Microsoft Ignite 2019: Five Key Insights from the Event

As the curtains close on Microsoft Ignite 2019, an event that celebrates technology and all that it does to help people and organizations achieve more, I wanted to take a moment to thank everyone who spent time with Riverbed. Over the course of four days, we connected with thousands of attendees and talked one-on-one with customers, partners, and others we serve about their opportunities, priorities, and challenges.

Incredible levels of engagement

Based on our conversations, it’s clear that every organization is on a journey to the cloud. And while every journey is different, there were some common themes related to cloud performance and cloud experience. Here are five key insights from the event:

1. SD-WAN is gaining traction. Referring to Gartner’s hype cycle, SD-WAN is definitely climbing the Slope of Enlightenment. Interest in Riverbed SD-WAN was high, especially for organizations operating hybrid cloud or multi-cloud environments that require greater levels of control and security. SD-WAN is seen to be the future of enterprise networking and no one wants to be left behind.
2. Application performance matters. We talked to a large number of attendees who were concerned about application performance for widely-used, enterprise-grade SaaS apps such as Office 365. In particular, they were looking for ways to address excessive latency and improve quality of service for distributed and mobile workers. We were able to show them how Riverbed can accelerate SaaS app performance by up to 10x to anyone, anywhere, regardless of distance.
3. WAN optimization remains critical. While our customers certainly understand the value of Riverbed’s industry-leading WAN optimization technology, many people were surprised to learn that this same technology can be applied to a cloud environment. WAN optimization accelerates and reduces traffic between a provider and an enterprise network, significantly lowering network costs while improving end-user satisfaction and productivity.
4. Less visibility, less control. There are plenty of monitoring tools in the market, including tools offered by cloud providers, but IT professionals told us they need deep and broad visibility across cloud, on-premises, and hybrid environments. Not only is this unified visibility critical to quickly resolving performance issues, it’s vital to optimizing service provider costs and to holding vendors accountable to SLAs.
5. It’s all about the user experience. As organizations transition to the cloud, they need to ensure users remain happy and productive. But, many of the folks we visited with asked: how do you know if you are delivering a good user experience? The answer is simple. Monitor where it matters most, the user’s device, to get real-time information about how they actually experience and interact with their applications, devices, and networks.

Riverbed booth staff

As Satya Nadella highlighted in his keynote at Microsoft Ignite 2019, we’re all part of a community that builds tech capability and tech intensity in every organization in the world. Riverbed is here to help you maximize the performance of your tech so you can deliver superior digital experiences, new levels of operational efficiency, and accelerated business outcomes.

From our team to yours, thanks again for connecting with us at Microsoft Ignite 2019. We look forward to continuing our conversation.