Cloud Services the Buzz at PTC ‘12
What do you get when over 2,000 delegates representing telecommunications interests in the Asia Pacific region gather in Waikiki Beach? Technologies are vetted, alliances formed, and industry “buzz” gets generated in what seems to be endless cycles of conference sessions, meetings and mixers. Creative chaos ensues and the stakes are high.
January is upon us and once again, it is time for the Pacific Telecommunications Council‘s annual conference — PTC’12. On its 34th year, this event is a strategic springboard for the global telecommunications industry.
Global Access team at Asian Carriers’ Conference 2011
If it is late September, it must be time for the annual Asian Carriers’ Conference in the island of Mactan, Philippines. On its 7th year, Virtela’s Global Access and Sales teams joined almost a thousand delegates representing over 350 global carriers in braving a typhoon that preceded the conference, airline labor unrest induced travel inconvenience and another headline grabbing typhoon tailing the event.
True to form, the island of Mactan showcased world renowned Philippine hospitality in languid lush tropical powder white sand beachfront setting. But wait. The vastly deserted idyllic outdoors belie the collective conference energy in meeting rooms, partitioned ballrooms, restaurants, bars, lobbies and hallways of the Shangri-la Mactan Resort as the conference venue.
Virtela heads to Capacity Africa on a telecommunications safari (so to speak)
Virtela goes where our customers tell us to go. Picture these: amazing wildlife, very rich culture, scenic country and great people. Virtela’s Global Access Strategy team headed to Nairobi, Kenya for Capacity Africa 2011.
As Virtela’s response to the increasing need of our customers to push the frontiers of our network even deeper into the African continent, the Global Access Strategy team actively participated in this year’s annual Capacity Africa event. Nairobi, Kenya as the venue of this year’s conference is very apropos. Nairobi is reported to be the most populous city in East Africa. As an African hub for business and culture, it hosts over 100 transnational companies and is the site of the United Nation’s headquarters for Africa and the Middle East.
Virtela Felt Right at Home at Cloud Computing Expo
We just got done unpacking our booth from last week’s Cloud Expo in New York City. Cloud Expo is one of the biggest conventions focused on cloud computing and services, and the event proved to be a great place to meet with other cloud enthusiasts.
The hype around cloud computing has been snowballing and is evident in the exponential attendance growth since Cloud Expo’s inception in 2007. Many attendees who stopped by our booth were curious about the next steps of cloud development – how will the cloud move forward? Well, that’s a topic that deserves its own blog post.
Virtela puts its Stamp on ITW 2011
The Virtela Global Access Team descended on Washington DC for the latest installment of International Telecoms Week. As a four year veteran of this event, I know the 3 most important aspects of a successful ITW: comfortable shoes, an endless supply of business cards, and a well organized schedule. While I can claim success on the first two, the third never seems to survive the first morning.
ITW is the premier networking event in the global telecoms market, and thus a crucial opportunity for Virtela to meet with our existing suppliers to reaffirm our strategic relationships. These relationships are the cornerstone of our global managed services offering and a huge differentiator when we are compared to the competition. No cookie cutter global networks here, our job is to make certain our suppliers can support the unique requirements of our customers, and support the high level of customer service that is required of all our suppliers.
Back from Interop – Things Looking Up (though Cloudy)
Just back from Interop’s 25 anniversary year. Definitely seemed like more energy and attendance this year, though haven’t seen the actual #’s yet.
Not sure how many years you’ve been going to the show, but this was my 19th year. Yes, 10Mb Ethernet switches were first displayed that year (Kalpana), and we had 25% of the attendee population by our Ungermann-Bass booth to see “DragonSwitch” the following year, 1993.
Cloud is king at the Denver IT Summit
Last Wednesday’s IT Summit event in Denver attracted many IT professionals from across the country to the Wings Over the Rockies Air & Space Museum. Not only was the event held in a hangar filled with planes that once flew through clouds, but the subject matter was very cloud-centric as well.
Among the topics covered were Unified Communications, Disaster Recovery, Application Clouds, and a presentation on “Demystifying the Cloud”. From start to finish it was clear that the role of the Cloud in today’s IT environment is growing and thought leaders in the industry are working to develop new ways to leverage this technology. I found this to be encouraging for Virtela as many of the topics and goals expressed at the conference played into our current strategy and capabilities. It will be interesting to keep an eye on how this market trend continues as more and more Enterprise Executives adopt this methodology.
Quick trip to Las Vegas
Not for fun but for business. Holding conferences in Las Vegas has always seemed contradictory—conducting serious business in a not-so-serious city, but I rarely hear anyone complain.
I was invited to represent Virtela at the HDI Conference in Las Vegas and discussed the importance of encouraging company awareness, building a sense of ownership within your team, fostering inter- and intra-organizational alignment, and communication to reach the end game: customer service excellence through technical leadership. This discussion was based on real world experiences managing Virtela’s global operations center to maintain our SLA and actual Time to Repair guarantees.
LATAM felt the presence of Virtela
Is it worth a one way journey of 24 hours with 2 flight changes to get to a conference for 2 days? The short answer, yes. Especially when it’s the Capacity LATAM 2011 show in Sao Paulo, Brazil.
Most of the LATAM carriers were present at the conference and just like us, they had come with goals in mind. While some attendees focused on the panel discussions, others were already in meetings scheduled weeks in advance. The event itself triggered new networking initiatives and we had some good meetings with LATAM carriers and also discovered new partners and vendors.
Virtela takes on the “Windy City” at IT Roadmap
This year’s IT Roadmap Chicago definitely had more emphasis on the cloud than in the past—that’s good news for Virtela.
Our VP of Marketing, Liza Adams, presented at the event and spoke on Using the Cloud for Faster Apps, Robust Security, & Proactive Management. It was reassuring to hear positive feedback from the attendees. One audience member applauded that Liza’s presentation demonstrated how to approach and solve IT issues for multinational companies, instead of sounding like a sales pitch.