Cisco and Citrix Form Alliance for Rich-Media Virtual Desktops.  Cisco (CSCO) and Citrix Systems (CTXS) have entered into a strategic alliance to develop and deliver solutions that help customers simplify and accelerate large-scale desktop virtualization deployments. Collaboration between the two companies will include integrations in areas such as enhancing Cisco products with full support for Citrix HDX technology, delivering an optimized user experience for virtual desktops, and accelerate innovation with Cisco UCS, Citrix XenDesktop and XenServer. In addition, the two companies will work together on product development in such areas as desktop virtualization and cloud. ”Cisco is collaborating with Citrix on a broad range of virtualization technologies. Our first deliverables will be focused on giving end users a rich multimedia experience of voice, video and data on their virtual desktops and apps over the Cisco Intelligent Network, so that from any device from wherever they are, IT managers can deliver the same superior experience at a lower cost,” said Phil Sherburne, vice president, Enterprise Systems and Architectures, Cisco.

Level 3 Combines Vyvx with Global Crossing Genesis.  Level 3 Communications (LVLT) announced an expanded set of media and broadcast services that combines Level 3′s Vyvx Services platform for broadcast backhaul with Global Crossing’s Genesis Solutions managed video contribution and distribution services. ”From the transport of native or source HD and 3D television signals to the delivery of Internet Broadcast applications, we are exceedingly well positioned to fully manage end-to-end video for our broadcast and media clients,” said Mark Taylor, vice president of Content and Media at Level 3. The Vyvx and Genesis solutions are built around a new generation of advanced video services designed to deliver broadcast quality rich media content to more than 450 markets in more than 45 network countries.

Blue Coat Adds Video Intelligence.  Blue Coat Systems (BCSI) announced that its Blue Coat Reporter now provides intelligence about the usage of Web video on corporate networks. The new version provides website ranking for sites that employees watch video on, ranking of employees using the greatest amount of bandwidth watching video, and ranking of the protocols or methods used to delivery web video. “Blue Coat uniquely solves the challenges companies face in delivering Web video and internal video over their existing networks,” said Steve Daheb, chief marketing officer and senior vice president, Blue Coat Systems. “The new Reporter product provides important insight on how employees are using Web video and enables companies to understand and address trends and patterns of behavior. In addition, our next generation WAN optimization solutions reduce the impact of video by a substantial factor while boosting the performance of business-critical applications.” Blue Coat Reporter 9.3 is available immediately.

The New York sessions are focusing on the financial services industry, with speakers who are individuals involved are at the “bleeding edge” of data center operations. To see what’s on board for the conference, visit the conference agenda page. If you plan to register, Data Center Knowledge readers can get a 10 percent discount on conference registration by using the code GDCNY10. Early registrants can opt for a tour of the new Equinix data center.

This spring, GDCcon 2010 was held in June in San Diego. This video recaps some highlights from that event.

Visit Data Center Knowledge’s Events directory for more industry conferences and meetings information.

Internet video specialist STRATACACHE said today that it has acquired a hardened data center facility in the Dayton, Ohio metro region. The company, which provides digital signage, says it will invest $3.25 million in the 10,000 square foot facility.

It will also provide expanded of services for several STRATACACHE customers that are among the world’s largest digital media networks. The company hosts more than 10,000 digital menu boards for the “quick service restaurant” industry. These digital menus support quick pricing changes, but also enable updates to comply with local laws on food labeling.

STRATACACHE says its new facility will be able to house up to 2,000 of its ActiVia servers that support digital signage.

“Within the last three years we’ve experienced heightened customer demand for managed digital media services as part of our digital signage/digital media practice,” said Chris Riegel, CEO of STRATACACHE. “This new facility will expand our ability to fulfill clients’ requirements for world-class services. Our customers are evolving from one to 10, and even 200, digital media devices per store and each device requires ongoing managed services to achieve their mission.”

The company didn’t identify the location of the “highly secure” facility within the Dayton marekt, but said the data center would provide redundant data paths, emergency backup power systems, and be controlled by an advanced facility access control system.

“This facility continues to show our dedication to the region and our further investment in building first-class technology and service operations within Dayton,” said Riegel. “Our business continues to grow by ‘outsourcing’ digital signage and digital media technology and system operations for customers from high-cost urban centers around the globe to the highly skilled, but lower cost, Midwestern United States.”

The new facility in Akron will handle text messages and data services for AT&T wireless customers in Ohio and the East Coast. That includes New York City, where many iPhone users have complained about the rate of dropped calls. This region was previously supported by a data center in Schaumberg, Illinois.

The Akron facility will be AT&T’s ninth data center dedicated to its wireless business, including four which support 3G or 4G services. The $120 million investment will cover the buildout of the first phase of the facility, with about $20 million dedicated to facility improvements and the remainder for technology. AT&T may expand further at the facility as additional capacity is needed.

AT&T Ohio director of public affairs Sarah Briggs told Crain’s that the increased use of smartphones such as the iPhone, for which AT&T provides data and phone services, has increased demand for “mobility centers” like the new Akron facility. She said the added capacity will be particularly important as AT&T rolls out its faster 4G service.

Growing use of wireless service,s particularly for the iPhone, have taxed the company’s network in some major cities. AT&T just added more capacity and cell sites in New York, which along with San Francisco has been its most challenging service area.

Level 3 to support MLB media archive.  Level 3 Communications (LVLT) announced that it has been selected by MLB.com to deliver high-speed IP and colocation to support its network, media archive, as well as live and on-demand streaming capabilities. A previous agreement existed between Level 3 and MLB.com for Vyvx video backhaul services for live-game streaming and the new services will be an expansion of that contract.  New services will include High-speed IP – two 10 Gigabit Ethernet ports at Level 3′s edge servers and a colocation suite. “This was an extraordinarily complex undertaking, and we were truly impressed with Level 3’s flexible, consultative approach,” said Joe Choti, chief technology officer of MLB.com. “Level 3 rose to the challenges surrounding this project to quickly and efficiently deliver solutions for a mission-critical application that will help MLB.com provide the expansive Web and interactive content our fans want.” On Monday Level 3 announced it is providing Internet Broadcast services to a number of European broadcasters to stream the 2010 FIFA World Cup South Africa games in high-definition to online audiences.

Nirvanix releases Hybrid Cloud Storage.  Nirvanix launched hNode, a hybrid cloud storage solution that combines the scalability, ease of management and compelling economics of public cloud storage with the security and control of private cloud storage.  Jeff Boles, Senior Analyst and Director of Validation Services at The Taneja Group comments that “with hNode, Nirvanix is bringing not just a gateway appliance, but rather the full Nirvanix cloud to the customers’ premises – with all the benefits of elastic scale, API accessibility, sophisticated geographic dispersal, and more.”  hNode includes all the networking hardware, software and storage needed to provide an on-premise cloud storage solution contained in a minimum 200 TB configuration, expandable to petabytes of storage per location.

Riverbed announces new Microsoft solution. Riverbed Technology (RVBD) announced an extension of its relationship with Microsoft through the delivery of a comprehensive best-of-breed secure web gateway and WAN optimization solution for organizations with remote offices. Combining Microsoft’s Forefront Threat Management Gateway 2010 solution with Riverbed WAN optimization technology the single appliance will enable enable branch office virtualization and LAN-like application performance while protecting corporate networks.  “This joint solution enables organizations to realize what we call Business Ready Security through Riverbed best-of-breed WAN optimization solutions fully integrated with our comprehensive Web security solution in a way that is simple to manage and deploy,” said Zakie Mashiah, Principal Group Manager in the Server and Tools Business at Microsoft.

Cisco’s annual networkers event, Cisco Live! began this week – in Vegas, or virtual attendance for many over the virtual equivalent conference site.  Cisco packs keynotes, educational sessions, an expo and other special events into this week long annual event for user education.

Cisco CEO John Chambers was the keynote Tuesday and outlined his vision for Cisco and future technology trends.  Cisco CTO Padmasree Warrior will keynote Wednesday.  Several major product announcements have also been made during the event.

Cisco Cius Tablet
Cisco unveiled the Cius, a first of its kind mobile collaboration business tablet that delivers virtual desktop integration with anywhere, anytime access to the full range of Cisco collaboration and communication applications, including HD video.

The 1.15 lbs Android-based tablet will stream HD video, has full telepresence interoperability, offers conferencing, email, messaging, browsing and the ability to produce, edit and share content stored locally or centrally in the cloud.  Additionally the Cius will self-orient with an on-board accelerometer and supports 802.11 a/b/g/n wi-fi as well as 3G and cellular.  The Cius is completely integrated with the full range of Cisco business applications such as WebEx, Presence, TelePresence, Unified Communications Manager and AnyConnect VPN security.

“This platform can transform how healthcare professionals advance patient care; how retailers deliver service experiences to consumers, or how universities deliver world-class education to their students,” said Tony Bates, senior vice president and general manager, enterprise commercial and small business at Cisco.  General availability of the Cius will be in the first quarter of 2011.

Energy Management Tools

Cisco also unveiled new technologies that build on its recently announced Connected Grid portfolio and help consumers and businesses better monitor and manage their energy consumption for cost and carbon savings, including an easy-to-use interface for the home environment.  The push into new models of energy management is focused on enabling an end-to-end, open standards-based communications platform.

A new home energy management solution pairs an energy controller with Cisco Energy Management Services that, when provided by utilities to their customers will give the end user insight into and easier control over their energy use.  The home energy controller coordinates networks and protocols such as ZigBee, Wi-Fi and Encoder Receiver Technology (ERT).

The Cisco Network Building Mediator Manager 6300 will let corporations connect, monitor, aggregate and manage distributed networks of Cisco Network Building Mediators, and multiple buildings via a central enterprise portal.

“We have been using the Cisco Network Building Mediator to integrate multiple building systems across areas such as HVAC, lighting and our data center operations. As a result of using the Cisco solution together with an integrated utility program, we are now able to shed 1.1 megawatts of power in 20 minutes during demand response events,” said Dave Shroyer, Senior Controls Engineer at NetApp.

Additional features of the Network Building Mediators and Mediator Manager include a global navigator for enterprise wide visibility, tools for defining global schedules, equipment status pages, support for enhanced security with Pluggable Authentication Modules (PAMs), and integration with the Cisco EnergyWise API, in addition to the Cisco EnergyWise SNMP protocol.

Several other videos are available on this press release page, as well as the CSCOPR YouTube channel.

“Juniper’s acquisition of Ankeena reflects our commitment to transforming the experience and economics of networking — in this case by delivering an enhanced TV-like user experience of both fixed and mobile video traffic, while enabling crucial TCO reductions for operators,” said Manoj Leelanivas, executive vice president and general manager, Junos Ready Software at Juniper Networks.

Ever since the rise of YouTube, online video has continued to grow exponentially.  Anshu Agarwal, on Fierce Online Video points out that “while the business models and value chain positioning will continue to evolve, the need for a very high-quality viewing experience as we have come to expect with TV, movies and today’s on-demand DVR system is absolute.”  FierceOnlineVideo also recently named Ankeena as a winner of its “Fierce 15″ award, a recognition bestowed on the most innovative emerging companies in the video industry. The mobile market for video is hot as well – with Akamai announcing that they will deliver high quality experiences to the iPad for CondeNast, National Geographic and NPR.

“Over the past few months Ankeena had getting some good traction in the MSO, ISP and CDN space and had quite a few large customers who’s names had yet to be announced,” Dan Rayburn notes at the Business of Online Video. “Being under the Juniper umbrella should now give Ankeena the ability to get their product to market faster and gives Juniper more technology to compete with Cisco and others.”

Ankeena was founded in 2008 and the four co-founders along with senior management at the company have agreed to assume leadership roles within the Juniper Junos Ready Software business group.

Ever want to see inside the world’s most powerful data centers? We’ve provided a look inside many of the world’s most interesting facilities here at Data Center Knowledge. Here are our picks for five of the coolest video tours of major data centers, along with a list of links to 10 other worthwhile video tours.

These videos provide walk-throughs of data centers operated by Google, Equinix, Terremark, Sun Microsystems, Intel, IBM, Switch Communciations, WordPress.com, Nvidia, Emerson Network Power, Telecity, the CLUMEQ supercomputing center and Bahnhof.

For many more data center videos, check out our DCK video archive and the Data Center Videos channel on YouTube.

Joost never emerged as the network apocalypse that many feared, struggling to adapt its technology and business model in the fast-moving video landscape. Today it was announced that Joost’s assets had been acquired by Adconion Media Group. See TechCrunch for the details.

Joost never emerged as the network apocalypse that many feared, struggling to adapt its technology and business model in the fast-moving video landscape. Today it was announced that Joost’s assets had been acquired by Adconion Media Group. See TechCrunch for the details.