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Posts Tagged EMC

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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EMC World 2010 – Arrival Day

May 9

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EMC World 2010 kicked off tonight in Boston, and registration was packed!  I can already tell this is going to be a great show — there is lots of enthusiasm and excitement in the air.  Social Media is always huge at EMC shows, and this year is bigger than ever.  I’ve already met some new friends through Twitter — big shout outs to @ldanakos, @Niketown588, @the_super_dave, and @basraayman!

Tonight was the welcome reception and concert before the real work begins tomorrow.  The Counting Crows were the entertainment, and I actually got a chance to get my picture taken with them before the show thanks to Len Devanna! (Thanks Len!)  I don’t actually have a copy of my picture with the band yet, but hopefully they will email it to me soon so I can post it.

Lots of fun tonight, but tomorrow the event begins in earnest.  I hope to catch the Joe Tucci keynote at 9:30 am, before I have to scurry off to the Exhibition hall at 10:30 am.  I’ll be working the Brocade booth (#409) so please stop by and say Hello if you get a chance!

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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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