That was all that was chilly about this explosive event. Riverbed Disrupt events are known around the world and today's didn't disappoint.
Jonathan Price , VP EMEA Systems Engineering, Riverbed kicked off proceedings with this quote from Gartner: "By 2020, anything other than a cloud-only strategy for new IT initiatives will require justification…", and another from a 2015 Verizon customer survey of enterprise-level cloud customers: "87% of enterprises run mission critical apps in the cloud". According to Price, this begs the question of where your organisation fits into these statistics – are you a forward-thinking next-generation business or are you lagging behind the new norm?
Riverbed has its own history of disruptive innovation starting as early as 2004.
Price introduced the audience to Xirrus a solution that was recognised as visionary in the 2016 Gartner Magic Quadrant for Wired and Wireless LAN Access Infrastructure. It was designed to solve the common challenges that organisations face when deploying WiFi networks – from networks for small businesses up to high density solutions for large public venues.
Charles Kaplan, deputy chief technology officer, Riverbed picked up the pace with this opening statement: "I love technology. I love the perpetual optimism it inspires and the way it can so quickly transform our lives". He challenged attendees to think back just ten years and imagine how much more their organisation was able to accomplish with technology just ten years later.
This fast-paced and ever-changing environment in which we work today is both mind-blowing and daunting at the same time. Kaplan cited just a few of the technology innovations: autonomous systems like self-driving cars and drones; smart buildings constantly adapting to minimise energy usage; immersive virtual reality; even voice responsive assistants right in our pocket. He firmly believes that we are once again at a ‘tipping point' and that Riverbed is suitably positioned to guide organisations through the quagmire and even capitalise on it.
Organisations are faced head on with the fact that IT is the backbone of their organisation, nothing gets done without IT and as such it is a big part of the competitive edge from an efficiency point of view, Kaplan said. "This isn't limited to strictly performance either, the agility to change and evolve systems quickly to meet changing user demands is just as, if not more, important than the performance itself."
The world is a much smaller place and organisations need to be even more aware and quick to respond in a highly competitive and agile marketplace - it needs to be all about growing the business and no longer about just sustaining it, and the cloud is the new enabler, Kaplan concluded. "Companies and governments need agility and speed; cost saving and IT that works all the time for users and customers."
What is true digital transformation?
Paul Griffiths, senior technical director, advanced technology group, Riverbedwent on to define true digital transformation as the ability to orchestrate apps, networks, and devices to provide seamless access to digital services for end-users. If this is the case and if cloud is the platform to enable enterprise digital transformation initiatives to be quickly developed, how does the disrupted enterprise get to these cloud services? The answer, according to Griffiths: "They need an equally disrupted network".
Griffiths explained why it is time for a new way of thinking: Software defined networking has come to the WAN, but with a set of requirements in order to provide the value needed to the enterprise IT teams.
Riverbed has its own software defined WAN platform for the disrupted enterprise, SteelConnect. Delegates were treated to a sneak peek of the SteelHead WAN optimisation integration into the SteelConnect platform.
A presentation by John Atkinson, senior solutions engineer, Riverbed got people thinking about change and what this means for every organisation that intends making it into the next century. Many, if not all, businesses are already going digital, and according to Forbes 2016, 84% fail at digital transformation for a number of reasons. Digital transformation comes from the inside out with a clear change management process for both your internal and external customers, Atkinson pointed out.
Riverbed has worked with a number of organisations going through this transition on a daily basis and has years of know-how from the experiences of over 27 000 global customers.