I just returned home from a Blue Coat event, held in New York City. Blue Coat invited me to attend for a customer panel, and were kind enough to fly my wife out too. I have often said that I am vocal in my opinions–if I don’t like something, I’ll tell you. Conversely, if I do like something, I’ll be vocal at making my opinion known. I have often said that it is rare to find a product that lives up to all the sales hype. But the Blue Coat Proxy SG is just such a product. There are a number of articles which have been written about my use of the Blue Coat products, and while they may fudge on the quotes and miss important details, they’re mostly correct. I won’t repeat the whole story here, see my links page if you want to find out more. In any case, I can honestly say the the devices do everything the sales guy promised. Of course, I made Blue Coat demonstrate the product for a month on-site before I committed to anything, so I had my proof before any money changed hands.

As I said, when I like a product, I’ll say so. It’s kind of like dealing with employees–if they screw up, I tell them so, but if they do something right, I try to compliment them too. So I’ve told everyone I know how pleased I am with Blue Coat’s products, and Blue Coat seems to like how I say it. I consider it a great honor that they value my humble opinion enough to fly me out to New York to speak to journalists, investors, analysts, etc. I joked with their VP, Steve Schick, and asked him if he’d be upset if I said anything derogatory. That probably wasn’t nice, after all, the poor guy was working hard to pull of a successful event and probably didn’t need any extra stress (even if said in jest).

I was nervous to be seated on the stand in front of people whose names I recognize from various blogs and articles. The Nevada DOC seems like small potatoes next to some of Blue Coat’s other customers. But I realized I just needed to be myself and talk about what I know, so that’s what I did and made it through OK. As I responded to the questions and later talked one-on-one with several of these folks, I came to better understand why Blue Coat wanted me to attend. My organization may not be huge (25 locations, less than 3,000 employees), but we face many of the same challenges any large company would face. And we are on the cutting edge with regards to some of the technologies and methods we are using to manage our networks and applications.

I have often found it strange that so many people in 3rd world countries have cell phones. No one had ever been able to justify the infrastructure investment for “land-lines.” Cell phone infrastructure is far cheaper, and so these folks have actually benefited in some ways by being late-comers to the game. It’s the same thing with DOC’s network. Since the Department built its network recently, with appropriate funds to do so, we were able to take advantage of newer technology (Blue Coat, Infoblox, etc.). In any case, I have come to realize that while my network is not “huge,” it is not “tiny,” and we manage the infrastructure in a modern, forward-thinking way.

After talking to Blue Coat and others in attendance, I came to the conclusion that if I were looking for job, maybe my ideal title would be “Application Delivery Architect.” Such a position requires skill with servers, networks, applications (programming) and more. Basically it’s a job for someone who gets the “big picture,” and knows how to use the appropriate tools (Blue Coat, etc.) to make things run smoothly. It requires project management and IT management skills, but with possibly more of a technical focus than many IT Manager positions.

All in all, it was a great trip, but I’m happy to be back home. We got stuck in Manhattan for a third night due to a snowstorm. Really, 3 inches of snow is enough to shut down an airport? Things really are different East of the Mississippi…