I’m sitting in the San Francisco airport with nothing better to do than writing blog posts, so let’s see what we’ve seen and learned during the Networking Field Day 9.

We’ve seen two Software-Defined WAN startups: VeloCloud and CloudGenix. Both have interesting solutions (expect at least a few blog posts on the SDWAN topic) with some shining points and some drawbacks. If only I could get the best of both worlds in one package.

Data center switching is always one of the hot topics @ Networking Field Days. Cumulus fascinated us with their innovative features, NEC demonstrated Hyper-V and VMware integration, and Cisco clearly won the awards for the best-ever whiteboarded session (and @_vCarly shines when it comes to answering tough curveball questions). Even if you don’t care about ACI, you (RFC 2119) MUST watch those videos.

Pluribus Networks seems to have an interesting software- and API-focused approach to data center fabrics, but unfortunately we never got to the juicy details due to presentation hiccups.

Brocade deserves a category of its own – while they mentioned that they produce stuff that makes networks work, they were totally focused on SDN and network automation, which generated some fantastic discussions.

Network management is another must-have item on the NFD menu. Solarwinds continued a series of excellent presentations – Joel Dolisy yet again intrigued me with architectural details and path analysis discussions, and I learned about automation aspects of Network Configuration Manager that I need to investigate in more details.

Finally, Netbeez is a charming startup with an interesting probe-based product. They thoroughly engaged us, which resulted in tons of suggestions, and I’m positive we’ll see at least some of them implemented in a future version of their product.

Finally, I’d like to thank the wonderful Tech Field Day crew – Stephen, Tom and Claire – for another fantastic event. You rock!

Disclosure: Companies presenting @ NFD events indirectly cover the travel expenses of NFD delegates, but that never stopped me from expressing my opinions.