Notes from OPNETWORK 2007

OPNET has a new IPv6 planning and analysis module for their network modeling platform, and invited me to their OPNETWORK technology conference to get some hands-on time with it. I'll report on my experiences with the tool in the next post; but I was so surprised and impressed by the conference itself, I’d like to first tell you about that.

I’ve been to dozens upon dozens of vendor user conferences over the years. I’m sure you've attended your fair share too, so you know what they’re all about: A selection of technology- and product-specific tutorials, lots of refreshment tables and demonstration booths out in the halls. The better ones feed you lunch and dinner and provide some sort of evening entertainment. (The evening entertainment at such events often involves hundreds of people crammed into a room, overloaded with drinks and munchies, shouting to each other over loud music. Being old, grumpy, and a bit hard-of-hearing, I generally find a reason to miss such things.) The tutorials are usually someone doing a lengthy Powerpoint presentation; by early afternoon boredom sets in and I skip out, getting a head start on not attending the evening entertainment.

OPNETWORK has all the expected elements of a high-end user conference, but with a considerable qualitative difference.

First and foremost, the tutorials: There’s a menu of around 170 of them (some 750 hours’ worth), ranging from introductory technology overviews to advanced workshops digging into the guts of the products, along with case studies, expert panel forums, and Birds of a Feather sessions. More interesting things than one person can possibly attend during the weeklong conference.

All of the sessions I attended were hands-on workshops with the Powerpoint factor kept to a minimum; in addition to the presenter each session included three or four OPNET subject matter experts to insure that every question was answered sufficiently, and to support you if you wanted to go exploring outside the boundaries of the lab exercises.

The class sizes are controlled by an on-line signup and a scan of a bar code on your nametag at the door, insuring that there is a terminal for every attendee. Pradeep Singh, OPNET’s Senior VP for Model Research and Development, tells me that they design the week with several open classrooms each day and then closely monitor the online signups; if a particular session fills and a significant waiting list forms, they schedule another of the same session in one of the open slots.

I signed up for a variety of tutorials using the OPNET products for modeling and optimization of IPv6, QoS, MPLS-TE, and VoIP networks, and experienced none of my usual urges to skip out early; every session held my interest from beginning to end.

OPNETWORK happens annually in late August at the same location – the Ronald Reagan Building in Washington, DC. First held in 1997, it is attended this year by over 2,000 people from 36 countries and virtually every one of OPNET’s 490 or so employees. Even their technical support center is moved into the Reagan Building, and telephone numbers forwarded there, for the duration of the event.

Susan Cole, VP of Marketing and Business Development, tells me that the quality of the conference stems from the fact that OPNET plans and develops OPNETWORK internally rather than relying on event organizers. Work on the conference starts in January, and most staff is on-site for setup and rehearsal a week before kickoff. That ethic of ownership goes all the way down to the dinner menus, which are planned by the company’s founders’ mom.

And those crowded, noisy evening entertainment events I hate? OPNETWORK’s is held outdoors in the Woodrow Wilson Plaza. Sound dissipation, fresh air, and lots of elbow room make it hard for even a wet blanket such as myself to find reasons to stay away.

OPNETWORK is a class act.