Originally posted by: TonyPearson
Last week, I was in Orlando, Florida for the [IBM Technical University], with focus on IBM storage, IBM Z mainframes and IBM Power servers. Here is my recap of Day 5, and some final thoughts.
- Managing Risks with Data Footprint Reduction
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This session had four parts. First, an overview of "Data Footprint Reduction" technologies, like compression, data deduplication, space-efficient snapshots and thin provisioning.
Second, a look at how these technologies can get storage administrators in trouble. Much like airlines selling more tickets than seats on the airplane, storage administrators may over-provision based on data reduction estimates, and then suddenly run out of storage capacity.
Third, an overview of IBM FlashSystem A9000 and A9000R products, often referred to as "A9000/R" to cover both as a family. These models offer data footprint reduction for all data.
Finally, I explain how the Hyper-Scale Manager GUI can help with reporting and analytics to avoid these risks. This GUI is available for the FlashSystem A9000/R, as well as XIV Gen3 and Spectrum Accelerate software clusters.
Special thanks to Rivka Matosevich for her help in preparing this presentation.
- The Pendulum Swings: Understanding Converged and Hyperconverged Integrated Systems
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With IBM's partnership with Cisco for VersaStack, and Nutanix for the IBM Power systems, this has become a particularly popular topic.
I started with an overview of the last 50 years of storage evolution, from internal storage and external storage to NAS and SAN storage networks. An estimated 96 percent of the storage in corporate data centers are connected via NAS or SAN networks.
More recently, people have been willing to give up all those gains for something simpler, less powerful, less reliable, less expensive. Enter Converged and Hyperconverged Systems. IBM PureApplication and VersaStack lead the pack for Converged Systems, along with IBM Spectrum Scale, Spectrum Accelerate and Nutanix on IBM Power Systems for Hyperconverged Integrated Systems.
- Final Thoughts
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We had 1,600 attendees, much higher than expected. This is a good sign, when you consider IBM just had its "Think 2018" conference last March, and Dell EMC had their big conference the same week in Las Vegas.
When people asked me what was the main difference between "Think 2018" and "IBM Technical University", I explain it as follows:
- Think 2018 is a big conference focused on uni-directional communication. IBM executives present the corporate line repeatedly to large audiences. Its size and scale means they can have big name bands and celebrity speakers.
- IBM Technical University is a smaller conference focused on bi-directional communication. Audiences are small and encouraged to ask questions. Demos, Labs and Meetups allow for conversations with IBM technical experts. There are no crowds in the hallways to hamper ad-hoc side conversations. The IBM speakers listen to the clients concerns and bring that feedback to development.
If you missed me this week, I plan to be at the [IBM Technical University events this October] in Hollywood, Florida and Rome, Italy. Next year, this event returns to Atlanta, GA, April 29 to May 3, 2019.
You can follow along with Twitter hashtag #IBMtechU, or follow me at @az990tony.
technorati tags: IBM, #IBMTechU, Data Footprint Reduction, Compression, Data Deduplication, Space-Efficient Snapshot, Thin Provisioning, FlashSystem, FlashSystem A9000, FlashSystem A9000R, Hyper-Scale Manager, Spectrum Accelerate, Pendulum Swings, VersaStack, Nutanix, IBM Hyperconverged, NAS, SAN, Converged Systems, HCI, Spectrum Scale, Spectrum Accelerate, Think 2018, Dell EMC