I’m excited to announce I’ll be attending Storage Field Day 12! During the event we’ll talk storage technology for three days, starting on March 8th. There’s an impressive line-up of companies and delegates gathering in Silicon Valley and of course we’ll live stream the presentations for the folks back home, who can pitch in over Twitter. Did I mention the line-up of companies already? Oh boy!

The companies

There are some immensely interesting storage companies presenting at Storage Field Day 12, including some recurring presenters. Intel is one of those “frequent flyers”; here’s my post about their SFD11 appearance focusing on software enhancements that go hand-in-hand with the hardware developments. About a week ago there was a surge in 3DXpoint news on the web, so I’ve got my fingers crossed we’ll hear some interesting facts about this exciting technology.

Nimble Storage is another familiar company: I quite like InfoSight and VMVision and their AFA is doing quite well with a measured uptime of 6 nines across 10.000 customers. Impressive numbers to say the least, so I’m expecting another interesting update in March.

Datera presented at SFD10 about bringing hyperscale operations to “normal” companies and admins. I’m a strong believer in automation, so I’m definitely hoping on some more news on that front.

The other companies that will be presenting are fairly new for me; new in the sense that I haven’t watched them present at a Storage Field Day yet. SNIA is of course a big influencer in all things storage related; if you’ve done anything in storage or with protocols, you’ll see them mentioned every other page. And with NetApp, Elastifile, Excelero and StarWind to complete the line-up, we’re in for some nice tech updates.

The delegates and GestaltIT

I see a lot of familiar and friendly faces in the delegate list. Every Storage Field Day I’ve attended, I’ve always been blown away by the sheer amount of brainpower and knowledge at the table. I’m honored to call many of them my friends, and I’m looking forward to having my brain melt during the tech discussions.

During the last Storage Field Day we made the drop bear our spirit animal. If you follow us on Twitter using the hashtag #SFD12, you might see some silly banter. Don’t be (too) alarmed; we’re still mostly sane. And it’s not because of the stroopwafels that Arjan and I will be bringing to the US.

Storage Field Day 12 is organized by GestaltIT, with Stephen Foskett, Rich and Kat ensuring everything is in order. They organize more Field Day events; check them out at the TechFieldDay website. During the event the website also shows the live stream in crisp HD quality, so you won’t miss a thing.

Now what?

If you’re a delegate or presenting company: see you soon! If you’re interested in storage technology, join us on Twitter and watch the presentations remotely. You can reach out to any of the delegates in the room, either directly or using the #SFD12 hashtag, and they will relay your question to the presenter.

Oh, and I can’t believe it took me this long to book an Alcatraz tour. If you want to join on the Saturday 10:30AM tour, let me know!