Packet Magazine: Cisco Systems Networking Professionals Magazine.

Welcome to the New Packet Magazine

IF YOU’RE A REGULAR READER OF PACKET, YOU PROBABLY ALREADY KNOW THAT WE’VE CHANGED more than the look of the magazine. We have rethought and restructured Packet from the ground up—improving on the best and getting rid of the rest—to bring you what we think is the industry’s premier magazine for Cisco networking professionals. Whether you’re a newbie or an expert, a network administrator or IT director, you’re likely to find something of interest in the pages of Packet.

The cover story and feature articles (see the first page of the table of contents) highlight the latest technologies and industry trends of interest to the general reader, regardless of industry or technical level. Feature articles highlight the business benefits of particular networking technologies, answering the “what” and “why” but not necessarily the “how” of networking. For that, you’ll want to turn to the “Departments” page of the table of contents.

Tech Tips+Training—Targeted to the newbie or the hands-on technical user who is new to a particular technology, this department offers entry points into various networking technologies, primers, tech tips, and even a quiz (see page 16). This section is also home to our highly popular “Reader Tips” column (see page 14).

Chalk Talk—For the more experienced networking professional, Chalk Talk articles are often authored by experts in the field and include in-depth discussions on routing and switching protocols, new networking standards, troubleshooting, deployment strategies, and best practices Infrastructure—This section targets both the hands-on networking professional as well as technical managers, and focuses on systems and solutions as opposed to individual products.

Service Providers—This department highlights networking technologies, solutions, and services most relevant to telcos, ISPs, MSPs, and mobile operators.

Beyond Speeds + Feeds—This new department is all about products. It’s home to our ever-popular New Product Dispatches column, as well as longer articles that focus on new or existing products from Cisco and its partners. A new Product Review rounds out this department.

There are other changes, but we’ll let you discover them for yourself. We think you’re going to appreciate the new Packet. Whether you do or don’t, or fall somewhere in between, we want to hear from you. Please tell us what you think.

DAVID BALL
Editor in Chief

Download Packet Magazine, 2nd Quarter, 2006

PDF format, 6.4MB, 67Pages.

Connecting People Not Devices (Second Quarter, 2006)
With a plethora of voice, video, and data products and native support for Session Initiation Protocol (SIP), Cisco Unified Communications lowers the barriers to virtual collaboration. Read all about it in the Cover Story, "People Reaching People." Also in this issue: the ABCs of VPNs, deploying Cisco Security Agent, NAC implementation basics, an IMS primer for MSOs, and a bird's-eye view of "The Connected Community."

FEATURES
42 The Network Lifecycle
Lifecycle services offer best practices for deploying advanced technologies on your network.
46 The Connected Community
Imagine a city where government services can be delivered anytime, anywhere and citizens are totally connected.
48 Winning the Security Game
Management and complete endpoint security are the final pieces in a fully deployable Self-Defending Network.

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COVER STORY
36 People Reaching People
With a plethora of voice, video, and data products and native support for SIP, Cisco Unified Communications lowers the barriers to virtual collaboration.

FORWARD THINKER Sand early technology adopters, rejoice. Cisco Lifecycle Services promises to take much of the pain out of deploying new advanced technologies such as network security or IP communications.

The Cisco Lifecycle Services approach is a framework of best practices that outlines the critical activities required to deploy and operate an advanced technology. This detailed methodology is based on six lifecycle phases—prepare, plan, design, implement, operate, and optimize. Galvanizing this approach is Cisco’s strategy to ensure that its customers have access to highly qualified channel partners to see them through each phase.

Karl Meulema, Cisco’s vice president of services marketing and channels, is credited with expanding on the industry-recognized concept of incorporating technology deployment and operations into a lifecycle framework. To give life to this vision, Meulema developed sound methodologies that can be reproduced and scaled by enabling partners and then collaboratively supporting customers.

Packet: How do you define Cisco Lifecycle Services?
KM: Lifecycle Services is an accurate description of the activities that an end customer needs to be successful with Cisco technologies. In essence, it’s about accelerating the learning curve around our technologies. It is not a service offering. I can’t emphasize that strongly enough. It’s a collection of best practices for a given technology, developed through our own experience and validated through that of our partners. Lifecycle Services is a very specific, documented set of best practices. ...

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