Charles Hood Dot Net

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Posts Tagged EMC

VMworld 2011 Session Voting

May 15

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It’s time for VMworld 2011 Session Voting, and the process couldn’t be easier.  Just login to vmworld.com (or create an account) and click “Vote Now” on the right side of the page under Session Voting.  Find the session name you want and click the Thumbs Up icon.  (Click OK to confirm – the icon should turn green to indicate a successful vote!)

Here are the three Brocade sessions:

  • 3182 – “Scaling Virtualized Data Centers with Cloud-Optimized Networks” –http://goo.gl/Yy5ja
  • 3185 – “Virtual End User Computing with VMware View and Brocade’s VCS Technology” – http://goo.gl/a3aQQ
  • 3200 – “Delivering Business Continuity Solution with VMware” –http://goo.gl/PlYzU

You only have until May 18th, so get clicking!

 

P.S.  My friend Tommy Trogden (aka @vTexan) could use your votes as well!  Details here.

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EMC World 2011 Wrap-up

May 14

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Congratulations to Rainer Domke who won Brocade’s big $16,000 give-away at EMC World this year!  Brocade Vice President Charlie Leeming was on-hand to present the check.

The big news on Wednesday was the Arrow announcement of an integrated, cloud-optimized solution bundle called CloudTrack that features best-in-class products from EMC, VMware and Brocade.  I can’t wait to start talking to EMC resellers about this solution!

I actually had to leave EMC World early this year, so in my stead, I’d like to point you to the following two blog posts for a wrap-up:

See you next year!

 

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EMC World 2011 Day 2 Photos

May 14

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I finally got around to uploading my photos from Day 2 to Flickr, check ‘em out here.

The crowd was excellent on Tuesday, with no loss of enthusiasm whatsoever.  Booth traffic was heavy.  Our “game show” format was a big hit; Ken Newman really knows how to engage the audience.  (Nice job as always Ken!)

On this day I was actually able to venture out a little bit and see some of the booths of our partners.  It was nice to see Brocade gear in both the Greenplum and Isilon demo racks.

The highlight of the day, for me, was the opportunity to meet Brocade CEO Michael Klayko before his interview by SiliconANGLE on theCube.  (You may think it’s funny that I haven’t met our CEO in person, but remember I’m a field guy in Atlanta, I’m never at HQ in San Jose.)  Mike did a great job on the interview, he really knocked it out of the park.  If you missed it live, the replay is available here.  After the interview, I was able to snap this photo of Stuart Miniman, Dave Vellante, and John Furrier posing with Mr. Klayko.

Tuesday night finished up with the Brocade party at the Marquee.  The Wes Quave Band provided the entertainment, and a good time was had by all.

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Getting Ready for EMC World 2011

Mar 28

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Spring is in the air, and you know what that means… EMC World is right around the corner!  EMC World will be held in Las Vegas this year on May 9-12 at The Venetian, and if you’re not yet onboard with social media, now is the time.  Social media is huge at EMC World, and it’s a great way to keep your fingers on the pulse of what’s going on at the conference.  Here are a few things that I recommend to get ready for EMC World:

  • “Like” the EMC World page on Facebook, this is how I first found out that The Fray will be the band for the customer appreciation event on Wednesday night.
  • “Follow” @EMCWorld on Twitter, another great source of information.  Once the conference begins you will want to monitor the #EMCWorld hash tag to stay connected to what’s going on.
  • If you are a blogger, be sure to sign up for the Blogger’s Lounge on Len Devanna’s blog.
  • If your spouse is accompanying you to Las Vegas, make sure they know about Spousetivities.
  • Start planning your sessions now, the Agenda Builder is your friend!

This is by no means an exhaustive list, so leave a comment and let me know what I’ve left out.  Hope to see you at the conference!

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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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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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