One of the most frustrating byproducts of the current economic conditions is that fewer and fewer people are able to attend trade shows and conferences that require significant travel. In fact, in our "2009 Network Plans and Priorities State-of-the-Market Report", we found that a whopping 70% of respondents anticipated a decrease in budget for conferences requiring travel, with only 6% anticipating a "slight increase." No respondents anticipated a "Significant Increase," while 29% of the above-mentioned 70% expected a "Significant Decrease."

Consequently, many of you who may have been able to attend the Interop Conference in Las Vegas in prior years may have had that great educational experience removed from your options. However, thanks to Cisco and Jim, there's a great series of four concise "Fact or Fiction" pieces with Jim addressing his findings from the show on four key areas: cloud computing, application performance, switching and routing.

As an overview of each of these areas, Jim addresses, as described for the videos:

"The Cloud: Discusses all the hype around "The Cloud," and Jim points out that customers must first invest in virtualization, automation and standardization. This will position them to do things faster and cheaper and make "The Cloud" a natural extension of their business process.

"Applications: Discusses the role of the network in delivering applications. Jim specifically calls out how technologies such as virtualization can have a dramatic effect on user experience and explores how IT professionals need look at application performance across the network.

"Switching: Discusses the drivers for the next generation LAN switch and what businesses are looking for.

"Routing: Discusses the dynamics of the WAN routing market and the changes driving innovations. Specific topics include the need for greater availability and security while optimizing price for performance."

We trust that these videos will be most useful to you, whether as a refresher if you attended the show or as an overview if you couldn't make it to the show. You may access the discussions here.

Steve Taylor is president of Distributed Networking Associates and publisher/editor-in-chief of Webtorials. Jim Metzler is vice president of Ashton, Metzler & Associates.