During his keynote speech at the recent Interop 2013 conference in New York, Cisco CEO John Chambers talked about how technology trends are moving towards a focus on applications. Chambers said, “We're moving from a web economy to an application economy.”
This focus could be seen in many areas of the busy but smaller (compared to the earlier spring Interop in Las Vegas) show floor. The classic big iron networking pitches of more, bigger, faster and better hardware were being replaced by claims of improved application performance, better end-user experience and effective application delivery.
Of course, we heard many of the same pitches a year and a half ago at spring Interop 2012. One could have expected this trend to continue steadily, but the last two Interop shows took unexpected turns due to the rapid growth of, and interest in, Software Defined Networks.
SDN hasn't gone away, in fact, it was very prevalent at the New York Interop this October. But the push to application focus is back, and in some ways aided by the rise of SDN.
For the most part, it was good to hear Chambers and Cisco talk about the importance of applications. The more big vendors are focused on helping organizations build, deliver and manage high-performing services and applications, the more likely it will be that we'll see improved application capabilities across the board.
Among some of the other trends in focus at Interop 2012 was the Internet of things or Machine to Machine, looking at the challenges and opportunities that arise when everything, computers to printers to vending machines to you name it, has an IP address and connects to networks. There was also more than a bit of discussion about reigning in the impact of Bring Your Own Device (BYOD). In this area, it was refreshing to see more vendors talk about better ways that networks can identify, connect and manage BYOD devices in a light and seamless manner without requiring heavy clients or other old school mobile device management solutions.
Jim Rapoza is Senior Research Analyst at Aberdeen Group.
The Latest
Broad proliferation of cloud infrastructure combined with continued support for remote workers is driving increased complexity and visibility challenges for network operations teams, according to new research conducted by Dimensional Research and sponsored by Broadcom ...
New research from ServiceNow and ThoughtLab reveals that less than 30% of banks feel their transformation efforts are meeting evolving customer digital needs. Additionally, 52% say they must revamp their strategy to counter competition from outside the sector. Adapting to these challenges isn't just about staying competitive — it's about staying in business ...
Leaders in the financial services sector are bullish on AI, with 95% of business and IT decision makers saying that AI is a top C-Suite priority, and 96% of respondents believing it provides their business a competitive advantage, according to Riverbed's Global AI and Digital Experience Survey ...
SLOs have long been a staple for DevOps teams to monitor the health of their applications and infrastructure ... Now, as digital trends have shifted, more and more teams are looking to adapt this model for the mobile environment. This, however, is not without its challenges ...
Modernizing IT infrastructure has become essential for organizations striving to remain competitive. This modernization extends beyond merely upgrading hardware or software; it involves strategically leveraging new technologies like AI and cloud computing to enhance operational efficiency, increase data accessibility, and improve the end-user experience ...
AI sure grew fast in popularity, but are AI apps any good? ... If companies are going to keep integrating AI applications into their tech stack at the rate they are, then they need to be aware of AI's limitations. More importantly, they need to evolve their testing regiment ...
If you were lucky, you found out about the massive CrowdStrike/Microsoft outage last July by reading about it over coffee. Those less fortunate were awoken hours earlier by frantic calls from work ... Whether you were directly affected or not, there's an important lesson: all organizations should be conducting in-depth reviews of testing and change management ...
In MEAN TIME TO INSIGHT Episode 11, Shamus McGillicuddy, VP of Research, Network Infrastructure and Operations, at EMA discusses Secure Access Service Edge (SASE) ...
On average, only 48% of digital initiatives enterprise-wide meet or exceed their business outcome targets according to Gartner's annual global survey of CIOs and technology executives ...
Artificial intelligence (AI) is rapidly reshaping industries around the world. From optimizing business processes to unlocking new levels of innovation, AI is a critical driver of success for modern enterprises. As a result, business leaders — from DevOps engineers to CTOs — are under pressure to incorporate AI into their workflows to stay competitive. But the question isn't whether AI should be adopted — it's how ...