Cisco spells out its risks and rewards

Cisco News Alert This newsletter is sponsored by Riverbed Technology Bring the world closer with Riverbed Accelerate your Cisco networks up to 100 times faster. And take your apps, VoIP, video, and QoS to the next level. Discover how over 2500 Cisco customers bring their world closer with Riverbed. Get the "ESG Lab Field Audit". Network World's Cisco News Alert, 09/21/07 Welcome to the Friday edition of Network World's Cisco News Alert in which we focus on the top items from Cisco Subnet, your gateway to Cisco news, blogs, discussion forums, security alerts, giveaways and more. Enjoy! * TOP PICK OF THE WEEK: Cisco spells out its risks and rewards Reading a company's 10-K filing you can usually get a pretty good idea of what's going on at the company and what it perceives are its risks. Cisco issued its 10-K filing to the SEC this week and along with the usual comments about risks (as is customary for financial statements) there were a few items that stood out, including Cisco's warnings of the risky business of acquisitions. Did Cisco take on too much risk when it acquired Scientific-Atlanta and WebEx? Let us know. Network World Security Buyers Guide Find the right security products for your enterprise - fast. From anti-spam to wireless LAN security, our Buyers Guides have detailed information on hundreds of products in more than 20 categories. With the side-by-side comparison tool you can evaluate product features to make the best decision for your enterprise. Click here to go to the Security Buyers Guide now. ALSO: Cisco finds that it's not so easy working with Microsoft Cisco: A quarter of acquisitions not working out Meru outperformed Cisco in Tolly's converged wireless LAN test Cisco to enable partners to sell WebEx services * FROM OUR BLOGGERS: Brad Reese on Cisco: How Cisco professionals can optimize their job search Cisco network engineer headhunting guru - Eman, director of recruitment for Cisco gold partner, Alliant Technologies, reminisces about the past while offering advice to Cisco professionals seeking to optimize a successful job search. Jeff Doyle on IP Routing: OSPFv3: One new LSA might make a big difference When OSPFv3 was developed to support IPv6, the opportunity presented itself to apply lessons learned from the older OSPFv2. One of the resulting changes to OSPFv3 can improve its scalability in some situations. Specifically, IP addressing semantics have been removed from OSPFv3 Router (Type 1) and Network (Type 2) LSAs. Author Expert Wendell Odom: Thinking about EIGRP from lots of angles Yesterday’s sample CCNA exam question attacks EIGRP from a lot of different angles. To answer the question fully, you have to think about the theory behind how EIGRP finds the successor route, any feasible successor routes, what the “feasibility condition” is, a little about how EIGRP calculates metrics, and the requirements for adding multiple equal or unequal metric routes to the routing table. And the question asked all that without showing the output of a single show command, which if included, could have made the question more difficult. ChannelSurfing with Ken Presti: Cisco wants to help channel partners with recruiting: A double-edged sword? One of the main topics at last week’s channel analyst conference in Dublin involved plans to assist channel partners in recruiting and retaining top talent. With ambitions to become a $50 billion company by 2010, Cisco has started at that end objective, looked backwards, and determined that partners focused on advanced technologies, services, and solution delivery might not also be able to apply adequate resources to finding the talent necessary to keep all the other balls in the air at the same time. They found that most partners simply don’t have the infrastructure to systematically recruit talent. Therefore, it’s very much in Cisco’s best interest to help the partners. Michael Morris' Notes from the Field: First impressions of the CCDE written beta test I took the CCDE Written Beta Test today. My first impression - that was a LONG test. 170 questions to complete in 3 hours and 20 minutes. It took me just under 3 hours to finish. It's much different from the 75 or 100 questions I am used to in certification tests. Around question #120 my brain started to hurt. Jamey Heary: Cisco Security Expert: Innovative new way to do e-mail encryption E-mail encryption solutions have always been a headache for users as well as administrators. The most main stream solutions use a pull technology or use PGP. Both of these solutions have proven to have several problems, most notably is their lack of ease of use. Cisco’s IronPort PostX encryption solution breaks away from the status quo with their push technology. Here’s how it works ... HOT DISCUSSIONS AMONG CISCO SUBNET READERS: Could a combined Nortel-3Com-Polycom beat Cisco? The combination of a united Nortel, 3Com and Polycom would create a formidable competitor to Cisco, writes Silicon Valley strategy consultant Sramana Mitra in her blog. Do you agree or is there another better combo? Cisco the fish, Cisco the musician - Cisco is more than just a networking company Cisco says it wants to become a household name in the consumer market but there are other Ciscos (along with various spellings of the word) already in the public’s consciousness. Can you name them all? FREEBIES, GIVEAWAYS AND OTHER NOTABLES: * Enter to win a Skyline-ATS training course of your choice worth up to $3,495. Details here. *Enter to Win a Cisco Press Book: Up for grabs are 15 copies of Wendell Odom's book "Official Exam Certification Library (CCNA Exam 640-802), 3rd Edition," a comprehensive review and practice package for the latest CCNA exams.. Details here. Get a sneak peek of a chapter from one of the books here. * Read a free chapter from "Storage Networking Protocol Fundamentals" by James Long. Free excerpt here. * Check out Cisco Subnet's library for more free chapters from Cisco Press books.

TODAY'S MOST-READ STORIES: 1. How much does the store owe this PC buyer? 2. Gartner: Open source impossible to avoid 3. Ameritrade leak started earlier than reported 4. Obsolete WEP Wi-Fi gets new security shield 5. Cisco's risky business of acquisitions 6. BJ’s shifts to MPLS network 7. Cisco fleshes out Microsoft cooperation 8. IBM targets Office with free productivity apps 9. The Hell of Gateway's tech support 10. One less reason to adopt IPv6? MOST-DOWNLOADED PODCAST: NW Panorama: 5 Cool iPod Tips and Tricks

Contact the author: Senior Editor Jim Duffy covers Cisco for Network World. Linda Leung edits Cisco Subnet. Cisco Subnet: The independent voice of Cisco customers   This newsletter is sponsored by Riverbed Technology Bring the world closer with Riverbed Accelerate your Cisco networks up to 100 times faster. And take your apps, VoIP, video, and QoS to the next level. Discover how over 2500 Cisco customers bring their world closer with Riverbed. Get the "ESG Lab Field Audit". BONUS FEATURE IT PRODUCT RESEARCH AT YOUR FINGERTIPS Get detailed information on thousands of products, conduct side-by-side comparisons and read product test and review results with Network World’s IT Buyer’s Guides. Find the best solution faster than ever with over 100 distinct categories across the security, storage, management, wireless, infrastructure and convergence markets. Click here for details. PRINT SUBSCRIPTIONS AVAILABLE You've got the technology snapshot of your choice delivered to your inbox each day. Extend your knowledge with a print subscription to the Network World newsweekly, Apply here today. International subscribers, click here. SUBSCRIPTION SERVICES To subscribe or unsubscribe to any Network World newsletter, change your e-mail address or contact us, click here. This message was sent to: networking.world@gmail.com. Please use this address when modifying your subscription. Advertising information: Write to Associate Publisher Online Susan Cardoza Network World, Inc., 118 Turnpike Road, Southborough, MA 01772 Copyright Network World, Inc., 2007