Enterprise Computing: Storage Expo – It’s All Over

So Storage Expo is over for another year.  As usual it was the mix of meeting old friends, finding out who had moved to work with who and working out how early to head out to the pub!

For me, there were a number of interesting take aways:

• SVC 5.0 – lots of new stuff here that will form part of a new post at some stage.  Probably the biggest change being the use of SSDs in the chassis of the SVC server itself.
• Ocarina – being touted on the Bluearc stand.  More investigation on the potential benefits required here.

Other than that the most obvious difference was the lack of EMC and Netapp on the stands.  The whole show had the feeling of moving towards more midrange rather than enterprise customers.  Next year there will be no separate Storage Expo but rather it will integrate into  360 IT and move to Earl’s Court from Olympia.

So a couple of funny (ish) stories.  While wandering the floor on the Wednesday, I spotted Hu Yoshida sitting at the Hitachi stand.  I introduced myself, but I don’t think he had any idea who I was.  Perhaps it was the jet lag!

I managed hold out until 12:30pm before heading to the pub (Hand and Flower) for a beer.  I was promptly accosted by HP, giving away free beer vouchers.  Unfortunately, HP giving away free beer took me completely off guard and I forgot to use my free 3Par vouchers.  Perhaps that was a good thing.

Have a look at the attached photos; the rack shows the Ocarina device.  The other photo shows 3Par’s marketing banner in the pub.  Perhaps not the best place to advertise a “keep thin” promotion!