I’m really looking forward to joining the CloudCamp “unconference” movement, and will be heading to Columbus, Ohio, at the end of this month for my first Camp! Continue Reading »

I don’t usually “do” NDAs. It’s just too hard to figure out what I’m allowed to say and what I should keep quiet. I prefer to get free and open information, but will settle for embargoed briefings if it means I can get some time to think before reporting. So my Microsoft connection is a major anomaly, and I’ve been sitting on my hands trying not to spill the beans… Continue Reading »

If you work in the enterprise storage, storage networking, virtualization, or security industry, listen up! Otherwise, this post is not for you!

I hope you, or a representative from your company, will join me and the folks from Nirvanix and my friends like W. Curtis Preston and Marc Staimer, Charles Curran and Dan Gordon from Valhalla, and just about everyone else in the industry for Greg Duplessie’s Business Development event in Boston.

This is strictly an industry insider event – no end users, exibitors, tchochkes, or contests, just serious networking and business development. The kind of stuff that has always been going on behind closed doors and in the lobbies at Storage Networking World and Storage Decisions, but without the distraction of the actual conference!

If you are going, and are interested in discussing public managed storage in the cloud (or happen to have Red Sox tickets for June 8, 9, or 10) drop me a line. Let’s meet up in Boston!

I'm pleased to have been invited to write and speak on storage topics for a decade

I’m pleased to announce that I will be presenting at all four of TechTarget’s excellent end user-focused 2009 Storage Decisions conferences in North America! I’m also very excited to be developning two entirely new sessions for the show:

1. Tools and Tricks to Manage Capacity – Knowing how much disk capacity you have allocated, how much is actually being used, and what remains are basics for disk storage management. But it can be difficult to measure and describe storage capacity and make smart and effective decisions. In this session, we’ll cover the tools and best practices that are key to managing disk capacity.
2. Radical Tiered Storage to Reduce Cost and Expand Service – “Do more with less” is the slogan of the year, but storage pros have been doing exactly this for years. From HSM to tiered storage, data is moving away from simple disks and landing on flash memory, tape, and cloud services. Adopting an expansive tiered storage policy will not only reduce costs but can also improve performance and introduce new capabilities.

The 2009 show dates have been released, with more information at the official Storage Decisions site. Admission is free for qualified attendees, so register now for the session near you! Continue Reading »

Although the details have not been released, TechTarget updated its web site today with a list of events by region for 2009. My understanding is that, although the formats and locations are tweaked slightly, the user-focused character of their excellent Storage Decisions conferences and one-day seminars will remain.

Some highlights from the calendar:

• The Storage Decisions conferences in New York and Chicago remain, but the third half-day has been eliminated, leaving them at two days each.
• New this year are one-day Storage Decisions Summits in San Francisco and Toronto. These are multi-track, multi-speaker events, but are more focused, with only the best speakers and topics.
• Although the one-day seminar speakers and dates have not been finalized, newly-independent industry superstar, W. Curtis Preston, appears to be heading up the lions share, with dozens of dates focused on backup and data deduplication.

I’ll post more details when they become available. But until then, check the schedule and mark your calendars. These excellent events are well worth your time!

Next week is the final Storage Decisions conference of 2008, Storage Decisions San Francisco! I’ll be in the Bay area from Sunday night through Wednesday, and invite you to say hello if you’re in the area as well!

If you’re attending the conference, here’s my schedule:

• Monday, 9:45 AM – 10:45 AM: DATA RETENTION & RETRIEVAL track: Deep Dive Into Email Archiving Products
• Monday, 4:30 PM – 7:00 PM: Exhibit Hall Reception
• Monday, 6:00 PM – 7:00 PM: Ask the Experts in the Exhibit Hall
• Monday, 7:30 PM – Late: Dinner (You’re invited! See below!)
• Tuesday, 1:00 PM – 2:45 PM: Lunch in the Exhibit Hall
• Tuesday, 4:00 PM – 5:00 PM: STORAGE & CAPACITY MANAGEMENT track: Everything You Always Wanted to Know About Virtualization – In One Hour!

Join Me For Dinner on Monday!

A bunch of storage folks have said they’re interested in getting together for a dinner on Monday night. Let’s do it!

• What: Dinner and conversation
• When: 7:30 PM on Monday the 17th until we get tired
• Where: Start at the San Francisco Hilton, then off for Sushi, Mexican, or Italian (help me decide!)
• Who: Anyone who wants to come along!
• How: Contact me through email, a comment on this page, or twitter!

See you in San Francisco!

I’ve just finished my day in Charlotte on my Storage Virtualization Seminar tour for TechTarget. We had another great crowd – everyone seemed interested even if some were shy about speaking up. I was especially pleased to see the optimism about the city’s post-Wachovia future.

Comments at the event focused on management, with my concerns about ownership and intra-departmental conflict rising from consolidation of server, I/O, and storage really getting attention. Continue Reading »

What is the best way to use email archiving systems for e-discovery? Earlier this year, I co-wrote a whitepaper on the topic (sponsored by LiveOffice), and on Wednesday I will present a companion webinar.

The gist is that email archiving can be an incredibly useful tool to manage legal risks and enable more effective discovery of message content. Electronic discovery is growing at an amazing clip, and most cases now include email messages – in fact, email is estimated to be 60% to 70% of all legal discovery in the United States today!

At the same time, companies are challenged with ineffective or un-enforced retention and litigation hold policies and rampant “underground archiving” of messages in offline PST files. And to make matters worse, the 2006 revisions to the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure drastically shortened the amount of time companies have to describe and produce electronic records! It’s simply impossible to begin recovering messages from backup tapes in response to legal requests – the only way forward is a proactive strategy based on email archiving.

If this piques your interest, grab a copy of that whitepaper, join me on Wednesday for the webinar, and check out some of my other email-related content. I’ll also be speaking on the topic at Storage Decisions in San Francisco, and would be happy to respond to your emailed questions any time!

My pal, Greg Schulz, just pointed out that TechTarget has posted the presentations from Storage Decisions New York 2008. If you were there, you might have tried to figure out how to download the presentations at the kiosk/table in the lobby. I couldn’t figure it out, myself, though! So you might want to head over to TechTarget’s page to download them yourself. And if you weren’t there, you might want to check them out anyway, or head over to San Francisco in November, since many of the sessions will be repeated at that show.

You can find my presentations here:

• Deep Dive into Email Archiving Products: 11 Essential Attributes of Email Archiving Systems
• Everything You Always Wanted to Know About Virtualization — In One Hour

See my posts on Gestalt IT for similar enterprise IT infrastructure commentary

What is this relic from ancient storage history?

Ok storage industry folks, here’s a challenge for you. I tossed the pictured object into my pocket in 1997 while working on the storage system it came with, and have kept it handy ever since. While I was using it at Storage Decisions, a passer-by recognized it immediately, so I thought it would be fun to test my audience here.

So let’s see if anyone can answer the following questions:

1. What function did this object serve?
2. Which storage system did it come with?

I’ll update this post in a few days with the answer! Oh, and Steve Todd isn’t allowed to play. Wait, was that too much of a hint?