Plenty of Industry Firsts at VMworld Europe

Warning: Ok, I’m tiered and ready for a short vacation, so be advised, there is some industry and other tongue and check humor in this post, if you get it great, if not, don’t worry about it, ask around and someone can fill you in… ;).

So with VMworld Europe taking place in Cannes (that’s in the south of France and a nice place if you have not been there yet), rest assured, there will be a flurry of product, service and other announcements, some of which will use the usual industry first, industry only only, truly unique and the other usual claims. Unfortunately I wont be in Cannes as I will be in Florida next week doing a couple of keynote and sessions on IT optimization with some IT professionals in the Tampa and Miami areas.

What’s fun about being pre-briefed under NDA and/or embargo (are they the same) is hearing what the different vendors are or will be announcing and what can be even more fun, is hearing their claims of being 1st or thinking or believing they are 1st when in reality one may have just gotten off of the phone with someone else who is announcing something similar.

Rest assured, there will be some good and useful and with the right qualifiers, new, unique, 1st and so forth announcements next week especially for those who take the time to dig in to the details. So do that, look at the announcements, better yet, if you are at VMworld Europe, stop by and see the various vendors, their new solutions and ask the questions and dig into the details to learn more.

Now having said all of that, with the applicable qualifiers, I will say, that to my knowledge, from what I’m aware of based on briefings and other information that I can disclose, the industry first European appearance in the south of France in Cannes at a VMworld conference will see the first appearance and giveaway promotion by a vendor of my new book "The Green and Virtual Data Center" (CRC) which will be taking place at the StorMagic booth (or stand) in the Innovators area of the expo hall. (did I get enough qualifiers in to make it an industry 1st? – That was some humor BTW ;) ).

I think in their category and for what they are doing (VM and storage infrastructure, data protection and management) the StorMagic SvSAN is rather interesting and deserves a closer look. While on the surface it looks like what others are doing, that is simply moving a storage software stack that might otherwise run in a tin wrapped software appliance (that’s a server or controller) vs. repackaging and stuffing into a silicon wrapped (e.g. software and memory enabled) virtual machine (VM) as many others have done. On closer inspection, SvSAN is actually enabling management of internal RAID adapter cards with integration into VMware control/management interfaces to simplify and streamline hardware, software and storage resources. (yes yes yes, I know, everybody else is already doing that – BTW – That was another attempt at some humor! ;) )

However don’t take my word, check it out yourself and let me know. Stop by the StorMagic both or stand, say hello, tell them that Greg from StorageIO sent you, signup for a giveaway of my new book, ask them to show you why they have something new and different with their new version of SvSAN VM and Storage Infrastructure management tool. You  then can be the judge as to how unique and enabling their new announced capabilities are for broad market VMware environments.

Disclosure, StorMagic is not nor have they ever been a client or sponsor directly or indirectly via 3rd or 4th parities. that is, unless you consider them buying some books from my publisher or one of my publishers distributors in some way shape or form an in-direct means. (Now for some, that was an industry inside joke, for others, well, lets leave it at that for now, nuff said ;) ).

Ok, time to get packed and head out for a long weekend and get ready for next weeks busy schedule. For those heading to VMworld, enjoy and hope to see or talk with you soon. For those in Tampa and Miami, hope to see you next week, for everyone else, check out my events page as there are many events coming to cities and venues near you soon. Enjoy and try to have some fun, and to quote Wolf Gang Puck, "Live Love and Eat" :) .

Cheers – gs

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