Dell Storage Forum 2011 kicked off today with a General Session from Darren Thomas and Phil Soran who took the stage to talk about Foundation and Future of Dell Fluid Data Architecture. Dell Compellent's Copilot has been a hot topic before and during this years event. All of the questions where answered when Phil Soran took the stage and told the crowd, copilot was there to stay for the long haul. The support model that Compellent has been successful with and the customers in a word love, is getting better. The success of Copilot is going to be integrated in the EqualLogic mix with the awesome sauce for a recipe that is best in class.
Darren Thomas VP and GM of Dell Storage gave the audience a look into Dell's history in the storage business and how the recent acquisitions have transformed Dell into a hardware leader. Things like no fork-lift upgrades, working above the hardware and how to manage the data. Dell has acquired several companies in the past 10 years which have led to a few new product announcements.
Coming in the next few months the FS7500, NAS peer scalable file storage, that will be available to provide EqualLogic users with a front end file server front end, a new EqualLogic firmware to better handle the demands of your data and the PowerVault MD3600F with support for fibre channel. This makes Dell's Fluid Data agile, resilient and efficient from server to storage to cloud.
The evening opened with a reception and expo with some special guests stopping by. Michael Dell and Phil Soran stopped by to meet and talk with customer, partners and the Dell TechCenter crew.
The evening concluded with a tweet up social event and podcast with Greg Knieriemen of Infosmack, at the Raglan Road in Downtown Disney. Michael Dell was a special guest who mingled and talked with customers and channel partners.
The Dell TechCenter team was treated to a special evening with Brian Bell (@F16Samurai), Andy Hardy and other Compellent leaders as we talked about the integration and how we can take storage to the next level, good times!
To keep up with all the happenings from Dell Storage Forum, save a twitter search for the #DellSF11 & #FluidData hash tag, stay tuned to the Dell Storage Facebook page, the Dell TechCenter Facebook page, and watch these twitter accounts, and the Flickr page for updates.
I've been holding off on doing my wrap-up post of the Dell Storage Forum because I wanted to wait until other folks finished posting about their conference take-aways. But you people are maniacs -- the content just keeps rolling in! :) I give up, here's my wrap-up. If I miss something you posted, or if you post something after this goes live (ahem Mr. Lund...), please add a comment with your link!
Fluid data architecture
The theme of the conference was Dell's fluid data architecture. Everywhere you looked you could see the fluid influence.
Every one of the b ig releases at the conference where about solidifying this architecture .
Folks in Orlando told us what fluid means to them in this video .
Where to find more information
There are still lots of tweets coming through on the #dellsf11 hashtag , and mentioning the @dellsf twitter account. You may want to follow the Twitter list from the event, to keep up with the community's influencers. We've been posting all of the great content that you guys have been posting on the Dell Storage Facebook Fan Page . There are some great pictures and videos on the Dell Flickr account .
Here are blog posts and other content generated from the Dell Storage Forum:
Dell Tech Center : one | two | three
Inside Enterprise IT: one | two | three | four | five
Dell Shares: one
Wikibon : This page lists all of the videos of interviews that were streamed live from the conference, as well as a list of blog posts created by wikibon during the conference.
Infosmack: Podcast recorded live at the Dell storage forum tweetup
Virtualization Buster: one | two | three
Fabio Rapposelli: one
Roger Lund's IT and VMware/Virtualization blog: one | two | three | four | five | six | seven | eight | nine | ten | eleven | twelve | YouTube channel
Breathing Data: one
A Technologists Corner: one | two
George Crump: one | two | three | four
The VAR guy : one | two | three | four
Infotech PR : youtube video
Clause EGGE: one
Emulex: Session presentation (slideshare)