Last week the bright lights of Vegas beckoned to technology professionals and innovators as they made their way to Cisco Live 2017. Touted as the destination for educating and inspiring digital business, the Experts Exchange team was eager to see the turnout for this year’s event. (Last year, Cisco Live saw 28,000 members in attendance, the largest number to-date in the event’s 26-year history.) With more than 1,000 sessions and days of networking opportunities, it’s a place to be for uncovering the latest in technology innovation. And we hit the ground running!

Who: Boson

What: Suite of Online Courses — IT training and remote courses to propel your tech knowledge

As we continue to boost our own course offering at Experts Exchange, we were excited to speak with Boson about their IT training programs and courses. For a little background, their learning programs combine instruction with their ExSim-Max test prep simulation (a tough and comprehensive simulation) so that courses easily funnel into certifications. They’ve offered IT training since 1999 and continue to evolve course offerings as technology changes and grows. Their customers include IT professionals, beginners, and experts. Through online and remote course opportunities, Boson can reach individuals who may not be able to travel to the Boson training facility.

The suite of courses allows employees to learn information relevant to their jobs in order to advance their careers, and employers end up seeing a boost in performance and employee loyalty by offering access and payment to these Boson courses.

“Knowledge is power,” said Kelly Kirkpatrick, director of marketing at Boson. “Our classes enhance employee performance and efficiency.”

When asked what questions they most often receive at events like Cisco Live, Kirkpatrick responded, “Where’s Bryan? CCIE Bryan Baize teaches many of our classes, and continues to be a resource to students even after class. This really happens and is a great example of the personalized attention we provide. Our combination of top-quality instructors, practice exams and network simulator helps them achieve their certifications.”

Who: Belden

What: REVConnect and FiberExpress Splice-On — making those time-consuming fiber terminations easy and fast

Fiber optic networks are on the rise, and the act of fiber terminations is essential in the process of connecting these networks. The termination either establishes a connection to a device or splices two cables into a longer one for more branches of service. Belden, fiber optic cable provider, had received feedback from stakeholders wanting reliable, high-performing connectivity to support the next generation of endpoint devices. In response, they launched REVConnect and FiberExpress Splice-On connectors for low-loss connection to these devices.

Together, the fusion splicer and connectivity device make fiber terminations highly repeatable and easy to execute in the field, saving installers time and money. These tools work best in any location where field termination for copper or fiber is needed. With the release of these products, they’ve seen a rise in use in stadiums, hotels, and hospitals.

And customers love it. At Cisco Live, Kristen Poulos, vice president of Global Marketing — Enterprise at Belden, said, “Visitors are telling us the REVConnect and FX Fusion products are innovative and easy to use. Some have even completed termination demonstrations themselves right at our booth. We’re hearing a lot of ‘wow’s and ‘that’s cool’s.”

Who: APCON

What: IntellaCloud — scalable cloud architecture for better Visibility across cloud services

As companies begin moving workloads from on-premise data centers to public cloud environments, they often experience a lack of visibility in the cloud and a lack of scalable options. In response, APCON brought their innovative IntellaCloud platform to market. It’s based on cloud-native microservices architecture to deliver scalable visibility across any public cloud environment — no matter the size.

“IntellaCloud gives customers the capability of automating their visibility deployments so they can spend less time configuring the application and more time on the business-critical functions their companies rely on,” said Jeremy Castile, product marketing manager at APCON.

IntellaCloud works well for companies with mid-to-large-size deployments in AWS in industries like healthcare, finance, government, energy, and technology.

“The response from customers at Cisco Live has been very exciting. Many of the businesses that are currently utilizing public cloud platforms immediately understand the need and value of the IntellaCloud solution,” Castile said. “We’re excited to be speaking with so many customers this week at Cisco Live about IntellaCloud and look forward to partnering with them to enable total visibility across their public cloud deployments.”

Who: Jabra

What: Evolve 75 and Speak 710 — taking meetings, concentration, and conference communications to new heights

Over the years, Jabra has heard customers rave about their Evolve headsets — from the convenience and comfort of the Evolve 65 Bluetooth headsets and the incredible noise cancelling capabilities of the Evolve 80 headsets. The new Evolve 75 headset is the combination of these two products, offering wireless flexibility and noise cancelling functions to provide the mobility needed in the office and the ability to concentrate when working on critical projects.

“Time and again we hear from our customer that the two biggest inhibitors of productivity are noise and interruptions. The impressive noise cancelling of the Evolve 75 helps cut down of the ambient noise, so professionals can stay in the productivity zone.  And convenient features like busy lights on both ear cups politely communicate ‘do not disturb’ to nearby colleagues,” said Karl Bateson, senior marketing manager in charge of P.R., product placement, and social media at Jabra.

Jabra Speak US speakerphone customers also expressed wanting more output, more coverage, and more capabilities in a speakerphone.

“The Bluetooth Speak 710 offers just that–  twice the output for an immersive audio experience.  Twice the microphone range — appropriate for medium sized conference rooms. And innovative features including a programmable smart button and the ability to wirelessly link two Speak 710’s for conference room coverage of up to 12 people,” said Bateson.

The Speak 710 addresses modern-day conference call needs, by providing speaker and microphone capabilities superior to laptop or smartphone offerings. The Smart button can be used to access digital assistants like Siri, Google Now, and Alexa, or it can be programmed to use speed dial.

Both products are supported by Jabra Xpress, a free, web-based solution that helps IT administrators manage UC headsets and speakerphones. Mac users can also use Jabra Suite for Mac.

Who: Impact Technologies

What: OnTraQ Plus — to keep contact center’s performance on target, with the right answers, at the right price

Impact Technologies announced their new product, OnTraQ Plus, at Cisco Live. OnTraQ Plus works with Cisco UCCX/UCCE/PCCE call routing. The tool offers managers and supervisors a single, customizable portal combining real-time and historical analytics with control of agents’ work states, plus one-on-one and team broadcasts of agent communications.

The new agent desktop provides 360-degree visibility of the customer journey, presence of team and key resources, queue service levels, personal activity, time utilization reports, and life of call. No professional services are required to implement or maintain the system.

“The new Agent and Supervisor Desktops will positively disrupt the contact center market. Supervisors, managers and agents can all control their dashboard layout, reports and workflows without IT involvement. And, with TCO cut in half, enterprises can provide this advanced contact center functionality to their entire enterprise, not just a small part of it. Easy to implement, easy to use, easy on the budget,” said Becky Maycock, director of product management and marketing at Impact Technologies.

Who: CommScope

What: High Speed Migration Products — consolidate infrastructure and minimize installation disruptions

CommScope was looking to create a platform of products that were easily ‘upgradeable’ as companies — and industries — migrate to higher speeds at a faster rate than ever before. Data center managers, after all, are always looking for greater flexibility in deploying applications as needed without disappointing consumers with a slower speed.

In order to support this looming change and the parallel and serial circuit connections being used in networks, CommScope created their High Speed Migration products. Now, Commscope customers can simply fire up a new instance of virtual machine and place it anywhere this utility exists, servings as an ‘on-the-fly’ upgrade for the physical layer. What would have required a forklift upgrade in the past, can now simply be managed with a few simple changes of modules or patch cords. And the new product platform was well-received at Cisco Live.

“We have been helping customers with their networks for a long, long time,” Director of Global Data Center Solutions at CommScope, Kam Patel, said about the company’s recent 40th anniversary celebration. “As a result, people have come to know us and appreciate our products. This new launch has been no exception; people are seeing the same technological trends and advances that we have witnessed. Many have approached us, and let us know that they are excited to see that we are keeping an eye on the future, and in turn the future of their networks.”

Who: Viavi Solutions

What: The Observer Platform — cable-to-cloud network management solutions

Today’s IT teams want instant access to network visibility. From infrastructure testing to monitoring the application layer, this is the new norm in expectations of visibility. With multi-vendor support through Viavi Solutions, customers receive just that–visibility into applications hosted by some of the large cloud providers. Their solutions enable you to troubleshoot problems in the cloud, create dashboard views, generate analysis of metrics separate from those provided by cloud provider, and view insights into service operations.

Who: NetBrain

What: Dynamic Network Map — say goodbye to manual network maps

Companies no longer have to expend the time and effort to create and update manual network maps. All that is now automatic through NetBrain’s new product, Dynamic Network Map. NetBrain’s focus has long been to simplify network management, and with the increase of software, hardware, and virtual environments, better management of enterprise networks has never been more important. Dynamic Network Map provides users with end-to-end visibility through several diagrams and viewpoints. Maps can be created on-demand in seconds. The tool automatically updates so the diagrams are always relevant when you want to pull data — and show any changes that have occurred since the last visit. Users can also see data on one screen, making monitoring, ticketing, and security solutions easier to manage.

Who: Gigamon

What: Visibility Platform — full transparency into platform security with agile capabilities

When it comes to managing company networks, you not only need to view and understand what’s happening, but be able to make a change if needed. As threats to digital infrastructures and cloud platforms grow, Gigamon wanted to create a solution that would give customers the ability to improve network performance and strengthen security as needed. Through the Visibility Platform, companies can see data in real-time across their entire network, whether in house, off site, or in the cloud.

In a white paper by the Gigamon, the Visibility Platform is described as a “pervasive, centralized fabric that delivers relevant data from various networks under an administrative domain…to a centralized set of tools that are connected to the Visibility Platform.”

With this platform, users can remove irrelevant data, evaluate traffic, replicate and forward information for sharing purposes, and so much more.