Interop 2014: 8 Hot Technologies
Interop 2014 kicks off Monday in Las Vegas. Here's a sneak peek of technologies to watch.
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Interop Las Vegas opens Monday at the Mandalay Bay Convention Center amid a time of accelerating change. Change has been a constant in the technology industry, but the pace of change seems to keep getting faster, as futurist Ray Kurzweil argued in 2001.
Much of the recent change has been driven by IT trends like the shift toward mobile devices, cloud computing, and the networking of everything. That and the need to store petabytes of cat videos, if you'll pardon the pun.
Then there's the fact that software, as Marc Andreessen once put it, is eating the world. In his keynote presentation at the conference, Pat Gelsinger, CEO of VMware, plans to highlight how virtualization and cloud computing have led software-defined datacenters to overshadow hardware-defined facilities, a shift he characterizes as "tectonic."
Alan Hase, Avaya's VP of networking, points to software-defined networking (SDN) as an area of vibrant change. "You'll see more and more vendors focusing on the technology and realizing the potential of software-defined networking," he said in a telephone interview.
Hase says such change has made simplification more important than ever. "IT budgets and staff are being constrained, the level of IT experience in teams is decreasing, but level of complexity of the technology is increasing," he said. "Customers are struggling and looking for solutions that simplify their lives and reduce downtime."
Avaya's Fabric Attach technology, a Best of Interop finalist in the networking category, represents an attempt to meet that need. It allows networks to automatically add end-user devices, such as wireless access points, IP cameras and phones, and non-fabric switches. "Our goal is to continue to simplify how networks are deployed, to make them more resilient, and to drive toward a zero-touch edge," said Hase.
The Best of Interop awards focus on nine categories near and dear to the hearts of IT professionals: Cloud, Datacenter, Management, Mobility, Networking, Performance, SDN, Security, and Storage.
There will be a keynote session on SDN on Wednesday, featuring panelists from Cisco, Dell, and HP. BYOD will get some attention the following day, with in a keynote session featuring representatives from Citrix, HP, and Microsoft. When people bring their own devices to work, companies have to adapt: new policies are required, new applications have to be created, and network architectures have to be re-evaluated -- to handle the cat videos.
These are a few among many issues that will be explored at Interop, which will include for the first time the Cloud Connect Summit and our very own InformationWeek Conference. Now check out some new technology highlights we expect at the show.
Alacatel-Lucent Enterprise will be discussing how it will advance its Unified Access strategy through its OmniSwitch 6860, network analytics, software-defined networking, and management tools.
(Source: Benjamin Eggerstedt on Twitter)
The Internet of Things is nigh and that means you need a console to manage it. Basic6 might have what you're looking for in its new remote management console for embedded devices.
Box CEO Aaron Levie will be one of the featured speakers at Interop this year. As his company prepares to go public, he'll share how the cloud can work within the confines of enterprise requirements. Just don't confuse Box with Dropbox, Redbox, or Xbox.
Huawei suffered a black eye after it was shunned in 2012 by the US government over security concerns. Then Edward Snowden revealed the reach of the National Security Agency. Now Huawei is hoping everyone can get back to business as usual. The Chinese networking company will show off its S12700 agile switch with clustering and IP service quality management capabilities, even if US government buyers aren't likely to show up.
Speaking of spying, Linksys plans to present a new lineup of infrastructure products for small and midsize businesses: switches, VPN routers, access points, a network video recorder, and IP surveillance cameras.
NeweggBusiness plans to launch B2B Marketplace for inter-insect commerce. Okay, not really. As you've no doubt guessed by now, the online store will focus on business-to-business offerings from trusted third-party merchants. There will be office supplies, medical supplies, construction tools, and more. Try not to buy medical supplies and construction tools at the same time. It doesn't show much confidence in your workforce.
In February, the OpenDaylight Project, a consortium focused on software-defined networking that includes IBM and Cisco, released its open source Hydrogen software to help organizations test SDN and network-functions virtualization (NFV). The group will be represented at Interop, awaiting your questions. You might try asking why they didn't go with a name that made an even stronger assertion of openness, like the OpenFreeLibreShinyDaylightProject.
Smartvue plans to introduce its S9M, a cloud-based system to monitor, manage, share, and store HD surveillance video from up to thousands of locations. Who says the NSA gets to have all the fun?
Smartvue plans to introduce its S9M, a cloud-based system to monitor, manage, share, and store HD surveillance video from up to thousands of locations. Who says the NSA gets to have all the fun?
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