Ignite 2014 Day 2: Highly Integrated and Highly Automated

Following on a big Day 1, the second day of Ignite 2014 was action-packed from beginning to end, starting with a keynote session that touched on all aspects of the Palo Alto Networks story and also brought to the stage several of today’s most innovative thinkers on mobile, cloud, and other trends that call for a next-generation approach to enterprise security.

We’ve doubled our attendance from the last Ignite conference and are excited to see so many new faces. Read on for details of today’s great discussions.

As the keynote portion of the morning kicked off, Palo Alto Networks Chairman, President and CEO Mark McLaughlin described how a perfect storm of technology shifts – including cloud and virtualization, social communication, mobility and BYOD and software-as-a-service – is forcing organizations to re-evaluate their security posture.

Mark stressed the need for superior security with superior total cost of ownership and that a true platform approach to solving security challenges is both highly integrated and highly automated. The Palo Alto Networks approach includes not only a next-generation firewall but also a next-generation thread cloud and a next-generation endpoint – all of which we can now deliver to customers.

Several technology leaders then took the stage to talk about different technology shifts and the need for next-generation security at each stage.

Dominic Orr, president and CEO of Aruba Networks, explained how “gen mobile” presents both a challenge and an opportunity for enterprises, which must look at policy, visibility, context and enforcement when adopting mobile security solutions.

Tony Zingale, CEO of Jive Software, talked about the need for better collaboration through smarter SaaS applications, and brought out Brett Eldridge, Palo Alto Networks VP of Global Customer Engineering and Support, and Bob Quinn, Palo Alto Networks CIO, to talk about real-world examples of SaaS-based collaboration in use at Palo Alto Networks.

“The social business enterprise is the business,” Tony said. “The cloud is here and here to stay.”

Next up was Aaron Levie, co-founder and CEO of Box, who in conversation with Mark explained that categorizing content with different security priorities is the strategy most companies will employ going forward.

Following Aaron came Carl Eschenbach, President and COO of VMware, who along with Rod Stuhlmuller, Director of Product Marketing for VMware NSX, detailed the software-defined data center and explained that SDDC is not so much a target as a weapon. Thanks to SDDC, said Carl, micro-segmentation will be possible on the enterprise data center network.

After VMware, Dan Kaminsky, longtime threat researcher and Chief Scientist and co-founder of WhiteOps, talked about the state of enterprise security, explaining that “there has been a tectonic shift from getting in trouble if we do something to getting in trouble if we don’t do something.”

“What’s the mother of innovation? Necessity. And there is no field that has more necessity than security,” Dan said, adding that all security professionals are aligned in a common cause to fight back against cybercriminals.

All keynoters then returned to the stage to take questions from the packed audience.

So far at Ignite we’ve spent time in breakout sessions, in our Ignition Chamber, in Expert Lab 1-on-1s, and in the halls, coffee shops and bars here at The Cosmopolitan getting to know one another.

Another full day is on tap for tomorrow, so for now, here are a few reminders:

• Download our free Ignite app and network with fellow attendees, as well as receive important updates and push notifications on your Ignite schedule
• Check out our Ignite 2014 photo album, which we’ve just updated with today’s events and will continue to update throughout the week.
• Enter our #IgniteSelfie contest, which will award a terrific prize for creative, funny and just plain weird selfies taken here at the show. We’ve seen some awesome #igniteselfie ideas come through already, so make sure you read our contest description for full details.

And here’s a look at what Ignite attendees are saying about their experiences on Twitter. Tweet to @Ignite_Conf or leave a comment below and let us know how things are going!

#Ignite2014 play hard work hard pic.twitter.com/VNeJwHcnN5

— Luca Bismondo (@LucaBismondo) April 1, 2014

Checking out @ignite_conf by Palo Alto Networks @Cosmopolitan_LV. Never seen this many security geeks in one place! #Ignite2014

— Erik Gavilanes (@egavilanes) April 1, 2014

@Ignite_Conf Full house for the super secret Track#6 introducing the next generation in endpoint security...CYVERA pic.twitter.com/XhPJAgPaOu

— ENS (@ENSARIZONA) April 1, 2014

Ignite 2014 is off and running! @Ignite_Conf pic.twitter.com/ipYhe79R88

— Dana Torgersen (@DaToTweet) April 1, 2014

Full house here at @PaloAltoNtwks #Ignite2014 pic.twitter.com/BwrvxZUYrt

— Melissa Nacerino (@MelissaNacerino) April 1, 2014

At first day of IGNITE 2014! Great opening speeches. #Ignite2014

— HPN InfoSec (@HPNInfoSec) April 1, 2014