I just returned from the 2010 Cisco Live event in sunny Las Vegas where I was quite impressed with the size and scope of the attendance. As always the Cisco events team put on a world-class show with something for every aspect of the IT and data center audience. For those who recall my road-trip story, I once again took to the highway. At a 30 MPG pace (driving a Dodge Challenger) and stopping for food and the all important Starbucks, it was pretty much a wash in time between airport travel & rental car logistics versus driving. Depending upon what you include in your calculations my CO2 emissions were slightly less overall.

As one would expect of a Cisco Live event the Cisco, EMC, and Intel booths were always very busy. However I was really impressed with the traffic at the Panduit display. Their UPI Vision (Unified Physical Infrastructure) was very well received. Of course I do appreciate that Panduit had a brand-new Liebert APM 3-phase modular UPS in their display that was creating quite a bit of interest, as this was a stealth marketing introduction. We did try to leave the APM at a restaurant in Mandalay Place but the manager made us check it at the host-stand. Nice to know the manager reads this blog!

Of course the Emerson Network Power/Liebert display had a great deal of traffic. One aspect of note that impressed me was the number of network administrators who were interested in the various Liebert and Avocent managed power strips. The MPX and PM3000 were a big hit for their ability to provide real-time power monitoring at the individual socket level. However what I was most impressed with was how many people wanted to use the individual socket control feature to not only help facilitate remote reboot, with a higher degree of confidence, but also to manage the power to each socket – thereby ensuring no rogue servers were installed without proper approvals.

Now that was a clever idea! Install the PDUs with the power managed via network policies to add a new level of security and control to the data center. This would move a long way towards unifying IT and facilities, not just physical infrastructure.

As always - send me an email for more info on Cisco Live or surviving the "dry heat" of Las Vegas!