Stories by John Gallant

VCE chief boasts of hyperconvergence superpower

VCE has only been in the hyperconverged appliance market since the February launch of its VxRail family, but President Chad Sakac says the company will soon be the number one player in that rapidly growing market.

Interview of Everything: Cisco CEO Chambers on white boxes, SDN, leadership and the Cloud

Little did we know that our interview with John Chambers at Cisco's Texas Data Center Day in April might be our last with him as the company's CEO. As we learned this week, he'll hand the reins to Chuck Robbins in July, though will remain the company's chairman and become its executive chairman as well. He'll also hand Robbins the challenge of making Cisco the No.1 IT company by forging ahead with its data center, cloud and Internet of Everything initiatives. Chambers discussed those topics and more with IDG Enterprise VP and Chief Content Officer John Gallant.

Extreme Networks CEO touts open SDN strategy, robust wireless as key assets in changing net market

It's been about 15 months since Extreme Networks completed the acquisition of Enterasys Networks, a move that bolstered not only Extreme's financial heft, but widened its switching line and beefed up its wireless LAN capabilities. Extreme CEO Charles Berger gave IDG US Media Chief Content Officer John Gallant an update on the progress of integrating Enterasys's technology and discussed how software-defined networking is reshaping the industry. He also discussed how Extreme's work on in-venue wireless with NFL teams and others will benefit all customers.

F5, VMware & Cisco: One happy family?

At first blush, F5 Networks' new Synthesis Architecture for Software-Defined Application Services might appear to compete with new offerings from Cisco and VMware. But no, F5 CEO John McAdam and executive vice-president of Strategic Solutions Manuel Rivelo tell IDG Communications Chief Content Officer John Gallant that F5 is very much in sync with these two data center giants (we did not, however, press them on the relationship between Cisco and VMware).

F5 execs: We're blasting virtualisation beyond Layer 3

Cisco wasn't the only networking company making big virtualization news last week with the debut of its Insieme product line and Application Centric Infrastructure (ACI) strategy aimed at virtualizing the data center. F5 Networks, in addition to announcing that it will work hand-in-hand with Cisco on ACI integration, launched its own Synthesis Architecture for Software-Defined Application Services, which aims to virtualize networking functions above Layers 2/3.

Verizon Enterprise Solutions chief: 'We build infrastructure at scale'

In the battle for the next generation of enterprise IT, John Stratton carries a lot of weapons. Stratton is president of Verizon Enterprise Solutions, the nearly $30 billion unit formed just over a year ago to deliver networking, cloud, mobility, managed security, telematics and a host of other services in a more coordinated fashion for Verizon's top enterprise buyers. Building on a traditionally strong base of wired and wireless network services, Verizon Enterprise also blends in acquired assets like cloud hosting company Terremark, security company Cybertrust and Hughes Telematics. In this installment of the IDG Enterprise CEO Interview Series, Stratton spoke with Chief Content Officer John Gallant about Verizon Enterprise's progress since its inception, including a dramatic streamlining of internal systems and processes designed to make life much easier for the company's customers. Stratton also discussed the company's suite of services aimed at simplifying life for IT teams struggling with mobility and the influx of consumer devices, and he talked candidly about the prospects for a third mobile platform to rival Apple's iOS and Google's Android. He also talked about how cloud is reshaping the IT landscape and hinted at a series of major upcoming cloud announcements from Verizon Enterprise. Also, he explained how the "Internet of Things" is creating powerful new business opportunities for Verizon and its enterprise customers.

How Arista Networks got out in front of the SDN craze

n this installment of the IDG Enterprise CEO Interview Series, Arista Networks CEO Jayshree Ullal spoke with Chief Content Officer John Gallant about the reality and hype around SDN, and why the data center requires a different network than your father's general-purpose Cisco net. She also explored how her work at Cisco shaped Arista's strategy, and shared insights on how Arista's partnerships with VMware and Cloudera are making it easier to move to cloud and embrace big data, respectively.

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