IT Trade Shows?

[netsysadmin]

I am putting together my budget at work for the year and was thinking that i wanted to include a trip to a conference/trade show. The issue I am having is I am drawing a big blank as to which conferences there are? I know Microsoft has TechEd each year, but who else has any shows? Can you guys give me some ideas?

Thanks,

John

 

[spidey07]

interop

 

[ScottMac]

What Spidey said: Networld+Interop.

I think they now hold it in Las Vegas in the spring, New York in the fall.

Networkers is pretty good too, but it's Cisco-centric.

Good Luck

Scott

 

[JDMnAR1]

If you are looking for purely networking-oriented trade shows, skip TechEd. While I have attended several times and find it to be an excellent source of information/demos/contacts/freebies, it is very much product-centric focusing on all things Microsoft. If you aren't so much concered with it being a network trade show, I highly recommend attending TechEd at least once.

 

[cmetz]

netsysadmin, what problem are you trying to solve?

Conferences are where you go to be around technical people talking about technical topics. An example would be USENIX LISA, which is where a lot of enterprise *IX folks hang out (but there's a lot of networking discussion also).

Trade shows are where you go to be around sales people talking about (new) products. An example would be Networld+Interop, which is where a lot of enterprise networking products are announced and shown off.

If you want to learn technical skills and meet top technical folks, you go to a conference. If you want to learn about products and collect vendor giveaway pens, you go to a trade show.

 

[netsysadmin]

Well I am getting them to budget for a conference, but wouldnt mind going to a trade show...haha!!

I am just trying to get an idea of the good conference and trade shows that I could attend. I am a Systems Admin that deals with mostly servers and server technology. So something that was showcasing new server, blade servers, SAN's, NAS's....etc basically enterprise server equipment would be cool. I also am interested in networking so if it spilled over into switches and routers...etc that would be OK. I am guessing that Interop would probably be a good trade show for me.

Thanks for the info!!

John