Originally posted by: TonyPearson

Continuing my coverage of the of the [IBM Edge 2013] conference, I have more photos of people I ran into at the Solutions Center.

Here is Dana Grove, one of our event coordinators from George P. Johnson, or [GPJ], for short. GPJ is the company IBM hires to help us run conferences like this. I met Dana back in 2011 at the Gartner Data Center conference, you might remember her [wearting the white lab coat].

As a former owner of [Tucson Fun and Adventures], I am well aware of the challenges of running events, so I appreciate all the work they do.

Here is Ally Haigh, daughter of my former IBM colleague, Jerry Haigh. Jerry worked in the marketing team for System Storage, but retired from IBM shortly after this event.

Janet Wong, a Client Technical Specialist for IBM Disk Systems. She works in Techline up in Calgara, Canada, and provides pre-sales supports such as running modeling tools to help clients configure the optimal disk system for their workloads. I love going up to Calgary in the summer, to escape the Tucson heat. One of these days, I will try to line up with their famous [Stampede], touted as one of the greatest outdoor shows on Earth!

Here is Taylor Brown from [Fusion-IO], one of our suppliers for PCiE-based Flash memory cards that we use in IBM servers. Many clients have asked me what will happen to Fusion-IO now that IBM has acquired Texas Memory Systems that also makes PCiE cards that compete directly with them, and all I can say is that I have no idea what the IBM plans are in this area.

Here is Julia Mak, one my many friends over at [OxygenCloud]. The tattoo on her left arm reads: "Do what you love, Love what you do" with little clouds as quotation marks.

OxygenCloudis IBM's official front-end for IBM's SmartCloud Enterprise Object Storage, managed on our behalf by [Nirvanix]. The Tucson Executive Briefing Center where I work is a heavy user of OxygenCloud as a way to distribute materials to our clients. Previously, we would burn CDroms for each attendee containing the various PDF files, but it is SO MUCH EASIER to send a single link to all the materials via OxygenCloud.

The OxygenCloud team is based in San Francisco, and they have invited me to visit their office the next time I visit clients up there!

Update: Recently, Nirvanix announced they are winding down their operations, shuttind down on October 15, under [Chapter 11 bankruptcy] protection. They have designated IBM to help their clients move their data off their systems. I have already taken care of that for my own OxygenCloud accounts we manage here at the Tucson EBC, and working with others to do the same for their accounts.

technorati tags: , #IBMedge, Solutions Center, Dana Grove, GPJ, TFA, Ally Haigh, Janet Wong, Calgary Stampede, Taylor Brown, Fusion-IO, PCiE, Flash, Julia Mak, OxygenCloud, SmartCloud, SmartCloud Enterprise, Object Storage, Nirvanix, bankruptcy