Las Vegas, double-headers and technology events hold a special attraction for me. Early in May, I blogged about my back-to-back events in Vegas covering EMC World and Interop 2016. I am just completing a big DC Event in Vienna this week with Citrix Synergy 2016 ready to roll next week in Vegas. Amidst these synergies, I want to bring to your attention the significance of this year's Citrix Synergy event.

The theme this year is around "Delivering Innovation Together," and how it enables companies to find new ways to work better together. Cisco ACI aligns very well with this theme given that ACI is a market leading software defined networking (SDN) solution, and at a broader level, sets the tone for how Cisco and Citrix help organizations in their digital transformation.

Citrix Synergy Event 2016 is particularly exciting to me as our joint Cisco ACI and Citrix NetScaler solution has picked up considerable customer momentum since its market introduction last year. Woolworth, DU and several other top customers have recently given testimonials on their positive experiences with the ACI-NetScaler joint solution, and I look forward to hearing more of these at the event. In addition, the visionary keynotes, technology training, access to industry's top thought leaders and the customizable agenda and experience makes Citrix Synergy a valuable investment of my time year after year. You may recall earlier in March, Citrix exec, Steve Shah, blogged about the "3 SDN lessons learned in 3 years of production." It attests to both the joint  solution momentum and the possibilities ahead in the evolving world of containers.

Where should we start? There is no better place than Citrix CEO Kirill Tatarinov's keynote, to start the Synergy experience. Kirill kick-starts the proceedings on May 24 by sharing his unique perspectives on how Citrix is uniquely positioned to be our trusted partner for digital transformation with a vision and strategy that is focused on the secure, and unified delivery of apps and data.

Cisco Exec Soni Jiandani is delivering a super-session "SYN 130", May 24, 1:30PM -2:30PM, and will cover SDN and Cisco-Citrix strategic partnership from a broad Data Center perspective. Preceding Soni, Rohit Mehra from IDC will be giving a broad overview of the SDN market to set the context.  I do not want to take away all your excitement by divulging the full details, so I ask you to attend in person to get the full immersion experience.

Besides, there are quite a few sponsored breakout sessions featuring Cisco that I'd recommend. Aniket Patankar from our HyperFlex product management team is going to talk about MeanderMC's accelerated application deployment experiences in deploying Cisco HyperFlex with Citrix. Mark session SYN 120 in your calendar. More fun awaits you. Renowned speakers Raj Gulani from Citrix PM team and Farid Jiandani from Cisco are ready to rock the stage with their technical session SYN-233, 10.30 am on May 26, featuring NetScaler integration with Cisco ACI.

After the keynote, the world of solutions beckons you with a wide range of technology showcase from industry-leading vendors, and I want to welcome you to the Cisco booth#505G where it the action is unlimited. This year we are offering solution demos and Mini-Theater presentations featuring Desktop virtualization, Networking and SDN, Mobility, and Cloud technologies to name the highlights.

The Cisco ACI -Citrix NetScaler joint solution features prominently at the Cisco demo Pod and the Mini Theater this year. We have 6 mini-theater presentations on this topic alone.  Stop by our booth and get a live demo from our experts, and learn how to automate deployment of NetScaler L4-L7 services using ACI policy framework.  In fact, we can give you a modular walkthrough of the solution whether your interest centers are around the ACI Fabric, Cisco APIC policy controller, or Citrix NetScaler. In addition, we can provide you with a quick overview presentations at our Mini theater that runs round the clock. There will be daily presentations on the ACI-NetScaler joint solutions, and I hope the theater experience will complement the insights you gain via demos. We also have white-boards to dive deeper into cross-architectural discussions should you decide to explore further. There is never a dull moment at our Cisco booth this year as Cisco UCS and HyperFlex with Citrix desktop virtualization, Nvidia GPU, NetApp FlexPod based demos offer the latest in technology innovations from Cisco and its Partners.

In closing I want to touch on the entertainment scene.

On Thursday night, Synergy will wrap up several days of digital business transformation with a transformation of a different kind as downtown Las Vegas becomes an exclusive food and music festival just for Synergy attendees. You've never seen Fremont Street like this: the classic neon face of Las Vegas offers a taste of the cooler, edgier side of the city that most conference attendees never experience. Headlining this unforgettable block party under the desert stars-Grammy Award-winning Fall Out Boy!

I look forward to seeing you all in person next week.

Related Links

www.cisco.com/go/acicitrix

http://blogs.cisco.com/datacenter/3-sdn-lessons-in-3-years-of-production-learn-from-cisco-aci-and-citrix-netscaler-best-practices