Top Coverage Highlights from Interop Las Vegas 2006
The buzz at Interop Las Vegas 2006 is reflected in the press coverage from the event (selected articles appear below), as more articles about Interop and our exhibitors were written at the show than in the past few years. An even better example of the buzz created by Interop was the news our exhibitors made during Interop week: 267 announcements were made at Interop by 167 companies, an increase of 74% over 2005.
Articles
Bigger Interop in store this week
Matthew Hamblen, Computerworld
Interop Las Vegas 2006 kicks off bigger and broader this week, with promoters touting it as the biggest IT show in North America in the post-dot-com-bust era. Interest in Interop is keen among both IT managers and buyers, said analysts such as Zeus Kerravala at Yankee Group Research Inc. "For the first time in a long time, it’s kind of cool to be in networking again," he said.
Net access control: Ready? ... Or not?
Network World Staff
Network companies at Interop last week pushed a clear message about how network security should work: Hardware devices identify users at the network port level, provide virus scanning and authentication services, then allow or deny network access based on strict role-based policies….Attendance for Interop's 20th-anniversary spring show was up around 2,000 from last year to an estimated 18,000, with some previously missing big names - Microsoft among them - returning to the Mandalay Bay Convention Center this year.
Seen and heard around Interop
Paul McNamara, Network World
We were told that attendance was up and that a number of big-name vendors - Microsoft and EMC among them - had returned to what has long been the industry's premier trade gathering. Yet the show floor seemed somehow quieter to me, and it took a short think before a plausible why became clear: There seemed to be fewer carnival barkers and circus acts shouting for attention than had been the norm during leaner times. Oh, there was the odd magician, Blues Brother or booth bunny, but the atmosphere in general seemed more grown-up, more businesslike. The relative quiet suddenly started to sound like prosperity.
Interop abuzz with yap about NAC
John Dix, Network World
Some of the buzz was back at Interop in Las Vegas last week. Early figures put attendance at 18,000 and the show had a healthy, vibrant feeling….Security remains a big topic at the show, and there was a lot of noise around network access control (NAC).
A View From the Interop Show Floor
Cameron Sturdevant, eWeek
While the clear focus of Interop 2006 was security, technologies including wireless, voice over IP and storage were the subject of chatter at the show, held here from April 30 to May 5. While walking the show floor, at the Mandalay Bay Conference Center, I noticed that the Security Zone was the biggest specialized area and was populated with many of the usual suspects. While the RSA Security Conference offers a heavy dose of high-level cryptography and vendor-to-vendor business development, Interop ladles out practical access management information to front-line IT managers.
Interop Brings Big NAC Attack
Mike Fratto, Dark Reading
After simmering quietly on the back burner for the past few years, Network Access Control (NAC) technology is this year's hot security dish at the Interop show here.
Keeping an Open Source Eye on Interop
Sean Michael Kerner, InternetNews.com
The 18,000 visitors expected to descend on Interop this year will be tapping into an open source network that provides connectivity of all kinds. The network, InteropNet, is a custom environment for Interop that serves as a networking technology showcase.
Flow and change: The new Zen in network management?
Dennis Drogseth, Network World
From a network/IT management and security perspective, this month's Interop had a lot to offer. Innovations in analytics, application discovery, the peaceful sense that managing VoIP has settled in as a major requirement without looking backwards over your shoulder to see if someone was still smirking, and the slow gathering storm around managing wireless - were just a few signs of the time.
Interop 2006 Show Planner
Network World Staff
Network World isn't the only network industry thought-leader celebrating its 20th anniversary this year. Networks and Interop have seen plenty of changes in those years: the emergence of Internet and IP, the dot-com rise and fall, the emergence of wireless and the changing global IT security landscape.
Interop Spells Opportunity: Solution providers can look to leverage the latest in networking
CRN Staff
A week of partner networking, product launches and executive keynotes begins as Interop Las Vegas 2006 roars to life. The CMP Media-sponsored show, which takes place April 30 through May 5 at the Mandalay Bay Convention Center, will host a range of speakers from Google, Avaya, IBM and AT&T, as well as a plethora of product announcements.
Advanced switch gear on tap
Phil Hochmuth and Denise Dubie, Network World
Several Ethernet and application switch vendors plan to roll out products at the Interop Conference and Expo in Las Vegas that are intended to make high-speed network gear more affordable and help users boost application performance and security.
Free software flows at network conference
Denise Dubie, Network World
Savvy Interop attendees last week walked away from the show in Las Vegas with more than a pocket full of USB flash drives and retractable Ethernet cables — they also took home free software.From network monitoring tools to internet filters to Office-like applications, vendors took the price tags off their tools for Interop shoppers.
Interoperable VoIP: it works, but needs tweaking
Tim Greene, Network World
The good news is that VoIP equipment among multiple vendors is, finally, pretty interoperable; the bad news is that there are still lots of potholes that can ruin VoIP implementation. That’s a broad view of results from the Interop Labs test of VoIP gear run on the Interop Las Vegas show’s test network and presented at the Labs’ Interop exhibit.
Gearing up for Interop...
Bob Garza, InfoWorld
Early next month in Vegas, the Interop event (formerly known as "NetWorld+Interop," or "N+I") kicks off. As always, this year the InteropNet -- the actual event network, built from scratch by 20+ different vendors -- will be a focal point for attendees to check out the latest technologies.
Chambers Talks Network Intelligence @ Interop
Bob Garza, InfoWorld
John Chambers kicked off Interop this morning, using his exuberant (per the usual) morning keynote to remind us that the IQ of the network is only going to continue to rise to support the next wave of networked IT solutions and collboration / unified communications.
Interop shows slow, steady progress on NAC: New specs, products fill in network access picture
Paul F. Roberts, InfoWorld
Interop still moving beyond data networks
Stephen Lawson, IDG News Service
With networks judged by how well they support business processes, the annual Interop networking conference in Las Vegas continued the trend of recent years, expanding its horizons beyond data networks and toward broader enterprise issues, such as the need for better application monitoring tools, network access control, and the impact of VoIP.
INTEROP - Network pros share thoughts on top issues
Phil Hochmuth, Network World
More than 18,000 attendees were expected at Interop this week, the majority of them IT professionals looking to gain or give advice on their profession and find new technologies to work with. Three of them at the show shared with us what's on their minds…"As long as you stick to the standards-based stuff - and that's what Interop is all about, interoperability - basically, things will work together.
The SMB Word from Interop
Bob Garza, InfoWorld
That aside, Interop 2006 was an interesting show. Much larger than last year's Interminiop, this year's fest had to be housed at the cavernous convention center in the Mandalay Bay. On the SMB front, Interop was a win. Seems there were two things on every vendors mind at this year's show: SMBs and security.
InteropLabs hits on NAC, VoIP and open source
Network World Staff
InteropLabs is the experimental portion of the Interop show network. In it, dozens of experienced network engineers test hundreds of commercial and open source products, focusing on how the gear can work together peacefully on a corporate network.
Network infrastructure vendors weave security into the fabric of routers and switches.
Phil Hochmuth, Network World
Vendors at Interop this week will continue to blur the line between security and network infrastructure products, with Cisco, Extreme, Enterasys and Foundry expected to launch protection-oriented switches and routers. The 20th anniversary show will also feature key product rollouts from network acceleration, management, VoIP, security and wireless firms, and is expected to attract 18,000 attendees and 330 exhibitors.
Wireless vendors target high-bandwidth gear
John Cox and Phil Hochmuth, Network World
Wireless offerings set to debut at Interop are targeting corporate customers looking to add high-bandwidth gear to core networks.
Interop: E-mail security vendors to make splash
Cara Garretson, Network World
A pair of veteran security vendors will use Interop as a stage for announcing new and upgraded products designed to keep corporate messaging systems protected from a variety of threats.
Cisco CEO John Chambers in his Interop keynote pushes multiple forms of communications on a single IP network.
Stephen Lawson, IDG News Service
Collaboration is the key to enterprises both moving quickly and dealing with the demands of globalization, Cisco President and CEO John Chambers told attendees Tuesday at the Interop trade show in Las Vegas.
Cisco quaking in its proprietary boots?
Paul McNamara, Network World
A session at Interop this afternoon posed an intriguing if somewhat premature question: "Open source networking: Should the networking giants be worried?"
Top network technology demos spark Interop
Tim Greene, Network World
The Mandalay Bay Convention Center floor was audibly less boisterous with the lack of blaring music, jugglers and acrobats, giving the expo a more serious, business-like tone.
Infrastructure Vendors Target Security At Interop
InformationWeek
Announcements from Extreme, Enterasys, and leading infrasructure vendors today at the Interop show will highlight the divergent architectural approaches that traditional infrastructure and emerging security-centric infrastructure upstarts are taking towards access control and application layer security.
Down To Business: Job 1 For The U.S. Economy: Build A Tech Workforce
Rob Preston, InformationWeek
What's the single biggest economic challenge facing the United States today? I posed that question to five technology industry CEOs in separate interviews at last week's Interop trade show.
Security is the name of the game at Interop
Amanda Mitchell, TechTarget
Security was a hot topic at Interop this year and included strong activity in the secure messaging space.
Voice over Wi-Fi nets big buzz at Interop
Amanda Mitchell, TechTarget
Voice over Wi-Fi was a major buzzterm flying around Interop this week, whether it was vendors rolling out tools to manage it or demos of technology that will eventually let users take advantage of the technology.
InteropNet's Colossal Task
James Rogers, Byte and Switch
Think you're under pressure? Then spare a thought for the IT manager who has just four days to build a network capable of supporting more than 18,000 people, working with 24 different vendors and a permanent IT staff of just two people.
Storage & Networks Converge
James Rogers, Byte and Switch
WAFS, security, and data compression are all on the agenda at this year's Interop show, as the worlds of networking and storage converge in Sin City. Here's a look at some items to expect…
Wireless Vendors Tout Security, VoIP At Interop
Jennifer Hagendorf Follett, CRN
Wireless vendors at Interop Las Vegas 2006 this week are pushing new products to expand enterprise wireless LAN rollouts and are spotlighting the VoIP and security features of their latest wares.
Security Vendors Take Aim At Multiprotocol Threats, NAC, Compliance
Kevin McLaughlin, CRN
Cisco, The Borg And The Future of Networking
Sean Michael Kerner, InternetNews.com
The show floor was full of over 350 vendors of all stripes: security, core networking, VoIP, acceleration, monitoring/management and everything in between…InteropNet, the network built just for the show, featured the proverbial "conga line" of appliances that vendors are pitching to enterprises: security, routing, connectivity and networking, for example.
Users Signal RFID Intentions
James Rogers, Unstrung
Radio Frequency Identification (RFID), more often associated with retailers and manufacturers, is now attracting attention from a broader range of users. IT managers here for this week's Interop show say they are looking to the technology to track everything from school books and teaching staff to warship parts.
Interop's Wireless Hits
Dan Jones, Unstrung
The effort to bring more applications into enterprise wireless systems lies at the heart of this year's increasingly mobile-focused show.
Videoconferencing's been an elusive tech dream. This time, it'll plug into other collaborative tools.
Nick Hoover, InformationWeek
There must be a better way to collaborate than the hodgepodge of options most knowledge workers skip among today. Three-fourths of 811 attendees surveyed at Interop say the ability to communicate by voice, IM, E-mail, fax, and video in an integrated fashion could significantly improve how their companies do business, and 58% plan to invest in unified communication.
Video
CMP's "The News Show" video blog: "Networking is as Interop does"
The "John Chambers is a Smart Man" episode is the follow-up segment that features footage from the Best of Interop awards.
Interop GM Lenny Heymann discusses trends in IP Communications
InformationWeek video blog with Stephanie Stahl
Network Computing has also posted video and blog segments with Rich Karpinski and Jenny Zaino. Interviews with Lenny and Glenn are both posted at http://www.networkcomputing.com/blog
More Interop video footage from "The News Show" on Cisco's John Chambers, the Best of Interop Awards, and an interview with Interop GM Lenny Heymann
Video coverage from Network Computing's Interop Video Blog
The links to these stories may change at any time without notice. We apologize if you encounter any broken links.