Riverbed Chumming the Open Source Waters at SHARKFEST 2012
No, it’s not Shark Week, that’s on the Discovery Channel. This is SHARKFEST 2012, and Riverbed Technology, the WAN optimization network company, will be hosting the fifth annual convention focusing on Wireshark, the open source packet sniffer. But how does this play into the channel? I’ll tell you …
What goes down at SHARKFEST? This year, on the University of California Berkley campus, users will focus on use-case, development and growth of the open source community, which has built out these powerful free networking tools. The event also will include breakout sessions for training, education and best practices. Riverbed’s own CTO Steve Riley will stop by to provide an in-depth keynote, where he will re-examine the cloud as “distributed re-centralization,” and discuss practices that can be built around that view shift.
But you’re asking, “How does this all revolve around Wireshark, a packet sniffer?” Packet sniffers (or packet analyzers) are often used in large-scale networking environments to make sure all the traffic flowing is kosher, and if it isn’t, figure out where it’s coming from. Essentially, the application provides a big-picture log of all traffic across all ports zeros on the network. Since channel-focused Riverbed is hosting the event, it’s encouraging IT professionals, network consultants, trainers, users and partners to jump aboard SHARKFEST, get their feet wet, so to speak, and get some hands-on deep-dive training.
If you’re a VAR or MSP focused on IaaS, cloud or simply network optimization, Wireshark could be an indispensable tool in your arsenal, so a day at SHARKFEST could be beneficial. What’s more, SHARKFEST also focuses on other open source tools that are in development or currently being developed, so MSPs looking for a way to bring aboard inexpensive enhancements might find the convention particularly worthwhile.
Full disclosure: I’ve used Wireshark in the past and found it impressive just for my own personal use. If Riverbed is backing Wireshark, that could lead to a considerable boost in Wireshark’s user base, which is always a good thing for the open source community.
