Originally posted by: ChristianSchroeder@IBMDE
It's like big family which gathers for an annual reunion, and by saying big, I mean really big. More than 250 customers, business partners and IBMers gathered for the fifth "SVC & Storwize User Day" in Mainz, Germany with attendees from all over Germany, Switzerland and Austria.
Speakers from those countries but also from Israel, USA and UK gave insights on history and future of the SVC & Storwize product family. Several customers from small to big business presented their experiences of implementing their storage solutions built on SVC and Storwize, Storwize V7000 Unified and also SVC Real Time Compression. Not only the successful implementation, the improved performance, cost savings and the like was spoken about, but also how they did overcome some obstacles by help of IBM support and sales team, e.g. when the Real Time Compression accelerator kit was delivered to a client before it went GA.
A key note on IBM's strategies in the storage arena was held by Laura Guio, VP & Business Line Exectuve Storage. Although not too technical it was an interesting view on how IBM is going to be part of and lead the storage business.
The speech of Amir Lidor, Program Director of the Real-Time Compression Development in Israel, achieved a better overall understanding of how the RtC technology works and is embedded in the SVC / Storwize code family. Especially the improvements to be found in the next releases of RtC code was literally soaked up by the audience.
One of the most heard words on this day was - not too surprisingly - flash. Flash, flash technology, flash and SVC - particularly with an eye on the recent acquisition of Texas Memory Systems by IBM. Famous for their flash-based RamSan storage systems, developed with the goal to build the world's fastest storage, they are now part of the IBM storage portfolio as IBM FlashSystem. In combination with IBM SVC a dream team, as Kurt Gerecke, IBM Flash Storage Sales, explained with verve.
For me it was the fourth User Day I attended and the second time I had the honour to present a technical matter, SAN zoning specifics, to the audience.
Traditionally the last slot was reserved for news and the roadmap of the SVC & Storwize family, presented by Katja Gebuhr from IBM Hursley, UK.
The whole day was crammed of speeches and presentations, all tied together by a strict time schedule. Yet there was more! The Storwize V7000 demo van was there as well as several vendor booths presenting their specific portfolios, e.g. Brocade, IBM Proactive Services, c.a.r.u.s, IntelliMagic, SVA BVQ.
However, there was even more - the reason why people meet each other personally and do not attend a web conference or a recorded video cast: a lot of interesting and intensive talks took place during the breaks and at the Get-Together after the event.
See you again next year at the sixth SVC & Storwize User Day!