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My networking guru colleague Bob Laliberte and I wrapped up our week in Vegas at Interop, grabbing the last flight to Manchester, N.H., on Thursday evening. A few final thoughts:

1. First of all, a mea culpa to the hospitable folks running the Interop show. In a previous blog, I said that attendance was down this year. This may be true in relation to the boom day Interops at the Las Vegas Convention Center, but 2008 attendance was actually up from 2007. Additionally, there were 170 new exhibiting companies this year, a 25 percent increase. Pretty impressive results in a recession where major companies like AT&T have imposed bans on employee travel.

2. Vendors I spoke with were crowing about end user traffic and lead generation. Large users need networking equipment, security systems, and help.

3. I am impressed with a new Trusted Computing Group standard called IF-MAP. In simple terms, IF-MAP defines a set of protocols that enable security, networking, and other IT systems to share information about traffic patterns, system status, and overall behavior. By sharing this information, networks should be able to detect and react to security incidents or traffic spikes. Good effort; let's hope that leading networking and security vendors join the party.

4. It was very telling to see HP with a large booth in prime Interop real estate near the show floor entrance. The HP ProCurve networking division has always been the company's best kept secret. Looks like the cat is out of the bag now--HP could be a candidate to challenge Cisco's enterprise dominance in the next few years.

5. I walked by e-mail security vendor Barracuda Networks' booth at RSA and Interop. Each time, Barracuda has a large truck covered with Barracuda ads parked right in the center of its booth. Two things trouble me about this. First of all, since vendors pay for booth space by the square foot, why pay exorbitant fees for a parking space? Wouldn't posters with the same ads be more efficient? Finally, if I owned a company named Barracuda Networks and wanted to use a vehicle to represent my firm, I would use a Plymouth Barracuda (circa 1971 or so) instead of a large van. Maybe it's just me.

The network continues to evolve rapidly, so this is no time to wallow in the economic doldrums. Users continue to buy, vendors continue to sell, and Interop continues to grow.

LAS VEGAS--Like last month's RSA Conference, there is a sufficient amount of hype about virtualization here at Interop. From a marketing perspective, this is to be expected. The industry is ga-ga over virtualization, so everyone is jumping on the bandwagon. Beyond the spin however, server virtualization and networking are two of a kind as foundational technologies in next-generation data centers.

First off, virtual servers think they are physical servers and own the entire platform. Each virtual server wants all the bandwidth the physical server can offer, but in the virtual world, bandwidth is a shared service. This has the real potential to create a bottleneck on the network. When 1 car approaches a single lane toll booth, traffic congestion is not a problem. When 100 cars approach this same toll, instant gridlock.

The more virtual servers users implement, the faster we will see a transition to 10 gigabit Ethernet switching in the data center. Given the popularity of VMware and the rise of Citrix XenServer and Microsoft Hyper-V, this year may become a "perfect storm" for this transition.

The other thing to note about virtual servers is that they never stay put. In a virtual data center, VMs are constantly created, replicated, and moved. Networks need to understand these activities so they can continue to filter packets for security and route/switch packets to their end destination.

Here at Interop, lots of folks are saying that networks need to have "virtualization awareness," and I couldn't agree more. Citrix, Microsoft, and VMware need to work with Cisco, Extreme, F5, and Juniper to ensure that networks and virtual servers act as an integrated system, not a bunch of unconnected piece parts. This will help users as they build virtual data centers and help vendors sell more stuff. Oh yeah, and it will keep all of us networking geeks in Vegas at Interop each year for the foreseeable future.

A correction was made to this story. Read below for details.

Foot traffic seems slow at this year's Interop business tech conference. I've heard about companies issuing travel bans on employees and vendors pulling out at the last minute due to budget constraints. However, the people who run Interop say attendance is up from last year.

Nevertheless, the networking industry is making the best out of it. Some of the early highlights for me include:

1. Switching, switching, and more switching
Extreme Networks kicked off the proceedings on Monday in Las Vegas with a new 10-Gigabit stackable data center switch built to scale to 40/100 Gig in the future. This nice device set the tone for Interop 2008. On the show floor, start-up Arastra received its fair share of Vegas buzz. The company was founded by former Sun Microsystems bigwig Andy Bechtolsheim, but the real story here is that Arastra is pushing the 10-Gigabit Ethernet performance limit with prices at around $500 per port. It will be tough for old Andy to crack this market with the big boys, but this is pretty impressive.

2. Don't forget Cisco
Is Cisco Systems vulnerable in the data center switching or other networking spaces? Probably not. Senior Vice President Jayshree Ullal's team won the "best of Interop" award for Cisco's new Nexus data center switches and picked up another award for application acceleration.

3. Virtualization
I am intrigued by Citrix Systems' strategy that blends server/desktop virtualization with its leading XenApp (formerly Presentation Server) and NetScaler application acceleration portfolios. Citrix is thinking about virtualization, asset optimization, and traffic management from end-to-end. This is where the industry is headed; Citrix has a pretty good idea of how to get there.

4. Nortel gets the chutzpah award
Nortel Networks is on the offensive and its target is--obviously--Cisco. Nortel announced 60 companies that chose it over Cisco, a pretty bold gesture on Nortel's part. Nortel is also featuring an "energy calculator" at its booth where users can enter a Cisco and Nortel configuration and get data on power consumption comparisons. No gimmicky booth babes or giveaways, just "go for the throat" guerrilla marketing.

On tap Wednesday: more virtualization and wireless networking. Should be fun.

Correction: This story initially said attendance at Interop was down. Attendance at the show was actually up from last year.

The RSA security conference is a distant memory and the industry buzz has shifted to all things networking at Interop next week. What can users anticipate in Las Vegas?

1. Green networking: I find it just a tad ironic that the industry will tout high-density/low-power networking gear in perhaps the least green city in the world. Nevertheless, expect to hear green messages, especially from Cisco Systems.

2. 802.11n: Since wireless networking vendors like Aruba Networks, Meru Networks, and Trapeze Networks announced their products last fall, this will be the first Interop to trumpet the bandwidth benefits of 802.11n. Look for messages like "enterprise wireless networking" along with hyperbole like, "LAN access switches are dead." There is actually a nugget of truth in each of these.

3. 10-Gigabit Ethernet. Yes, we've been talking about this for years but the discussion will shift this year from the network core to data center switching. Good for vendors like Extreme, Force 10, and Foundry. This also could help Juniper Networks and its new line of Ethernet switches.
4. Branch office networking. This is really code for multifunction networking equipment that can be centrally managed. Branch office gear consolidates networking, security, and WAN (wide-area network) optimization in a single package. Some vendors are even talking about traditional storage topics like file access and centralized backup. Finally, lots of IT dollars are flowing in this direction.
5. Server virtualization. This is a bit of a stretch for the networking crowd but, hey, the IT industry always finds the hot issue du jour. Besides, server virtualization plays into green IT and dense data centers anchored by 10Gb Ethernet switches. That's three industry buzz messages for the price of one.

There are others as well, such as network identity, application acceleration, and software as a service. See you next week. Viva Las Vegas. Viva Interop. Viva TCP/IP. Enough.

At last week's Interop shindig, Cisco Systems CEO John Chambers' annual walk-about keynote presentation focused on "Web 2.0 creep" and its impact on the network. According to Chambers, enterprises will adopt Web 2.0 tools like blogs, wikis and Web video and bring today's networks to their knees in the process.

While I believe that the enterprise Web 2.0 trend is in its early genesis phase, I tend to agree with Mr. Chambers' hypothesis.

John Chambers

Enterprise networks have grown organically over the past 15 years--a switch here, more port capacity over there, add a wireless access point, etc. The design criteria were simple: extend the network and move packets as quickly as possible. Any problem along the way was easily solved by adding more bandwidth.

This formula was effective in the old client/server days, but it doesn't cut it anymore. Why? Applications are designed across multiple loosely coupled tiers and delivered over IP-based protocols to users anywhere in the world. We've already seen the performance problems that poorly written applications can cause across WAN links. Large IT organizations now have "application delivery" departments, while A10 Networks, Citrix, F5 and Packeteer are making tons of money in the fast-growing WAN optimization market. Multiply today's problems with a whole bunch of rich content and everything could come to a grinding halt.

In effect, Chambers is saying that today's network architecture problems are just the tip of the iceberg and although Cisco stands to benefit greatly, his message isn't hype. Now that "the network is the computer," enterprises need to think long and hard about how those networks will accommodate a whole bunch of burgeoning services and applications.

More bandwidth is always beneficial, but it is no longer a networking panacea. If we want to add complex network-based applications, we better be ready with an appropriate network architecture.

LAS VEGAS--After three days here--about as much time as any sane person should spend in this town--I bid adieu to Interop.

I heard that there were 21,000 people in town for the Interop conference. Judging by the hoard of people leaving the Mandalay Bay convention center yesterday (and headed for the saloon for a little geek speak), I believe it. My takeaways from the show are as follows:

• The buzzwords this year were network access control, wide-area network optimization and security. Security is a must-have. NAC is real and will go from concept to strategy in the next 12 months. WAN optimization is also a requirement. Why? Enterprises networks and applications have been designed in isolation and don't work very well together. WAN optimization adds intelligence to bridge this gap.

• Networking folks are really smart technicians, but few can talk about business processes and solutions. Cisco Systems sure can, and until another vendor can match John Chambers and Co. on business chops, it will continue to dominate.

David DeWalt

• Wasn't network security supposed to be baked into the infrastructure by now? This certainty didn't really happen, and I still see real value in layering security on top of the network. Companies like IBM's Internet Security Systems, McAfee and TippingPoint Technologies continue to prosper in this space.

Finally, a friendly dig to old Enterprise Strategy Group friend Dave DeWalt, CEO of McAfee, one of the Interop keynote speakers. Dave's picture appeared next to other industry dignitaries like John Chambers (Cisco), Bob Muglia (Microsoft), and Tom Noonan (ISS/IBM) all over the show. Unlike these others, however, Dave's picture was more casual (no tie, open collar, etc.) and thus made it look like a personal ad. I can see the text now, "I enjoy walks on the beach and the Sunday paper. Looking for long-lasting relationship with as many enterprises as possible."

Here it is, Day Three at Interop Las Vegas, and the activities are running as fast as a Dense Wave Division Multiplexing optical network. A few highlights:

• After announcing an alliance with Microsoft on Monday, members of the Trusted Network Connect (TNC) were all smiles at the show. In spite of its technical merits, TNC needed this stamp of approval from either Cisco Systems or Microsoft. Rather than defending the technology agenda, TNC members are now free to talk about flexible architecture and business solutions--a refreshing change.

• I understand that sex sells, but I give my personal jeers to Blue Cat Networks. Located front and center in the exhibit hall, Blue Cat's booth was staffed by a number of hired "booth babes" wearing skin tight silver "cat" outfits. When I walked by, several men were taking pictures of the women with their camera phones. I'm sure they will remember the women, but who will remember what Blue Cat Networks does (other than use women as objects)?

• Remember the name A10 Networks. The company competes in a crowded space with the likes of F5, Packeteer and Riverbed--all established leaders. That said, A10 Networks is one of those companies with a killer eclectic technical team from Foundry Networks, Cray Business Systems and others. The company offers a box with screaming performance and loads of functionality in a small footprint. In these days of green IT, that alone will win a lot of deals.

• Now that ISS is owned by IBM, there is a profound change in the way it approaches the market. Like all others in the uber-geeky security space, ISS used to talk "speeds and feeds" but now focuses on solutions. IBM brings ISS into big outsourcing and business-process solution deals and highlights security with messages about protecting business assets. Security industry take note, this is a window into your future.

• Hewlett-Packard has quietly become the No. 2 vendor in the networking industry. I love HP's flat network message, but HP woos the mid-market by offering a lifetime warranty on its networking gear. Value sells to small and midsize businesses;' HP is an expert here.

• If you think all high-tech CEOs are too showy and full of themselves, you haven't met Mark Canepa from Extreme Networks. Mark is a straight shooter who openly discusses the company's strengths and weaknesses. In my view, Extreme is doing things right by picking its battles, offering a consistent and open technology architecture, and bringing performance/intelligence to the edge. Mark has a sound plan to keep things humming at Extreme--just don't talk to him about the storage industry unless you want to see him get riled up. (Note: Mark ran the storage business for Sun Microsystems in a past life.)

• Finally, while Cisco is everywhere at Interop, the company made its most significant announcement at the EMC World in Orlando on Tuesday. Cisco will offer storage fabric-based encryption on its Fibre Channel switches and work with RSA/EMC on key management. With all of the backup tapes that continue to "fall off of trucks," Cisco's announcement will be welcome news to its growing share of storage customers.

It's May in the IT industry and that means Interop is only two weeks away. For those not familiar with Interop, it is a huge networking geekfest in Las Vegas where booze, IP jargon and acronyms flow like water.

At this year's shindig, I anticipate a lot of Interop buzz focused on NAC, or Network Access Control. Of course, this is the generic industry acronym and one of many that basically describes the same thing.

Cisco NAC, aka CNAC, stands for Network Admission Control. Microsoft calls its flavor NAP, or Network Access Protection. And the Trusted Computing Group has a similar set of standards that combine to form an NAC framework called TNC, or Trusted Network Connect.

Confused? You are not alone. I speak with IT and security folks all the time, and they can't make heads or tails of this mix of industry rhetoric.

Enter industry analysts--the ones who are supposed to translate all this stuff to make it more palatable but, more often than not, simply throw more dirt into muddy water. In this case, an unnamed analyst shop decided that NAC is doomed to fail. (See my recent blog on the frequent analyst ploy: "Technology X is dead.") The same unnamed analyst then proclaimed that what the industry really needs is PERM, or Pro-active Endpoint Risk Management.

So here's my problem. First and most obvious, do we really need ANOTHER acronym here? I mean, aren't four enough?

Second, there is a whole NAC vision and framework that is extremely flexible and can be used in an assortment of different ways on both clients and networks. In other words, I think that PERM is really another way to describe NAC. We are arguing about subtle differences, so why exactly do we need another way to describe the same thing. As the old show tune goes, "You say potato and I say potato. Let's call the whole thing off."

Finally, NAC is an evolving framework in which lots of the standards and implementation choices have yet to be defined. Now I know that the tech industry moves quickly, but are we really at the point where technologies that haven't even been developed are already dead? I say let's give little guys like Cisco Systems and Microsoft a chance here.

I know I sound like Andy Rooney, but it seems to me that we analysts are too focused on re-naming stuff and not focused enough on clarifying stuff. Rather than creating context and taxonomy, we simply introduce more spin. In the existing world of NAC/CNAC/NAP/TNC, it's hard for me to see how this is at all useful.