Cisco Live 2015 rocked the city of San Diego this year. More than 25,000 people attended Cisco Live in person and over 80,000 joined online. Attendees had the opportunity to immerse themselves in technical sessions, hands on labs, industry keynotes, and touring the world of solutions.
This Cisco Live marked an important time for the company. For many, the highlight of the conference was attending Cisco’s CEO John Chambers’ last and final keynote. Chambers shared his vision for the future of IT and stressed the importance of having a digital strategy. A strong digital strategy can be driven by translating the network architectural approach into a way that people can understand. Chambers concluded his keynote by passing the Cisco CEO torch onto Chuck Robbins. After stepping down as CEO, Chambers will serve as Cisco’s executive chairman.
As partners EMC and Cisco are strategically aligned with our visions for the future. The main message from Cisco’s keynotes very much resembled the keynotes given at EMC World. Both EMC and Cisco addressed how businesses needs change during market transition. How we currently look at IT is going to change in the future as the amount of digital devices continues to increase. For those companies who want to remain successful they need to be proactive. Those who choose to rely on their past successes will not make it in the future as IT begins to change.
On Wednesday, IT leaders came together to discuss the future of the Internet of Everything (IoE). Our very own CTO John Roese gave the keynote for EMC and discussed how the digital era will require a mindset shift. Roese challenged attendees to be intellectually curious as new technologies arise.
I personally presented in the EMC booth on how Cisco’s UCS and MDS are better together with EMC storage products. EMC has a 12+ year partnership with Cisco’s MDS. We resell MDS products underneath the Connectrix brand and in doing so we treat the product as if it were our own. Cisco announced in May of 2015 the release of the MDS 9396S switch. EMC is currently qualifying this product and will be shipping in calendar quarter Q3 2015.
On Wednesday night the excitement continued during the Customer Appreciation Event at Petco Park. The park was full of attendees wearing their Cisco Live fedoras and enjoying some ball park food. The one and only Aerosmith took the stage and rocked all the way into the evening. Steven Tyler proved that age is only a number during the encore as he hopped onto the piano and sang “Dream On”.
The conference concluded on Thursday with an inspiring closing keynote from Mike Rowe of the television show Dirty Jobs. He discussed how his personal experiences are redefining how he views work and education. He concluded his speech by thanking the IT community for the work that they do and parted with some motivational words.
Post conference I am excited to see how EMC and Cisco will continue to work together as we focus on the IoE and the future of the network. As a first time attendee, I am leaving the conference with increased knowledge, new peer connections, and a backpack full of swag.