Next week is the third networking-focused Tech Field Day event, and the 14th overall event I’ve produced. It’s amazing to see the growth and interest in Tech Field Day generally, and our networking events specifically.
Networking Field Day 3 brings back many familiar faces yet introduces quite a few new ones as well. Returning are Greg Ferro, who helped me organize the event, along with Ivan Pepelnjak, who along with Greg is assisting with two virtual events we’re working this week. Also returning are Tom “Networking Nerd” Hollingsworth, Ethan Banks of Packet Pushers, Jeremy “Evil Routers” Gaddis, Brandon Carroll, and Tony Bourke. Each was selected by their peers to represent the delegate community at this event. I just wish we could bring everyone else along too!
First-time delegates are the mysterious “Mrs. Y” of Packet Pushers fame, along with Derick “Cloud Toad” Winkworth, Chris Marget, Josh O’Brien, Marko Milivojevic, and Brad Casemore. We’ve been actively reaching out to a broader range of voices in the networking space to keep things fresh, and couldn’t be happier to have these folks join us. We have been working with many of them for a while and hoping they could join us eventually. Now’s the time!
Networking Field Day presentations begin Thursday, starting with frequent Field Day participant, SolarWinds. Next up are NEC, back for the second time, and Arista, another old favorite. We’ll wrap up Thursday with newcomer, Infineta, and of course our Field Day party.
Friday morning belongs to Cisco, with both the datacenter and “borderless” groups participating. After lunch we’re off to Spirent, another new company we’re delighted to have join us. We’ll finish off with a delegate favorite: A roundtable discussion on the presenters, the industry, and the state of networking technology.
We were planning to host a Symposium focused on datacenter fabric technology on Wednesday but were unable to put together an event that met our standards. So we have other plans for Wednesday instead, including recording a “virtual symposium” with Brocade, a Packet Pushers podcast, Network Beers, and perhaps another Field Day Roundtable if there’s time. Ivan, Greg, and I are also recording a virtual symposium with Cisco on Tuesday so it’ll be a very busy week!
As always, most Tech Field Day sessions will be broadcast live over the Internet at TechFieldDay.com, and we invite you to follow along wherever you are. We’ll also be uploading videos of the Brocade and Cisco virtual symposium events and Tech Field Day Roundtable discussions. There’ll be tons of new content coming out of this week-long event!