Our Insight

At the start of the month I was at Cisco Live in Barcelona: an entire week of presentations, workshops, networking and general hobnobbing among Cisco, its partners and IT professionals. I've been before, but this year I was with fellow solution architects Daren Vallyon and Adrian Clarke - a strong showing from Ideal.

Poor visibility is impacting organisations’ ability to detect breaches, with Gartner reporting that 92 percent of breaches go undetected until it’s too late. Is something as fundamental as network visibility exposing you to risk?

I was lucky enough to spend 2017 as a Cisco Champion. If you're not familiar with the programme, it's a Cisco-sponsored network of technical experts, who love what they do, and are fired up about Cisco's technologies and solutions. Being new to it at the start of last year felt a bit like being a fresher at university, but the support on the programme meant that I quickly felt at home. I got so much from it over the year that I really wanted to stay on for 2018.

Earlier this month I had the privilege to attend the flagship Cisco Partner Summit in Dallas. By invitation only, and with only about 60 places available to UK partners, it is the hottest ticket in the Cisco partner world, yet Ideal has been there on several occasions: a testament to the fantastic relationship that has developed between our companies over the years.

It's been nearly a couple of weeks since I came back from VMWare 2017, and even now my head's still spinning a bit. I'd always planned an extended trip to Barcelona, initially to take a couple of days' holiday, but in the end almost the full six-day stretch filled up with meetings, briefings and workshops.

We've been building an increasingly close partnership with Palo Alto Networks - the disruptive next-generation security company behind innovative products like Traps. Last month I was out in Vancouver for Ignite, PAN's annual cyber security conference, and as PAN's UK and Ireland Technical Champion of the Year 2016 I had the privilege of a one-to-one with its engaging founder, Nir Zuk.

We're always working to build stronger relationships with long-term, established players, but in the new partnerships we've announced this year, Ideal is also investing in new and exciting technologies. In Rubrik, we've added a partner with something truly disruptive: an appliance-based, converged backup offering that's so 'right' it's a wonder nobody did it before.

I want to explain what it does and why it's brilliant.

2016 was a year full of highlights for Ideal, and if its first quarter was anything to judge by, 2017 promises just as much excitement. Since January we've welcomed two new directors, many new starters and two new technology partners - reassuringly, we're still focused on our trademark excellence. With more events and announcements in the pipeline, here are five highlights from our year so far.

You've probably seen our recent announcement that we've entered into partnership with Pure Storage. Back in 2011, Pure was the first to market with an all-flash enterprise storage array, but nearly six years later flash SAN is a much more competitive market. I wanted to explain a bit about why Pure's three principles of smart storage - effortless, efficient and evergreen - still make it special, and why the two of us are building a closer partnership.

On Thursday 24th November, Cisco brought its UK Partner Forum to Brighton, attracting delegates from across the UK to Ideal's home city. Having the event on our doorstep gave us a fantastic opportunity to renew and strengthen our already strong relationship with Cisco, network with industry colleagues, and catch the various speakers and events on the day. Here are some of our highlights.

At the start of November I was in San Francisco for Cisco's Partner Summit. Cisco knows as well as we all do that in 2016, the IT industry is long embarked on its journey away from hardware sales - the so-called 'box-shifting' days - towards a model where hardware is commoditised, and the value is in unlocking performance through software, delivery and service.

That's a fundamental change which has presented a strategic challenge for a network hardware company like Cisco