The network is becoming a more crucial element to corporations and service providers, and ways to protect, manage, store data on, and overall improve a network will be on display May 6-11 at the 15th annual Networld+Interop conference and expo in Las Vegas.
Show attendees can expect plenty of offerings in network management, VPN (Virtual Private Network) and network security technologies, SANs (storage area networks), wireless and broadband LANs and Microsoft Corp. Windows 2000/Windows NT-based products, according to the show's exhibitor list.
The show will have keynote speeches by IT top executives like Craig Barrett, Intel Corp. chief executive officer (CEO); Gururaj "Desh" Deshpande, co-founder and chairman of Sycamore Networks Inc.; Scott Kriens, chairman, president and CEO of Juniper Networks Inc.; James Richardson, senior vice president at Cisco Systems Inc., and Ross Ireland, SBC Communications Inc. chief technical officer.
The show attracted more than 65,000 participants last year. This year, more than 880 vendors will be on hand for the show at the Las Vegas Convention Center, said Valerie Williamson, president of Interop Worldwide, a division of Key3Media Events Inc. The show will have vendors from around the globe, like China-based Huawei Technologies Co. Ltd., and pavilions will be set up featuring Korean, United Kingdom and Israeli technology and companies, she said.
Many of the major IT names will be at the show, including Microsoft, IBM Corp., EMC Corp., Cisco, Nortel Networks Corp., Sun Microsystems Inc., Sprint Corp., Deutsche Telekom AG, Qwest Communications International Inc., SBC Communications, Corning Inc. Compaq Computer Corp. and Computer Associates International Inc.
Some of the products expected to be announced include:
-- Canon USA Inc. will introduce an optical wireless transceiver, the Model DT-30, which is optimized for the shorter data links in urban areas and campus networks.
-- Cisco will announce a new multi-service access router targeted at small and medium-sized businesses and branch offices. The product will be available this month.
-- Entuity Inc. plans to announce an update to its Eye of the Storm network management software. The company, with offices in the U.K. and the U.S., will use N+I to demonstrate the new software, which will offer a range of new management features, at its booth. The announcement from Entuity is expected Tuesday.
-- FatPipe Networks Inc. will release Multi-Path VPN and WARP. The products provide greater redundancy, reliability and speed for bidirectional IP (Internet Protocol) traffic. Multi-Path VPN also provides greater security compared to conventional VPNs, according to the company.
-- Nortel Networks will unveil a new technology strategy in the Metro Optical and Ethernet space. The announcements will include a new customer, partner endorsements and new products.
-- SBC Communications will announce the next phase of its Project Pronto, the company's broadband technology roll out. SBC will explain its plans to deliver fiber connections to smaller businesses and residential customers.
-- Symbol Technologies Inc. will introduce an 802.11b Compact Flash wireless LAN adapter designed for PDAs (Personal Digital Assistants); a new security scheme to support mobility on 802.11b networks and the first 802.11b and H.323 standards based-wireless VoIP (Voice over Internet Protocol) handset for corporate level telephony.
-- Xircom, a division of Intel, will introduce a new wireless LAN product.