Pretty busy day today. Navigating through a crowd of 25,000 people is no easy task. This is my first Cisco Live conference, but so far I have been very impressed. As I compare this conference with other IT conferences, this one is towards the top in my book. The content was excellent on all the sessions that I attended. Presenters started at a basic level and quickly dived in to more advance details, so this allowed for a crowd of mixed levels of expertise to be engaged at all times.

Attended a session about UCS, NetApp and Veeam, and was very surprised about the content. I’ll definitely be doing some more research on Veeam’s integration with other vendors in the near future. Rick Vanover (Veeam), did an excellent job delivering the facts without the marketing fluff.

Oh yeah, most sessions had tables and power towards the front of the room. I thought that was a really nice touch, for those that like to take notes, etc. Spent a good bit of time at the DevNet area geeking out with some programing sessions.

I thought the keynote was great. John Chambers (JC) delivered his last keynote as Cisco’s CEO, and handed the reigns over to Chuck Robbins. JC delivered some bold predictions, including 40% of companies will be dead within 10 years. This prediction comes from the fast IT transformation and the impact that it has in the business. Those companies that adopt technology in the right way will survive, those that do not, will cease to operate. So the key is to disrupt and not be disrupted. Of course, in order to disrupt, companies need to adapt and embrace the mentality of transformation and transition. A perfect example is the internal re-structuring of Cisco, as well as other powerful companies such as NetApp. This re-structuring needs to happen in order to survive.