For the past two years {2005, 2006} I've been going to the Cisco Networkers show in Las Vegas. Makers of all sorts of advanced networking equipment, Cisco sells the kind of technology essential for the internet to function, albeit the kind that's normally invisible. Cisco routers and switches direct traffic within office buildings, as well as provide services so that computers can get an IP address when they connect to either an Ethernet jack or a Wireless access point. Increasingly, as networks become targets for organized attacks, Cisco is in the security business -- selling the 21st equivalent of fireproof safes.

This year the Cisco convention moved to Anaheim, California, which is home to the DisneyLand resort and a good 40 minutes from downtown Los Angeles. The local hotels -- each of which, interestingly, had an internal Starbucks in it -- were pretty excited about this convention:

The actual conference itself is divided into interminable sessions on such delightful topics as router configuration languages and Voice-over-IP data packet prioritization strategies. All around the Anaheim Convention Center, (mostly) white middle-aged men discuss the intricacies of data networks, the 21st century's equivalent of civic engineering.

I mostly hung out on the show floor, which was filled to bursting with companies interested in participating in the Cisco 'ecosystem' of products and services built around the company's offerings. One example is Fluke, who makes network testing equipment used to trouble-shoot complex Ethernet wiring systems.

This particular piece of network testing equipment is an entire Windows-based touch-screen computer with a custom Ethernet interface, which will set you back $20,000:

After all that cash outlay, you might expect it to analyze 10GigE networks ... but you'd be wrong, for that you'll need this guy:

As mentioned above, Cisco's big focus recently has become security, and one of the big presences on the show floor was a truck trailer dedicated to "lawful intercept" and other law-enforcement issues. It was like the John Ashcroft Express, complete with the creepy "Securing the Common Good" slogan:

The whole gallery of pictures is online here.