For the last 30 years, the Interop conference has held a spot on the IT calendar as an event of note. When Interop started, it was all about interoperability and was little more than what is known in the industry as a "plugfest." Over the years, the show has evolved to address and showcase the evolution of technology, which is what the 2016 event—which ran from May 2-6 in Las Vegas—was all about. Whereas networking hardware is the historical roots of Interop, cloud, the Internet of things, virtualization and security are now the primary topics of concern. Thirty years ago, IT security issues were very different from today's issues. One of the security challenges discussed at this year's Interop was the need for cyber-insurance—a business that is forecast to grow up to $5 billion in insurance premiums by 2020. Software-defined networking (SDN), a concept that was only invented in 2005, is also a growing market and is set to generate $12.5 billion in revenue by 2020, according to IDC. akes a look at some of the highlights of the Interop 2016 event.
- eWeek