: "Equipment for data centers"
18: "The Value of Cisco in Data Centers"
19/20/21: "The Basics of Telephony" Part 1 / Part 2 / Part 3
22: "Cisco Collaboration Software"
23: The Value of Collaboration Products from Cisco
24: "The Basics of Security"
25: "Cisco Security Software"
26: "The Value of Cisco Security Products"
27: "Understanding Cisco Architectural Games (Review)"
And here is the seventh of them.
FastTrack Training. "Network Basics". "Area of use of network switches, the value of Cisco switches". Eddie Martin December 2012
Let's continue our conversation about network switches (switches). Consider the difference between customer perceptions about switches and how Cisco applies to switches. What do customers even think about switches?
Switches - a commodity in demand, product in demand. But why? Maybe you woke up in the morning with the thought that the switch on the table would help you do business differently, help you avoid problems, and immediately wanted to buy one? Not at all! In fact, this question deserves a separate discussion. The fact is that we could not become leaders if we literally didn’t drag our switches into the business!
What is the need of "pulling" switches? In the early 1990s, this was a unique technology, everyone wanted switches, and your business flourished only through the sale of such equipment. But later the market was overflowing with offers, since everyone bought switches. Therefore, to successfully sell network switches, we had to make them unique! We provided PoE capability and developed IP telephony.
How did we do it? We connect the physical layer, which provides power via Ethernet, with the network layer - IP telephony. By selling equipment for IP-telephony, we sell switches, we “pull” switches into the business process. For 1 dollar of IP-telephony equipment, we “drag” 6 dollars of switching equipment.
But what do you think about expanding the use of switches today? What else are they for?
Video! That's right, video content is gaining popularity, network traffic is increasing, the network is “falling apart” and an upgrade of auxiliary equipment of the video broadcasting system, that is, network devices, is required. Thus, switches are in demand because they are part of a global technical solution. We loved Tandberg long before it was purchased, as they were broadcasting video to the network and it was “falling apart”, a demand was born for new switches and routers immediately after that. So, once again, it was not just the sale of switches to the business, it was the sale of a much larger part of a large solution.
What does Cisco do in this regard? It becomes an innovator in the use of switches, expanding the scope of their application. We could not lead in this area if we were not engaged in innovations.
At the beginning we came up with PoE, and for the video we came up with Medianet, which was, as we remember, the next stage of development :
Medianet helps us view the entire flow route and quickly identify problems. If my boss is sitting here and he wants to call someone, then I can make a test call in advance with the help of the main Cisco network management and identify potential problems along the way. I can do it in advance, even before the call happens and if problems arise, I can fix them.
Medianet is developing dynamically, so our network equipment should not lag behind this process. We introduce our switches and routers into the process of transferring and sharing media files.
The next area of use for switches is energy saving. It is now investing heavily. In this case, the switches provide economical power to devices via Ethernet, they contribute to the introduction of "green", environmentally friendly technologies, thereby saving money. This technology is already actively used in data centers, and is being implemented in remote offices and offices, "smart" homes, and so on. In other matters, we have already spoken about this with you here .
Another area where switches are used is security systems. This is an important aspect for customers. We all use network equipment, exchange information using electronic devices, so protection against unauthorized entry, viruses, prevention of information theft is important for everyone and we implemented it, ensuring the operation of 802.1x protocol and encryption at the network level and the entire route, extremely well implemented. We are accustomed to the fact that we often have a day of sales of security systems. Break some customer and he writes an article that there is a threat of hacking. My account manager calls me and reports this. We drop everything and go talk to our customers, some of whom we couldn’t persuade to buy one solution or another, show them information about what happened, competitors, what they can offer and what we can offer.
How else can you continue the process of innovation, the process of product introduction? Add the scope of services and technical support!
Cisco is really good in this area, and this is one of the reasons why customers use our hardware. We have excellent service and competent technical support.
Next comes the pricing policy of the company. The customer is interested in Cisco prices.
He wants to know why we have them, and someone else, he is surprised that he needs to pay 890 thousand dollars every 3 years to upgrade the switch software, because this is an unimaginable price for him, each year the cost of one port decreases , and it may well be worth buying a new one.
Therefore, we are forced to fight for every dollar of profit, reducing the cost of services annually. Because the customer is looking for someone who can provide cheaper equipment or give more equipment for the same price. This is a general trend in the IT industry. Business people know this and therefore take this trend into account when planning their business. They are forced to literally "teeth and nails" to fight for their place in the market of IT technologies. Figuratively speaking, what was a tree in the 90s has now shrunk to the size of a toothpick.
We have a paradoxical situation. On the one hand, switches are used in each network, in each segment of information technology, and on the other, we have to spend 3 months of development on each new product in order to compete and stay afloat. Therefore, we must “push” our devices wherever possible, and create our own ASIC chips. After all, the client is not interested in our problems, he doesn’t care how we achieve the result. If we discussed our difficulties with customers, we would not become leaders in the field of network technologies and equipment.
Innovations, media networks, energy saving, safety - these are the areas where we have to develop. Video communication, voice communication - these are also our areas. Here, the customer must see how Cisco products differ from other companies. We do a lot of research and development (R & D), how much R & D does HP do? Less than 3%.
The main feature that our switches provide and which users especially appreciate is network security. This is where Cisco really leads. We have a very powerful hardware and very powerful processors.
You need to focus your customers on the three indisputable advantages of Cisco: the highest network availability, ease of troubleshooting and absolute reliability. Indeed, networks based on Cisco equipment are considered the most reliable in the world, so we have to invest in maintaining our reputation in this area.
Continued:
FastTrack Training. "Network Basics". "Basics of a wireless LAN". Part one. Eddie Martin December 2012
Thank you for staying with us. Do you like our articles? Want to see more interesting materials? Support us by placing an order or recommending to friends, 30% discount for Habr users on a unique analogue of the entry-level servers that we invented for you: The Truth About VPS (KVM) E5-2650 v4 (6 Cores) 10GB DDR4 240GB SSD 1Gbps $ 20 or how to share the server? (Options are available with RAID1 and RAID10, up to 24 cores and up to 40GB DDR4).
Dell R730xd 2 times cheaper? Only we have 2 x Intel Dodeca-Core Xeon E5-2650v4 128GB DDR4 6x480GB SSD 1Gbps 100 TV from $ 249 in the Netherlands and the USA! Read about How to build an infrastructure building. class c using servers Dell R730xd E5-2650 v4 worth 9000 euros for a penny?
Source: https://habr.com/ru/post/350306/
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