Charles Hood Dot Net

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Posts Tagged Brocade

Notes from VMworld 2010 – Part 1

Sep 1

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Just a quick update from the floor at VMworld, the conference is in full swing and the attendance has been amazing. Over 17,000 registered according to the keynote yesterday.

The big news at the show for us is our announcement of the ServerIron ADX 4000 ASM-4 bundle.  Think of it as a “stepping stone” between a fully-licensed ADX1000 (4 cores) and a significantly more expandable chassis-based system.  It also gives customers with specific fiber connectivity needs more deployment flexibility, in case the 1000’s all-copper + two 10G ports won’t suffice.

We are demonstrating ADX in our booth, in conjunction with the Application Resource Broker, to show how we can provide automated, policy-based provisioning and de-provisioning of resources based on application performance metrics.  Stop by and check it out, it’s very slick technology.

I’d also like to give a quick shout-out to Frank Iglesias of Radiant Systems, winner of the first drawing for Bose headphones from Brocade.  We will be giving away a pair of headphones every day at the show, so be sure to enter!  Hope to see you there.

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Ready For VMworld 2010!

Aug 28

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The excitement is in the air, it’s that time of year again — time for VMworld 2010 in San Francisco!  I go to a lot of conferences, but I must confess that VMworld is one my favorites.  (Second only to EMC World, or maybe a tie.)  It’s a great place for technologists to gather, learn and share.

This will be a working conference for me, so I’ll be dividing my time between attending sessions and representing Brocade in booth #1307.  We have a great location this year, conveniently located between the VMware booth and the Blogger’s Lounge!  As you walk through the Solutions Exchange area, please be sure to stop by and say Hello.  Foursquare is going to be a big part of the Social Media experience at VMworld this year, so be sure to “check-in” at our booth when you visit!

We have a lot of activity packed into our 10″ x 20″ space!  Ken Newman (@KenNewman) will once again be our Master of Ceremonies, and he will have giveaways for everyone that attends his presentation.  We will also have a daily raffle for a set of Bose 3 Noise Cancelling Headphones, as well as our Grand Prize drawing for the ever-popular Apple iPad.  (I’d venture to guess that VMware has the highest iPad-to-attendee ratio of any conference I’ve attended, so chances are good to win an iPad from somebody!)

We will be doing several technology demonstrations, but the one I’m most excited about is the Brocade Application Resource Broker (ARB).  ARB is a vSphere client plug-in that works in conjunction with Brocade ServerIron ADX to provide on-demand resource provisioning for virtualized infrastructure.  Here is a link to a 2 minute web presentation that provides an overview of how it works, but I hope you will stop by to see it in person, it’s really cool technology.  Hope to see you there!

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EMC World 2010 – Day 3 and Wrap-up

May 13

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Day 3 was another big day at EMC World.  It was the last day the Exhibition hall was open, and we went out with a bang.  The big press release news of the day was that the Brocade Encryption Switch won the EMC Partner Solution Award for Best New Offering for RSA.

At 2 PM we held the drawing for our big $10,000 give away.  Brocade VP Charlie Leeming was on hand as master of ceremonies to announce the winner.  Four runners up were awarded iPads before the final drawing for the grand prize.  After a couple of false starts due to no-shows, the prize was ultimately awarded to the gentleman in the picture on the left.  Pictures from the ceremony, as well as pictures of the runners up can be found on Flickr.  Congratulations to all the winners!

At 4:15 PM we had the distinct honor of being interviewed by EMC’s Stuart Miniman, broadcasting live from the Blogger’s Lounge at EMC World.  On the hot seat were Doug Ingraham, Brocade Vice President of Product Management, and myself, to talk about Converged Networking and the EMC/Brocade partnership.  Mr. Miniman was a gracious host, as always, asking good questions and speaking highly of our 10+ year partnership.  The entire interview is available here for replay if you missed it.

At 5PM, Roger Bouchard wrapped up a long day with our final session on the award winning Brocade Encryption Switch.  Even though sessions continued on Thursday, this marked the end of the line for us, as exhibitors starting breaking down their booths for shipping.  Soon we were all moving to the final evening event, the Beantown Bash at Faneuil Hall.

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EMC World 2010 Update – Days 1 & 2

May 12

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Busy busy busy at EMC World 2010 in Boston!  So much going on, where to begin?

First, the big news for us on Monday:  EMC announced an agreement to resell the Brocade IP networking portfolio of 10 Gigabit Ethernet switching products through the EMC Select program.  Needless to say, we are all very excited about this announcement.   This move will streamline our customer’s migration toward high-performance virtualization, data center convergence and private cloud infrastructures.  I can’t wait for this to go live this summer.

Hot off the heels of this news, Christopher Kusek (@cxi) stopped by the Brocade booth and did a nice write up on us in his blog!  Be sure to check out the video link to see Seth Fiermonti give a most excellent MLX overview!

Monday night was the Brocade party at the House of Blues, starring the Fried Ice Cream band.  These guys really rocked the house, and a good time was had by all.  I uploaded some pictures and a short video to Flickr, be sure to check ‘em out.

On Tuesday it was back to work, with our first break out session of the conference, titled “Be Virtualized” delivered by AJ Casamento from Brocade.  The session was packed, with over 100 people attending, with some folks standing in the back of the room.  Meanwhile back in the booth, Roger Bouchard was hard at work giving away signed copies of his book, “Securing Fibre Channel Fabrics“.  Roger will be doing a break session on Wednesday on SAN security titled, “Be Protected.”  (Can you tell we are really loving the Be Next campaign?)

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RSA Conference Wrap Up – That’s All Folks!

Mar 7

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RSA Conference 2010 has come to a close, the last day was a bit of a whirlwind, with lots of people getting ready to go home.  The highlight of the show for us on Thursday had to be our guest speaking opportunity at the McAfee booth.  John Harcourt from Brocade was a guest presenter on the McAfee stage at 2:15 PM and even though the show was winding down, the audience was probably one of our best yet.  I’d like to think it was our deft use of Social Media to hype the event, but it probably had just as much to do with the superb location of McAfee’s booth as well as Ken Newman being mic’ed up and pulling folks in.  Either way, it was the message that held everyone’s attention, and I’m grateful to our good partner McAfee for the opportunity to share the stage with them.

I didn’t participate in any of the parties Thursday night, instead I had the opportunity to join some customers for dinner at McCormick and Kuleto’s.  As it turns out, we had some great customers from my patch in town for a Corporate briefing, and I was able to join them for a fine technology discussion and even finer meal.

In case you are wondering, this lovely picture of me on the left was snapped by a co-worker.  It’s a picture of me tweeting from the show floor with my iPhone.  I think it was originally intended as a blackmail shot, so I figured the only way to defuse the situation was to post it myself!  Ha!  So there.  ;-)

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RSA Conference Day 3 – Where did all these people come from?

Mar 4

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Although this is my first RSA Conference, I’ve done a lot of shows over the years, and the general rule of thumb is that the booth traffic generally dwindles as the week wears on.  (Unless there is a prize drawing or something, of course there are exceptions.)  So imagine my surprise when our Day 3 traffic at the Brocade booth was heavier than ever.  I had several people tell me they were experiencing information overload from all the sessions, and decided to walk around the Expo floor just to unwind and take a mental break.  There was one very nice lady who was obviously very tired, but I was able to convince her to stay for the presentation that was just starting…. and she ended up winning the $50 Visa Gift Card!  How cool is that?  Of course I’d like to think that word has simply gotten around on how good Ken Newman‘s presentation is…. he really knows how to work an audience.

I’d also like to thank RSA for inviting me to their party Wednesday night at the St. Regis Hotel.  It was a very nice venue, the food was great, and DJ had mad scratching skills.

One more day to go!  Look for my final post tomorrow.

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RSA Conference Day 2 – Book Signing

Mar 3

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Roger Bouchard book signingWe had a flurry of activity in the Brocade booth, especially when Roger Bouchard showed up to start signing books!  Roger is a Global Solution Architect in the Brocade Security Practice, and his book “Securing Fibre Channel Fabrics” serves to raise awareness of the need for SAN security and does a great job of bridging the knowledge and cultural gap between storage and security practitioners.  The book was a big hit with the RSA crowd, we gave away over 200 hundred copies in two hours!  If you didn’t get one, fear not, the entire eBook can be downloaded for free from the Brocade Bookshelf.

Speaking of luminaries, I had the honor of meeting Ben Rockwood when he stopped by the Brocade booth for an update.  I’ve followed Ben’s blog for quite some time, and it was great to finally meet him in person.  I wish I had thought to snap a camera phone picture for the blog, but I was befuddled by geek awe.  ;-)  (Just kidding, Ben is very down to earth and approachable guy, I really enjoyed our chat.)

That’s all for now, more updates tomorrow.  If you’re at RSA Conference, be sure to stop by booth #523 and say Hello.

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RSA Conference Day 1 – Setup

Mar 2

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The RSA Conference opened up Monday night from 6pm to 8pm for a welcome reception and to give everyone a first look at the Expo Hall.  Our demo setup at the Brocade booth includes the Brocade Encryption Switch, EMC CLARiiON AX4 storage, and a RSA Key Manager server.  We are demonstrating encrypting LUNs in the background (non-disruptively!) as well as our DCFM management software.

The in-booth presentation from Ken Newman got rave reviews from the attendees.  Ken has the ability to both entertain and inform and the same time, which is rare indeed.  Of course it helps that he is giving away $50 VISA Gift Cards at every show.  ;-)

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Heading to RSA Conference 2010!

Mar 1

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I’m heading to RSA Conference tomorrow in San Francisco!  This is my first time attending, and I’m really looking forward to it.  I’m working the Brocade booth (#523), so be sure to stop by and say Hi.  I’ll be working with Ken Newman again, who is always a blast to hang out with.  (Supposedly Ken has something special for anyone who mentions that they heard about him on Twitter.)

We will be talking about the Brocade Encryption Switch that can be used to encrypt data-at-rest on your SAN disk (or tape) at wire speed.  The product is OEMed by EMC as the Connectrix ES-5832B, and of course it works with the RSA Key Manager, so there’s the tie in for the conference.

Breaking  news: I’ve just learned that on Tuesday, March 2nd, we will be joined by security author Roger Bouchard, who will be giving away signed copies of his book “Securing Fibre Channel Fabrics” from 2pm to 4pm (while supplies last).

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