Originally posted by: TonyPearson
This week, I was in beautiful Melbourne, Australia for IBM Systems Technical University.
- Opening Session
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We had three speakers for the opening sessions. Nicole Woodley, IBM General Manager for Systems in Australia and New Zealand (A/NZ) kicked off the event.
Satya Sharma, IBM Fellow and Cognitive Systems CTO, explained why IBM is renaming "Power Systems" to "Cognitive Systems".
Lastly, Clod Barrera, IBM Distinguished Engineer and Chief Technical Strategist for Storage, explained that computing was basically deciding where to store your data.
- Storage Technology Outlook
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Clod Barrera presented the Storage keynote session. He organized his talk into four layers:
- Infrastructure models
- Storage management
- Storage systems
- Storage media and networking technology
- Introduction to Object Storage and its Applications
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My session on IBM Cloud Object Storage had three sections. First, I covered an overview of what "Object Storage" was in general, how this differs from traditional block or file storage approaches.
Second, I explained what is unique and different of IBM Cloud Object Storage System, formerly called DsNet from Cleversafe. IBM acquired Cleversafe in 2015.
Third, I explained the various applications, use cases and industries that can take advantage of Object Storage.
- IBM Storage and the NVMe Revolution
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Brian Sherman, IBM Distinguished Engineer for Storage Advanced Technical Services, presented an overview of NVMe, NVMe Over Fabric (NVMeOF) and what IBM is doing in this area.
- How to Build a Rockstar Personal Brand
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Andrea Edwards, The Digital Conversationalist, is a globally award winning B2B communications professional with more than 20 years' worth of experience from around the globe, including 12 years exclusively in Asia Pacific. IBM has hired her in the Asia Pacific region to train many IBMers in Social Media.
She condensed her normal 5-6 hour training down to a single hour for this event. She explained why building a personal brand was important, how to do it, and why businesses and organizations should encourage their employees to do so.
For example, who has the most influence on most people? Behind friends and family are bloggers. Bloggers are more influential than journalists, religious leaders, celebrities and politicians.
(As the #1 blogger of IBM, I am considered to already have a "rockstar personal brand". I am pleased to see that IBM is taking social media seriously. I have been blogging since 2006, and have influenced over $4 billion US dollars in IBM revenue in the past 11 years.)
- IBM Spectrum Virtualize technical updates
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Andrew Martin, IBM Spectrum Virtualize Support Architect, presented the last 18 months of enhancements to Spectrum Virtualize, from v7.6.1 introduced in March 2016 to v7.8.1 released earlier this year.
He managed to highlight quite a few enhnacements:
- Distributed RAID 5 and RAID 6
- Integrated Compresstimator tool
- New hardware: SVC, Storwize V7000 Gen2+, Storwize V5000 Gen 2, and 92-drive 5U High Density Expansion Enclosure
- N-Port ID Virtualization (NPIV)
- Virtualization Over iSCSI
- Encryption for Distributed RAID Arrays
- 64GB Read Cache
- Tier 1 Flash Support
- Compressed IP Replication
- Spectrum Virtualize as Software for Lenovo and SuperMicro servers
- Host Clusters and Throttling
- Raised limit to 10,000 Volumes
- Transparent Cloud Tiering
- Storwize Model Conversions
- IBM SKLM Support for Encryption
- Consistency Protection for Metro and Global Mirror remote-distance replication
Andrew called this a "reverse roadmap", rather than a session that presents where we are going in the next 18 months, he presented where we have been.
- Solution Center Reception
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Here I am with Morgan Tracey and Jenna Brooker from Computer Merchants, an IBM Business Partner.
Not only were Computer Merchants a sponsor with a booth at the Solution Center, but they also gave a customer testimonial at one of the breakout sessions on how they were able to use IBM Artificial Intelligence to help with their business.
I also spent time at the SuSE booth. SuSE is a distributor of Linux that runs on x86, POWER and IBM Z mainframe systems.
While I was working, Mo took a tour to Phillip Island. On the way, they stopped at Maru to feed kangaroos and take pictures with Koala bears.
At Phillip Island, Mo watched penguins come out of the ocean, waddle up on shore and march to their burroughs. This happens every evening and is one of the top tourist attractions near Melbourne.
technorati tags: IBM, #IBMtechU, #IBMstu2017, Nicole Woodley, Satya Sharma, Clod Barrera, IBM Cloud Object Storage, Cleversafe, Brian Sherman, NVMe, NVMeOF, Rockstar Personal Brand, Andrea Edwards, Digital Conversationalist, , Andrew Martin, Spectrum Virtualize, Morgan Tracey, Jenna Brooker, Computer Merchants, SuSE Linux, Phillip Island