http://www.bizjournals.com/sanjose/stories/2009/05/18/daily12.htmlCisco: Smart grid will be 1,000 times size of the WebSilicon Valley / San Jose Business Journal
Cisco Systems Inc. sees a $100 billion opportunity in communications equipment for upgrading aging electrical infrastructure to a digital smart grid, CNET reported.
The San Jose-based networking giant’s CEO John Chambers was in Boston Monday to speak at the J.P. Morgan Technology, Media and Telecom Conference, and he was expected to talk about the company’s opportunities in the smart grid.
Marie Hattar, vice president of marketing in Cisco’s Network Systems Solutions group, told CNET that the smart grid network will be “100 or 1,000 times larger than the Internet,” saying that virtually every home has electricity and many of them don’t have Internet access.
Cisco (NASDAQ:CSCO) isn’t the only company looking to invest in upgrading the electrical infrastructure -- numerous startups as well as Santa Clara-based Intel Corp. (NASDAQ:INTC) and Armonk, N.Y.-based International Business Machines Corp. (NYSE:IBM) are ramping up their efforts.
San Francisco Business Times
http://www.america.gov/st/scitech.../20090319153825lcnirellep0.4414484.html“Planetary Skin” Tool Aims to Improve Response to Climate Change
NASA, Cisco collaborate to integrate climate data, Web technology
Map showing plotted data (NASA)
The Planetary Skin platform will capture, collect, analyze and report data on environmental conditions around the world.
By Cheryl Pellerin
Staff Writer
Washington ― Every day, on and above Earth, millions of sensors collect vast amounts of data representing interactions among the planet’s systems of land, air, water and life. This is the kind of data needed to address the complexities of climate change or a move to a low-carbon-dioxide world economy, but gathering it is just the first step.
The next steps, barely possible given the state of information technology, involve integrating data from air- and space-borne and terrestrial instruments with computer models of climate, ecosystems and biological systems, then analyzing and reporting results that can be scaled to the needs of nations and communities.
On March 3, at a U.S. Climate Action Symposium in Washington, NASA and Cisco Systems, a $39 billion, U.S.-based designer and seller of networking and communications technology and services, announced a research and development (R&D) collaboration to build such a system.
Over the next several years, according to a Cisco statement, Planetary Skin will provide a common platform for integrating data; scientific, economic and risk models; data processing and communication networks; and visualization and collaboration tools.
“We’re trying to convert the geophysical and biological data products into information that can be used by policy and management decisionmakers,” Steve Hipskind, chief of the NASA Ames Research Center’s Earth Science Division in California, told America.gov.
“We don’t envision Cisco or NASA as operators of the Planetary Skin infrastructure,” Juan Carlos Castilla-Rubio, managing director of the Cisco Strategy and Innovation Group’s climate change practice, told America.gov. “We are focused on the R&D elements, the technical elements, and in the future we hope that capability will be replicated and scaled globally.”
Cisco already is working on the program with the United Nations, multilateral development banks, businesses, international government agencies, universities, policy groups, nongovernmental organizations and foundations.
SYSTEM OF SYSTEMS
Other efforts are under way to integrate the range of maritime, atmospheric, air-borne and space-based data around the globe. (See “Benefits Arise from Global Effort To Link Earth Observation Data.”)
The largest international program is the Global Earth Observation System of Systems (GEOSS), a 10-year (2005–2015) plan to integrate data from widely distributed Earth-observing networks and make the information available to decisionmakers and other users.
More than 70 nations participate in the partnership to incorporate existing and new sensors into a global public infrastructure that generates comprehensive, timely environmental information.
The intergovernmental Group on Earth Observations ― a voluntary organization of 72 governments and the European Commission and 46 intergovernmental, international and regional organizations ― coordinates the GEOSS effort.
“One of the things we’re attempting to do with the Planetary Skin project,” Lipskind said, “is to make progress on linking the system of systems.”
Earth from space (AP Images)
This view of Earth was photographed from the Apollo 17 spacecraft in December 1972.
MITIGATE AND ADAPT
At the World Economic Forum in 2009, public- and private-sector leaders outlined three requirements for mitigating and adapting to a changing climate:
1. Countries must set targets for CO2 emissions that effectively put a price on carbon.
2. Developed and developing countries must provide large-scale ($350 billion to $450 billion) predictable and sustainable financing for mitigation and adaptation strategies.
3. A globally trusted mechanism must be created for measuring, reporting and verifying CO2 emissions.
“The day is not yet here but is probably not all that distant when carbon will need to have a worldwide price,” Todd Stern, U.S. special envoy for climate change, told symposium attendees in a keynote address. “This would accomplish two things: reverse the incentive to cling to cheaper high-carbon sources of energy and create the opportunity for the kind of large financial flows needed.”
Under their agreement, NASA and Cisco will develop the Planetary Skin as an online collaborative platform, making the data available to the public, governments and businesses.
“When you’re talking about a global collaboration in which all nations have to do their part in terms of mitigation and adaptation, you need to be able to monitor and verify [CO2 emissions],” Castilla-Rubio said.
Planetary Skin, he said, will be able to help meet that requirement.
NASA and Cisco will launch Planetary Skin with a series of pilot projects, including one called Rainforest Skin that will be prototyped in 2010. According to scientists, rain forest destruction adds CO2 to the atmosphere and keeps it there, contributing to global warming.
The effort will target tropical deforestation around the world and explore how to integrate a comprehensive sensor network. It will also examine how to capture, analyze and present information about the changes in the amount of CO2 in rain forests.
In the meantime, Lipskind said, “a lot of research needs to be done.”
Getting regional and local forecasts from the global circulation model ― a mathematical model of the circulation of the atmosphere and oceans ― and connecting that information through biological or ecological forecast tools created at NASA Ames, he added, “will require significantly more supercomputing capability than we currently have.”
More information about Planetary Skin is available on the project Web site.
Additional information about the Ames Research Center’s Earth Science Division is available on the NASA Web site.
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Cisco Provides Core Network Infrastructure for World's Largest Multinational Military Exercise; IP Leader a Major Supporter of U.S. European Command's Global Interoperability ExerciseBusiness Wire, May 15, 2006
LAGER AULENBACH, Germany -- Cisco Systems(R) (NASDAQ:CSCO) announced today that it will provide the core network infrastructure for Combined Endeavor 2006, a two-week operation designed to test and document the interoperability of vital communication systems for multinational forces deployed in humanitarian, peacekeeping and disaster relief efforts. Data gathered from earlier exercises has played a key role in recent multinational operations in Iraq, Afghanistan, Bosnia and Kosovo as well as humanitarian operations in Pakistan and the tsunami-affected areas.
More than 1,000 tests beginning this week will focus mainly on the ability to pass data with a high level of security over an Internet Protocol (IP) backbone, using voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP), private mobile radio, high frequency and satellite communications. Information assurance is another key focus area for the participating nations. In cooperation with the German Ministry of Defense, the U.S. European Command is sponsoring the communications and information systems interoperability exercise. Forty-one nations are taking part, including NATO, Partnership for Peace and non-aligned or strategic partner nations.
"Combined Endeavor 2006 is breaking new ground in many of the network areas that are being tested such as in multinational information sharing," said Air Force Brig. Gen. Thomas Verbeck, the director of the International Interoperability, Concepts and Experimentation Directorate (ECJ9). "Our goal is to tackle these types of challenges long before the call comes to deploy, certainly as part of Phase Zero operations."
Combined Endeavor officials knew from experience that upgrading its core backbone was crucial in working to ensure a more realistic test of simulated operational networks. Because the complex systems of more than 40 nations and organizations are involved, finding a common thread was the key to success. Since Cisco equipment is common to networking in most nations, the company is playing a major role in this year's exercise.
"As military units worldwide are being challenged to perform at ever higher levels in conflicts and disaster recoveries, multinational forces are increasingly driving to an IP standard," said Kevin MacRitchie, vice president of
Global Defense Space and Security for Cisco's Global Government Services Group. "As the world leader in IP networking, Cisco, through its IP backbone will help ensure that interoperability testing for all equipment from participating nations will be held to the highest standards of performance, furthering the information assurance and security enhancement goals of this exercise."
Cisco technicians will provide real-time video teleconferencing and Web casting as well as the administrative local area networks (LANs) that will register and transport information and analyze results.
About Combined Endeavor 2006
Combined Endeavor 2006 (CE 06) is the 12th in the series of U.S. European Command (USEUCOM) sponsored "in-spirit-of" (ISO) Partnership for Peace (PfP) exercises planned and executed to identify, test, and document command, control, communications, and computer systems (C4) and information systems (CIS) interoperability between NATO and PfP nations' fielded military strategic and tactical communications information equipment systems. The overall objective is to develop an integrated interoperability guide to assist deployment planning within a coalition network. Documentation of interoperability is a tremendous achievement toward operational readiness and further enhances theater security cooperation.
News and information are available at
http://www.ce.pims.org/.
> About Cisco Systems
Cisco Systems, Inc. (NASDAQ:CSCO) is the worldwide leader in networking for the Internet. News and information are available at
http://www.cisco.com. For ongoing news, please go to
http://newsroom.cisco.comCisco, Cisco Systems, and the Cisco Systems logo are registered trademarks or trademarks of Cisco Systems, Inc. and/or its affiliates in the United States and certain other countries. All other trademarks mentioned in this document are the property of their respective owners. The use of the word partner does not imply a partnership relationship between Cisco and any other company. This document is Cisco Public Information.
