Well…. while there I had a quick Twitter exchange with Scott Lowe and Amnon Izhar about fabrics.  This is another topic that gets the old juices flowing.

Cisco UCS Kicking Some @rse

Not that long ago I recorded a podcast on the topic of Cisco UCS.  At the beginning of the podcast, Rick and I did a goofy intro making fun of former HP CEO Leo Apotheker’s apparent comment that if Cisco were selling UCS they must be selling it on planet Zircon, because HP weren’t coming up against it in the real world. 

Well…since then I know of loads of people taking up Cisco UCS, whether it be straight UCS or as part of a Vblock.  So it’s pretty clear that Cisco have really taken the game to HP in the compute market.  And clearly, in some people’s opinions, it has advantages over and above HP’s offerings.

Yes, UCS scores points on management, but they also score technical points too.  UCS has good tech.

HP have traditionally taken a steady approach to pushing server based technologies forward.  Things like Virtual Connect FlexFabric are ….. well….. OK.  Kind of average.  But with Cisco in this market, average won’t cut it any more!

Software

No doubt that HP has to improve their software.  Now that is a task that I do not envy.  If describing HP’s software I’d have to use words like clunky, bloated, slow, cumbersome, flaky…  Making significant strides in this area will be long a hard.  Good luck HP.

The Cool Stuff – Fabrics

It’s my opinion that HP need to up their game on the server technology front.  They need to be bolder and more innovative (even if via acquisition).  HP needs to get back to being best of breed and not rely on the fact that they are HP.

One way to do this, and at the same time take the game right back to Cisco, would be to buy Xsigo Systems.

NOTE: I am in no way suggesting HP are even remotely thinking of buying Xsigo – how the hell would I know! I'm just saying I think it's a cracking technology and they would make a cracking combo!

Xsigo’s Server Fabric would really cloud enable HP solutions and put them ahead of the 10Gbps curve, as well as simplify and add flexibility to HP solutions.  And all of this to an extent not possible with average technologies like VC FlexFabric.

One of the things I like about Xsigo solutions is similar to what VMware have been doing with vMotion technology.  VM movement operations (using the fs3dm datamover with hardware offload) can now be done within the storage controller without the data ever having travel up the stack from the array, through the fabric to the ESXi host and then back down again.  As a result not only are storage vMotions faster but the load is taken off the fabric and ESXi hosts.  It just makes good sense to do things this way!

Similarly, Xsigo allows us to do things in networking and server-to-server or VM-to-VM connectivity that just make sense.  Things like server to server traffic not having to travel up and over the network -

Now I’m no stupid, yes I expect the network guys to come out with their pitchforks and tell me how this doesn’t fit with their legacy backwards current models and I expect the network security card to be played.  But hey, the best technologies are always disruptive and force us to rethink the way we have traditionally done things.  And that’s only one of the advantages Xsigo brings.     

In a nutshell Xsigo would leapfrog HP servers past Cisco UCS (yes I think UCS is probably ahead o HP on a technology front right now).

What About A PCIe Fabric

So I like the idea of that and yes I know that the number of PCIe nodes deployed makes Ethernet look niche, but when I looked into this in the past (~2 years ago) PCIe wasn;t so scalable lacked a lot of networking capability and scalability.  Server fabrics dont necessarily have have all of the features of networks, but when I looked in to it back then I didn't feel that PCIe was a great fit.  Mental note: Go and revisit this.

Anyway, may be a blog and a podcast on Xsigo is required…

The short and skinny of this is that I've started doing Deep Dive podcasts for Infosmack.  And the whole point of them is to be interesting and useful to technical junkies like me.  So if you’re like me at all, you will want to read this.

Why?

First up, I’m a huge fan of audio podcasts. 

I swear I get more than half of what I learn from blogs and podcasts (worrying, I know). 

The problem I have with blogs is that my blog reader has well over 100 blogs that I haven’t had a chance to read yet, and also little chance of having enough time to properly catch-up. 

The audio podcast on the other hand allows me to consume technical content while; driving, gardening, working out, mopping the kitchen…. you get the picture.

The second reason being – while I really enjoyed most of the Infosmack podcasts, occasionally my technical appetite wasn’t satisfied.  So I talked with Greg about adding a Deep Dive brand to the Infosmack portfolio.  Greg loved the idea and I went ahead and started recording shows.  Shows that I personally would like love, figuring that there are other people out there who crave technical material in the same way that I do.

So…….. If you’re anything like me and love technical content, then you’re gunna love the Infosmack Deep Dive podcasts!

Blades vs Rack Servers

Cutting to the chase, the first show is up and available on The Register.  It’s titled Blades vs Rack Servers, and we (myself, Rick Vanoever, Kevin Houston and Bob Plankers) discuss blades vs rack servers.

You can listen to it directly from the Register site using their Reg media player, or by downloading the MP3 here (also linked from The Register).

We are planning tons more shows including things like – Designing for VMware, Flash memory, Deduplication, Protocol wars and a ton of other cool tech related topics.

As well as those, we’ll do speciality shows such as a vSphere 5 Deep Dive (when it comes out), VMAX vs XIV and a ton more.  And that’s just the Deep Dive side of Infosmack.  There’s more than just Deep Dives planned.

What Happened to Greg

Those of you who already know the Infosmack show may wonder what has happened to Greg Kneireimen, founder and host of the show for the last two or so years.  Greg puts it best in his own words on his own site.  I know both Greg and Marc personally and have huge respect for both of them.

The Deep Dive podcasts were planned with Greg over the past couple of months and Greg was hugely supportive of me bringing them under the Infosmack brand, so I’d publically like to thank him for that.  Ass kissing over!

Feedback

Some quick stuff before I finish.

If you've listened to one, do me a favour and vote on the poll over on the right hand sidebar of the website.

Yes, I know there are other technology podcasts out there, of varying quality both on content and recording quality.  But the plan is to make this the best.  Infosmack scmacks of quality.  Hopefully thee will be a little bit different.  Thats the plan anyway

If you do Twitter, the hash tag for the DeepDive series is #DeepDive

Also, the whole reason for me doing the shows (other than the fact that I have a great time doing them) is to deliver something of worth and interest to the technical community.  With that in mind, I’m more than happy to take suggestions for show topics and advice on what you think may add to the show – just add them as comments to this post, or contact me on Twitter, I’m @nigelpoulton.

Thanks for reading, and hopefully you will listen to the shows and enjoy them!

This week I’m in Vegas for HP’s premier showcase event.

Why have I bothered to travel half way around the world in coach class, messed up my body clock and had my luggage go missing……?

I’m not a gambler, so it certainly isn’t to try and make a penny or two on the tables.

Storage

If I thought I was coming for deep technical storage sessions I’d be disappointed.  Of the million sessions available there is not a single session that meets the search criteria of “Storage + Technical Advanced” :-S  A bit gutted, but I’ll live.

From a storage perspective I’m here to find out what is different NOW about HP and HP StoreageWorks that means they will be more than a storage “also ran”.

I want tot know what has changed that means they won’t do what they did to the EVA with technologies like 3PAR, IBRIX and LeftHand.

In my personal opinion, EVA was years ahead of its time.  Native disk pooling and wide-striping.  Advanced core virtual RAID engine.  Native backend re-balancing…..  HP should have wiped the floor with the competition, but clearly did not.  Damn shame, but hopefully lessons have been learned.

In my heart of hearts I’d like to see HP turn up the heat in the storage space like they have in the networking space!  We’ll see.

So just a few questions:

What the heck do HP have to do to be leader in storage?  Is it people, is it technology, is it focus, is it price, is it services, is it integration….?  Or….. do they have no hope?  I'm interested in your thoughts, feel free to leave your thoughts in the comments.

Networking

That brings me nicely on to networking.

I have to say I’m impressed with how HP are shifting through the gears in the networking space.  The networking market has needed some genuine competition for a long time and HP are starting to provide that.

I’m hear to learn HP’s vision and goals for networking and how they are going to be a significant player in the future. 

I’m specifically interested in things like HP FlexFabric and network convergence.

Servers

HP pretty much own the server market, both rack mounts and blades. That’s all well and good, but that’s a hard position to maintain.  I want to know what HP are innovating in this space to maintain that market share and to keep ahead of the competition.

Other Stuff

To be honest, the above are that major reasons I’m here.  Anything else is a bonus.

I will say that one thing I have zero interest in is their webOS and mobile device story.  I open to being convinced, but I have registered zero interest in any webOS related sessions.

Anything technical and interesting, I will post about.  Everything else will be zeroed out and the extents in my head reclaimed and added back to the free space pool.  So……. will I come back from HP DISCOVER with a lot more cool stuff in my head, or will my background cleanup process that runs in the background while I’m sleeping on the flight home just clear out a load of rubbish?????

Oh and finally a little bit of HP storage porn to feast your eyes on -

And I wonder which array is missing in action here?  Is it a late arrival, or has it been shifted to the stage for a big announcement?

Earlier this week Dell wrecked my day when they announced their intention to acquire 3PAR, the company that – in my personal opinion – has the best storage array architecture on the market.

Why did this wreck my day? 

Personally I felt that 3PAR, and their top-notch architecture, deserved somebody better than Dell – no offence Dell.  Let’s face it though, Dell isn’t exactly synonymous with great enterprise storage…  If Id had my pick, I would have preferred HP pick up 3PAR. But hey, life goes on.

Best of Breed

However, now that I've had a chance to think, I’ve made an about-turn and changed my opinion.  Here’s why -

Dell already have a quality iSCSI array in guise of the Dell EqualLogic line, and I think that iSCSI has a great future in the SMB space.  Big tick in that box for Dell.

Now they have a best of breed FC block storage array that can compete with the Symmetrix and USP gorillas of the storage world!  And let’s face it, while it might not be growing at a huge pace, block storage shows no signs of going away in the enterprise space.  And even if FCoE eventually gets its act together and gobbles up the FC market, the 3PAR technology will adapt to that as easily as any other FC block storage array out there.  So, big tick in the Enterprise storage box for Dell too.

In fact, Dell now look better positioned than HP at the high end.  HP currently still OEM the Hitachi enterprise line of products in the enterprise block storage space.  These days companies are scrambling to own the stack, and Dell owning the 3PAR technology looks better than HP OEM’ing the Hitachi technology – emphasis on “owning”.

Let’s also remember that a few weeks ago Dell announced their intention to acquire Ocarina Networks.  I’ve been to Ocarina HQ, talked with some of their guys and know a little about their technology.  Smarts like those provided by the likes of Ocarina that allow for compression, de-dupe and other means of storing our data more efficiently have a great future in my opinion.  If Dell are able to integrate the Ocarina IP into the EqualLogic and 3PAR lines then they will have a really compelling story.  So that’s another big tick in the box for Dell.

With the above in mind, the Dell storage portfolio looks to be at serious risk of becoming synonymous with “Best of Breed”.  Surely not! :-S

What’s missing

With so many ticks in boxes, what is still missing for Dell?

Well, a line-up that includes a top-notch block array (3PAR), a top-notch iSCSI array (EqualLogic) and some top-notch storage optimisation technologies (Ocarina) deserves a top-notch NAS device. 

I’m not convinced that Exanet fits the top “top-notch” moniker in today’s ultra-cometetive scale-out NAS world

Looking at what is potentially available on the market, Isilon Systems must be in the potential line of fire.  They recently became a Billion dollar company so they won’t be cheap, but heck, you get what you pay for right! 

I remember hearing rumours that HP’s first choice scale-out NAS acquisition might have been Isilon when they went shopping for scale-out NAS and ended up buying IBRIX.  So, what better way to land a heavy kick to the cahoonas of one of your most fierce rivals than to go out and land something they supposedly weren’t able to land.  Of course I am only speculating that HP would have preferred to buy Isilon!  Let me just add that I personally like the looks of IBRIX, or the X9000 range as HP now call it.

Anyway, adding Isilon to the Dell storage portfolio would pretty much give Dell a store line-up to be reckoned with.  Granted, a million miles away from being integrated with each other, but nonetheless really cool and compelling technologies.

Without any doubt though, if Dell are to complete the acquisition of 3PAR and then went on to pick up someone like Isilon, then we would be waking up to a world with a new storage superpower called “Dell”.

All that would then remain in order to truly compete with the likes of Cisco, HP and IBM would be a networking platform – may be something innovative and different like Xsigo might be in order?

Oh and of course they would need to go out there and invest in acquiring a decent server platform

PS. You can join in the real-time tech talk by following me on Twitter – @nigelpoulton

While eating out recently with a group of top industry techies* in Tokyo Japan, we had a short light-hearted discussed of the above.  There was a definite difference of opinion; some of the people involved felt it made absolutely no difference at all, whereas others (including me)

think it may make a difference, albeit my be small….  May be we are all wrong and it makes a big diference!?

* Top industry techies included: Greg Knieriemen, Chris Evans, Michael Hay, Devang Panchigar, Robin Harris and the Rickatron himslef Mr. Rick Vanoever.  The Ghelfster was also there, and although she is top notch, strictly speaking Carli is not a techie.

While I do think it makes a difference, I’m not suggesting it makes a huge difference – its certainly nowhere near as important as it is with consumer goods – but I’m open to being wrong.  After all, I’m a techie and not in marketing.

Let me just throw together a quick list of some of the reasons I think it makes a difference -

1. It’s a conversation point for techies.  Having folks talk about your company and your kit is almost always a good thing.
2. It helps in marketing.  And we all know that effective marketing is often more important than technical merit or technical superiority.
3. Things that are aesthetically pleasing on the eye leave us with positive thoughts and feelings about the object. And that doesn’t just apply to good-looking girls!

While on the topic, I’m also one of those that thinks getting your product on poplar TV shows and films is a good idea.  An example that immediately comes to mind is the frequent and positive appearances of Cisco and Apple kit on the popular TV show 24.  In one episode, Chloe O’brien (renowned for being able to hack though any IT security system) makes a statement along the lines of “they have the new Cisco proprietary firewall system, its impossible to hack”.  Corny, I know, but its sewing information and impressions to people.

And then there’s the recent appearance of an EMC VMAX on the same show.  While some point out that one of the VMAX arrays had smoke coming out of it, the important thing was that it powered back up and still worked

WARNING: Don’t test burning your own VMAX in your own Data Center.  The above was performed by professionals with all required safety equipment at hand

And let’s face it, Apple, Cisco and EMC know how to market a product!

If names are important then surely…..

Also, there is no doubt that companies (including vendors of Data Center hardware) think product names are important.  So if something as seemingly unimportant as a product name (when compared to security or data availability etc) is important, then surely physical product aesthetics are also important?  Both are part of product image and branding.

TIP: Go hire an ex-Apple dude to design the front doors and front bezels to your Data Center kit.  It won’t break the bank or introduce bugs to your code, but it might have a positive impact on branding and and may be even sales.

Just my thoughts.  Please take a minute to register your opiion in the poll below -

Feel free to chime in with your own opinions, as well as images of the good the bad and the ugly of Data Center products.  Here’s quick image that I’ll leave you to make your own mind up on -

Nigel

Recently, I've even talked to industry experts as well as HDS folks about the fact that they only have two of the major three components that make up the increasingly popular vertical stack – with networking being the missing link.

NOTE: I define the three major components as Compute, network, and storage.  I know there’s more to it than that, but they suffice for this short article.

I don't know if it's just me, but the fact that Hitachi has its own networking kit – from Ethernet switches to MPLS – puts a whole different spin on their planned vertically integrated stack.

We already know they do storage, they recently announced that they will soon start shipping their BladeSymphony server platform (which has been around for a while in ASIA/Japan) to the rest of the world as part of their Hitachi Unified Compute Platform (UCP). But Hitachi built networking was notably missing from the announcement.

IMPORTANT NOTE:  I am in no way suggesting Hitachi have any plans of pushing this networking kit out with their Unified Computing Platform (UCP) solution when it finally ships. In fact as far as Im aware, they have no intention of doing this (yet).  This post is merely pointing out to others that Hitachi does have its own networking kit and there are some obvious synergies for the future….

Anyway, the whole thing came to light today while attending the Hitachi uValue convention in Tokyo Japan.  First up, Chris Evans pointed the following poster out to me -

Then we walked around the corner only to be presented with a boatload of the actual kit on display.  Feast your eyes on these -

Note: The booth guys (Japanese) tell me that Alaxala is a joint venture between Hitachi and NEC. Seems to be true from a quick search on Google.

Granted…… In true Hitachi style, they are not the prettiest things in the data centre – no doubt the old "form over function" thing – but appearance is far from the most important thing when choosing a product.

Other than the above, I literally know nothing about the kit – the booth guys spoke very little English, and in true British style I speak about 0.8 words of Japanese.  So all I know is that the Ethernet switches that do 1Gbps and 10Gbps.  There is nor Fibre Channel. But when I asked the booth guys (the ulitmate source of all truth and knowledge) about competing with other vertical stacks such as VCE/vBlock, I got the impression they were suggesting they might be working on FC.  Of course these are just booth guys and we understood a grand total of about 25 words between us

Although they apparently sell a fair amount in Japan (and potentially ASIA but Im not sure about the last part sue to language barriers), I know full well that you don’t just break in to the networking space.  However, apparently the switching technology in the back of the Hitachi BladeSymphony kit is Alaxala.  So that’s a potential toe in the door of the Data Centre (assuming HDS manage to make a good go of selling Hitachi BladeSymphony blade servers and their Unified Computing Platform, UCP).

Just thought Id let people know that in the background Hitachi does actually have in-house networking skills and kit.

Courteous comments welcome.

Nigel

DISCLAIMER: Hitachi picked up the bill for this trip to the Hitachi uValue convention in Tokyo (flights, food and hotel). For the record I will have an airport parking charge of ~£75GBP to pick up myself when I land tomorrow.

In my opinion the show was a real success with over 1,500 attendees, of which over 1,100 were end users and reseller delegates and the remainder made up of general riff-raff such as vendors, press and the likes….

One of the things I like to see at shows like these is hardware.  What can I say, Im just the kind of guy that gets a kick out of seeing hardware.  So for the rest of you out there like me – sit back and enjoy……..

First up, I was impressed to see a Symmetrix V-Max, blue strip light ablaze.  The only disappointment was that whenever I popped by to have a chat, somebody else was always being given an overview

Next up the IBM HS22 BladeCenter that was used to demo the new IBM Virtual Fabric, which is based on technology from IBM, BLADE Networks and Emulex.  A much needed addition to the IBM portfolio in my opinion.

Oh and while on the theme of IBM, here is another rack of IBM kit

As the IBM Virtual Fabric solution has an Emulex CNA in it, next up is Shawn Walsh from Emulex showing us that the Emulex UCNA is real and not a myth.

And a close up on a desk with a pen for lined up to give an idea of size

Then if you followed the girls with “Thin” written on their T-shirts you couldn’t miss the 3PAR InServe kit on show.  I plan on writing about 3PAR RAID MP and Persistent Cache, both of which are potentially very interesting technologies.  But seeing as 3PAR are attending the upcoming GestaltIT Field Day I might wait and see if I can glean some deep tech info from them.

Brocade also turned up with a rack load of kit, although hugely disappointing for me was the lack of an FCoE 10-24 blade in the DCX director.  Not to worry though, there was a B8000 top of the rack CEE/FCoE switch to keep me happy.

And a Brocade dual port CNA

I have some video footage from the Brocade booth that I will post some time next week.  So stay tuned.

Even the internet connected laptops were also of decent spec.  Below is a smart little HP laptop alongside my personal 11.1” Sony job – check out the grease marks on my trackpad and spacebar

And last but not least, the quality of freebies was good.  Aside from the standard pens and stress balls, I was particularly impressed with –

iPod Shuffle
Solio solar powered USB charger
3-in-1 pen/laser pen/1GB memory stick (James Bond style)
2GB micro SD with standard SD adapter 

The economy must be recovering!

As well as the above mentioned video footage from the Brocade booth, I also got some video footage from the Arista networks booth.  Keep an eye out for that as I plan to post them in the following week…

Nigel

You can follow me on Twitter where I talk about storage technologies (@nigelpoulton) and I am also available for hire as a consultant.

In the video, William Lloyd Scull Senior Network Architect at BLADE Network Technologies, demos a feature of the IBM BladeCenter Virtual Fabric (comprised of Emulex OneConnect UCNA, BLADE Network Technologies Blade Switches and IBM BladeCenter hardware).

In the video William dynamically reduces network bandwidth allocated to a vSwitch from 2500Mbps down to 1900Mbps, as well as talks us through some of the other features and some of the hardware involved in the Virtual Fabric solution.

Its an interesting video if you want quick and dirty overview of Virtual Fabric for IBM BladeCenter and a glimpse at what it looks like with the lid off.  The video was not rehearsed, and although Id gone through the same thing with William the day before he had no idea I would turn up again the next day with my video camera and ask him to perform to the world

So thanks to William for being a good sport.  Enjoy……..

First impressions for me are similar to my thoughts on HP Virtual Connect Flex-10…….  In fact this is very similar to VC Flex-10 but with a more clear roadmap for FCoE and is built on a solid Converged Network Adapter (OneConnect UCNA) from Emulex.  However, as good as it is, its very generation 1.  But that’s not a huge issue because these are early days in this area.  Everybody else is in a similar position.  To my knowledge there is nobody doing hairpin turns in silicon yet and we are all a long way off MR-IOV and the new rack area landscape which that makes possible……..

So…. an important technology for IBM, may be slightly better than Virtual Connect Flex-10 but is probably not quite as good as some of the stuff Cisco is doing with Palo… But a solid foundation to build on (see my previous post on the Emulex OneConnect Universal Converged Network Adapter for more info).

Thoughts and comments welcome as usual…..

Nigel

Oh and you can follow me on Twitter where I talk about storage technologies (@nigelpoulton) and I am also available for hire as a consultant.

I have to say that the event was a rip roaring success and I would highly recommend other vendors do the likewise.  Aside from the excellent people pulling it all together in the background, the event comprised several very influential bloggers, absolutely top notch HP technical and product management staff……. oh and me there to make up the numbers
 

The workshops and discussions will no doubt spawn several blog posts in the near future, including exclusive video footage of a tour round the HP EVA test lab in Colorado Springs (the lab where firmware and software testing takes place) and it is pretty impressive – watch this space!

HP don’t ‘get’ storage

Prior to the event I admit that I felt the HP storage portfolio was bloated and somewhat chaotic – and this despite the fact that I am well versed in two of their more established products – EVA and XP.  I also had a personal opinion, which I know is shared by others, that the StorageWorks group at HP were the poor relation in a large and otherwise wealthy family.  My opinion was that HP didn’t really ‘get’ storage – at least not like EMC or HDS ‘get’ storage.

Actually HP do ‘get’ storage

If I had to choose one thing that I took away from the event, it would be that HP actually do get storage.  They have some seriously good products and some top notch people behind it all.  It was actually a pleasure playing with the kit (really slick interfaces…) and having access to such open, honest and technically gifted people.  I can’t stress enough the open and honest way in which everybody came across.  John Obeto mentioned to me what a breath of fresh air it was compared to the usual marketing folk that are put in front of crowds like us – couldn’t agree more.

So if the last two days are anything to go by, and I think they are, HP storage is in very good hands.  Oh and of course this is all without a certain Mr Dave Donatelli.  So when Dave is finally allowed to get involved with storage at HP – I think things will only get better!
 
Of course whether HP can convince the market and gear up their sales force to make it happen, only time will tell.  However, if you place any value on my opinion, you could do a lot worse than check out some of the HP storage offerings.  And that’s an honest opinion, not just because I had a good time.  I have no issues in pulling HP up if I feel its needed – read on to find one example……..

In future posts I will dig deeper into some of the technical aspects, but for now, the products that I was most impressed with and interested in were –
 

• HP LeftHand
• HP SVSP
• HP EVA

HP do a ton more than those 3 products listed above, and I still think they may have have too many, but for me those listed above are the highlights.

The Lost Symbol

One notable absentee, and therefore an area that remains somewhat a mystery, was Networking.  Nobody present from the networking group, no labs and not technical discussion – except for that which we brought up from the floor. 

Obviously we had limited time there and couldn’t possibly cover everything HP do, but with so many slides and presentations on “Data Centre Convergence”, it was a shame that networking wasn’t covered.  After all, there can be no doubt that changes in the network infrastructure are absolutely key to Data Centre Convergence.  May be one for a future similar event?

On the topic of the openness and honesty of the whole event, the one area where I wondered if I was fobbed off was around the HP ProCurve product range and whether it had support for lossless 10Gbps CEE (802.3Qbb etc…..).  The answer I got was “I should know the answer to that but I don’t, sorry”, which to me was as good as “No”.  However, I may be doing the guy a disservice – after all he was a ProLiant guy and very very good at that but his forte was not ProCurve. 
 

BTW: I was pretty sure the answer to my question is “No” before I asked but thought I would try and generate some discussion around the topic.

In a nutshell – mostly good, some very interesting products and a unique glimpse into the beating heart of the HP StorageWorks division.

Watch this space for technical dives into some of the technologies as well as the video tour of the EVA test lab once Ive edited it and uploaded to the web.

Nigel

You can follow me on Twitter – http://www.twitter.com/nigel poulton @nigelpoulton.  I only ever talk about storage and related technologies.

I am also available as a consultant and can be reached at nigelATrupturedmonkeyDOTcom

PS  The technical guys who were invited to and attended the event were (in alphabetical order) –

Rich Brambley  (@rbrambley) http://vmetc.com
Stephen Foskett (@sfoskett)  http://blog.fosketts.net
Robin Harris  (@StorageMojo) http://storagemojo.com
Greg Knieriemen (@Knieriemen)  http://www.storagemonkeys.com
Ray Lucchesi (@RayLucchesi) http://silvertonconsulting.com/blog/ 
John Obeto (@JohnObeto) http://absolutevista.com
Frank Owen (@fowen)  http://techvirtuoso.com
Devang Panchigar  (@StorageNerve)  http://storagenerve.com
Simon Seagrave (@kiwi_Si) http://www.techhead.co.uk
Me (@nigelpoulton)  http://blogs.rupturedmonkey.com

They are all worth checking and following on Twitter if you do the Twitter thing…..