What a great Automation Fair 2012!! 

Thank you to everyone who visited Cisco's booth and the joint EtherNet/IP Network Infrastructure booth shared by Cisco, Rockwell Automation, Panduit and Fluke Networks.

The Cisco team was excited to play a very active role in floor demonstrations, industry forums, educational sessions and Manufacturing Perspectives.

Here are just a few perspectives about this year's Automation Fair from Cisco participants:

 
https://youtu.be/xJwd3lt1O8w

Maciej Kranz, VP and GM, Cisco Connected Industries Group  "Looking back on last week's very successful event, these are the points that immediately come to my mind:

• Great strategic alignment between Rockwell and Cisco, with a common vision and strategy
• Unified enterprise architecture from the plant to Data Center and cloud
• Security. Security. Security.
  
• Mobility, Collaboration and Cloud
• Very positive customer feedback, validating our joint Cisco and Rockwell Automation direction"

Paul Taylor, Business Development Manager for Rockwell Automation Alliance "Absolutely fantastic show!  There was lots of interest and activity at all of the Cisco and Rockwell demonstrations.  Customers recognized that together, we evaluate plant and enterprise-wide networking needs as a whole and then design solutions based on those all-encompassing considerations.  Two demo stations that were especially buzzing with activity includedRockwell'sMicroData Center (MDC), which houses a complete data-center infrastructure in a single box andCisco Interactive Services Engine, partnered with X2Ofor real-time information sharing and collaboration".

Chet Namboodri, Director Global Industries for Manufacturing and Automotive  "Customer-centric presentations positioning the secure, information-immersed "Plant of the Future" highlighted presence at Automation Fair 2012.  For the Day 1 opening 'Manufacturing Perspectives' event, Cisco Connected Industries Group VP Maciej Kranz co-presented with Rockwell Automation's CTO  Sujeet Chand to more than 100 industrial/manufacturing press editors and industry analysts on the future of mobility, security and energy in manufacturing.  Day 2 included a presentation by Cisco's Doug Bellin on the value of secure industrial intelligence for the Food & Beverage industries, to a customer-forum audience of more than 150, representing consumer packaged goods and supply chain companies.  And on Day 3, I had the privilege of presenting the keynote on "The Evolution of Information and Security for Manufacturing Operations" and participating on an expert panel at the OEM Forum, where there was a standing-room-only crowd of 200 from machine and equipment manufacturers".

Pritesh Patel -Engineering Director  "The Automation Fair is Rockwell's big, annual customer event.  It demonstrates the strong strategic partnership that exists between Cisco and Rockwell Automation. This was my first time at the event and I was impressed with the significant presence that Cisco has at AF (booth, demos, people, presentations...etc).  I attended several of the technical sessions and industry forums and was happy to see how often Rockwell highlights their partnership with Cisco throughout their customer interactions. The discussion has evolved from basic switching to encompass security, wireless and compute.  Cisco and Rockwell are clearly very aligned in our vision of a secure converged plant network using standards based wired and wireless technologies."

Doug Bellin -Manufacturing Industry Manager  "Rockwell Automation and Cisco's participation in it has grown incredibly large.  We were not only in our own booth but we shared a few booths.  And if you looked closely, almost every booth had some of our products included.  Yes these were branded by Alan Bradley, but they were the Cisco products!  Compared to the past many of the customers no longer asked 'who is Cisco' but now stated 'we use you all the time in our operations'.  The customers also asked very specific questions around many use cases they are trying to implement.  The main theme with all of the customers was around "Security"; how to do it and examples of where it has been done in the past.  Of course we had answers!"

The entire Cisco team is grateful for the generous feedback that automation engineers, IT professionals, industry executives and analysts shared in regards to converging and securing automation and business infrastructures.  Thank you for your active participation!

Watch this space for a blog dedicated to Cisco Interactive Services as well as other demonstrations and activities from the show.

I'd love to hear about your experiences at Automation Fair.  Was this your first time there, and if so did you learn something new?  If you've been before, how was this one different?