Cisco launched their Application Centric Infrastructure (ACI) product two weeks ago in New York City, and I was privileged to be able to attend the event as a guest of Gestalt IT’s Tech Field Day.
In my last post I gave an overview of the new products, and before I dig into my current concerns about ACI and the Nexus 9000 I thought it might be fun to share a few photos I took at the launch event, held at the rather splendidly elegant Waldorf Astoria.
Click on any photo to see it larger. They were all taken on a phone, so no promises about the quality of the enlarged images.
The Venue
The Waldorf Astoria is quite an ornate location. A chandelier in the Grand Ballroom where the presentation took place
The ceiling in one of the side rooms:
People
The wonderful Amy Lewis (@commsninja) from Cisco, doing media type things:
I’m told that it’s very trendy to take a “selfie” with somebody high up in the company. I couldn’t get to John Chambers, but I was able to grab this with the esteemed Mike Dvorkin (@dvorkinista), and I offer this up as a humble tribute to all the better selfies out there. He seems very pleased about it, doesn’t he?
The Launch
The launch event was centered on the Grand Ballroom, which really looked great. Cisco had installed projectors not only on the screen you see in the picture below, but also to project onto the walls either side of the screen, and onto the walls at right angles to those.
I don’t know how many people noticed this, but the projections in use at times did not simply use the walls and environment as a projection screen. Rather, some of the graphics were actually tailored to integrate beautifully with the architecture:
It’s subtle, but for whoever put the graphics together I wanted you to know that I noted and appreciated the effort made!
Finally, this is where we set ourselves up, at a table reserved just for bloggers:
Tech Field Day Event Delegates
Finally, I’ve borrowed a picture from the event page owned by Gestalt IT (sorry, Stephen!), so you can see the crew we assembled for the event:
Round Table
While we were there, we (delegates) recorded a round table discussion about the new products. We had a large number of technical and logistical difficulties to contend with, so I apologize that the sound quality in particular is not up to the usual high standards. However, there are some interesting thoughts from some of the others here. In particular, it’s clear that we were all hungry for more information than we had at the time.
Disclosure
My travel, accommodation and meals on this trip were paid for by Tech Field Day who in turn I believe were paid by Cisco to organize an event around the launch. It should be made clear that I received no other compensation for attending this event, and there was no expectation or agreement that I will write about what I learn, nor are there any expectations in regard to any content I may publish as a result. I have free reign to write as much or little as I want, and express any opinions that I want; there is no ‘quid pro quo’ for these events, and that’s important to me.
Please read my general Disclosure Statement for more information.
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