VM /ETC

Posts Tagged ‘gestaltit field day’

Surely you’ve heard about Drobo by now? As the presenter in the last slot of the GetsaltIT Tech Field Day (TFD) schedule a few weeks ago,  Data Robotics was probably the most anticipated session by my fellow Delegates. I’ll admit, I had heard enough about the technology during the 2 day event that I was looking forward to the presentation as well. Data Robotics did not disappoint. Evidence can be seen in the enthusiasm expressed in the various posts and videos published since that session.

As always, I’ll leave the deep technical details of Drobo’s unique and patented Drobo BeyondRaid technology to my fellow storage bloggers and stay focused on how Data Robotics fits in virtual infrastructure. In this post I expand a little on why the Drobo storage device is a VMware HCL certified, simple to implement and expand iSCSI SAN targeted for SMB customers that is an exciting alternative. Finally I offer opinions based primarily on my virtualization server administrator perspective.
Read the rest of this entry »

Ocarina Networks presented to us during the Day 2 morning session of the GestaltIT Tech Field Day. Their presentation was a deep dive into storage compression and optimization. If you read my Ideas About Presenting To Engineers from earlier this week, then you’ll know what I mean when I say that Ocarina had “black magic” that wasn’t as interesting to me as how and where the solution was deployed in the data center. After all, Ocarina claims that they will optimize and compress data on any storage device. I wanted to know how they could integrate with existing, third party storage before I was ready to absorb how their compression and de-duplication was actually achieved.

I don’t want to mislead anyone – almost all of my fellow delegates where deeply impressed with the block by block algorithm lesson on Ocarina’s technology. The storage gurus where so into it I had to wait for the hands on labs to start before I could get my questions answered. In fact, I never did the labs because I spent the whole time at the white board understanding the deployment options.

My post is therefore about implementation options of an Ocarina solution. I’m using several quotes from posts by Carter George, co-founder of Ocarina Networks, taken from the Online Storage Optimization Blog to help me explain the deployment options. Then I’ll cover some ideas about how could Ocarina function in a virtual environment.

For those that want to know more about the deep dive on the Ocarina technology, follow the links at the end of this write up to my fellow attendee’s posts. Read the rest of this entry »

The VMworld 2009 Hands on Labs (HOL) VI was not the only VMware Global Engineering Technical Operations Team (GETO) managed infrastructure at the Moscone Center in 2009. The VMware Cloud Pavilion Booth and it’s demos, some customer demos, and even the VMTN Lounge and vExpert booth (I used personally) was run from a self contained, mobile rack. That rack was/is powered by MDS Quadv Servers and Xsigo I/O Virtualization Solutions.

MDS and Xsigo were sponsors of the GestaltIT Tech Field Day, and their presentations were first on our Day 1 agenda. Although I knew VMware (big thanks are due to John Troyer for setting everything up!) would be hosting these sessions at their head quarters in Palo Alto, I did not make the connection between the companies until I arrived on site Thursday. The aforementioned VMworld 2009 mobile rack is currently running in the VMware Briefing Center and is patiently waiting to be shipped again by the GETO team to the next conference or event.

Here are some of my notes about the capabilities of the rack. I may have misunderstood some of the wiring details. Read the rest of this entry »

Take a 9 minute drive around the storage block with Marc Farley of 3PAR as he uses an analogy of mismatched socks to explain how Autonomic Storage can eliminate human error in storage provisioning for virtual servers and databases. In the beginning of the video Marc goes off on a tangent Twitter rant where you might recognize some twitternames mentioned.

It’s worth the ride!

3PAR was one of the sponsors during the GestaltIT Tech Field Day in San Jose, CA last week, and announced Autonomic Provisioning with the press release titled 3PAR Changes the Way Utility Storage is Provisioned for Virtual Server and Database Environments

Check out Marc’s StorageRap blog and all of his Steering Wheel Camera videos on YouTube. The episode where he gives fellow storage bloggers Dave Graham (EMC) and Stephen Foskett (Nirvanix) a ride to the San Francisco airport on the last day of VMworld 2009 may also be interesting to VM /ETC readers.

Day 2 – Here We Go Again!

I’m throwing in the towel on trying to live blog/journal Tech Field Day. The event is too engaging and it’s all I can do to keep up with the conversation on Twitter while actually trying to learn so much new technology and products.

As in Day 1, please check the embedded Tweetgrid after the page break to follow my real time reactions as the day goes by. You can also follow all the Tech Field Day bloggers and their tweets with the multi column, web based Tech Field Day Tweetgrid.

I have been successful uploading my photos simply because I need to keep my phone and camera charged! Here is my album so far, and I’m sure I will update it more as day 2 goes by.

Read the rest of this entry »

Day 1 – Good Morning Silicon Valley!

Today is day one of the Tech Field Day and I am about to head downstairs to the hotel lobby to meet up with the group, jump on the bus, and head to our first destination – VMware’s Briefing Center in Palo Alto.

My flight was one of the last to arrive last night, but I did get to spend some “table time” with a few attendees before calling it quits due to the early start and busy schedule Stephen Foskett has arranged for us today.

I’m not sure I will be able to actually live blog since we are changing locations frequently, but I’ll do my best to update this post as the day goes on. Think of this post as a journal that will be refreshed as often as possible.

Please also check out my embedded Tweetgrid after the page break to follow my real time reactions as the day goes by. You can also follow all the Tech Field Day bloggers and their tweets with the multi column, web based Tech Field Day Tweetgrid.

Read the rest of this entry »

Disclosure: The GestaltIT Tech Field Day is an independent event being held in Sillicon Valley on Thursday 11/12 and Friday 11/13.  The event brings together a unique group of bloggers for sponsored technical presentations, demos, and hands on excercises. Tech Field Day bloggers are free to disclose all information presented on their respective sites and using social media. Although all bloggers attending have had their travel expenses covered by the event sponsors, none of the attendees are being compensated for posts or comments, and all are free to express opinions whether positive or negative in nature. For complete information about the event, the attendees, and the sponsors check out the Tech Field Day web page.

Day 0 – Travel & Tweetgrids

I’m putting in 2/3 of a work day today before my flight to SFO. Even so, I expect the twitter chatter to ramp up as the day advances, so I’ve started an embedded Tweetgrid filtered for just my tweets and the event hashtag , #techfieldday, after the break in this post. For a full web browser experience with all of the attendees check out my TechFieldDay Tweetgrid here. If you already have a Twitter account you can also quickly follow all Tech Field Day attendees and sponsors with a single click by following these Twitter lists:

• gestaltit/authors
• techfieldday/attendees
• techfieldday/sponsors

Did You Know Contest Winner

The winner of the pre event “Did You Know Contest” was selected and announced yesterday via this tweet:

“Congratulations to @DavidFix of Mr. X! He is the winner of our #TechFieldDay “Do You Know” contest!”

Look for more information about Tech Field Day Day 0 and the rest of the event here on VM /ETC over the next few days!

Read the rest of this entry »