When the news about the Dell and EMC merger became public last year, I was somewhat skeptical. I’ve had some really sketchy experiences with Dell servers and storage products, so it didn’t feel like a step forward. At the same time there was the organizational and support aspect. Mergers usually result in confusion for both sales processes and us people in the field having to glue all the products together. Not something I was looking forward to.
Lo and behold: I got an invite from the EMC Elect program to attend DellEMCWorld in Austin, Texas! This was my chance to fly over there and experience the merger announcements firsthand, plus ask questions. So I did! And I have to say: I was impressed.
In a couple of hours I’ll be airborne again heading west towards Silicon Valley. This time it’s for Storage Field Day 10 or #SFD10 on the Twitters. It’s the usual recipe: 12 delegates from around the world and 9 companies (start-ups and established companies alike) explaining their vision on the storage market and how their products work. I love these events because in three days time we’ll be bombarded with a whole lot of information on existing and upcoming storage tech. In my mind, there’s no other event with this information density: afterwards it usually takes a couple of days to let it all trickle through. Or as we say in Dutch, “make cheese out of it”… (of course it’s about cheese)
Today EMC announced their new and improved mid-range storage at EMCWorld: say hello to Unity! It will be replacing the VNX1 and VNX2 systems with simple, modern flexible and affordable new platform and can be purchased in either an all-flash or hybrid configuration. There are quite a lot of differences between both the new Unity and the old VNX systems, with a number of improvements (available at GA or later) that make me really, really happy. Let’s dive in!
The first hop to Miami should be a relatively quiet one (if I can get some sleep); on the second I’ll start to prepare for the madness that will ensue next week. The agenda is packed with good events and new product launches…
Typing this at Schiphol airport, I can’t help feeling slightly tired. The alarm clock started blaring at 03:00 this night and with that, my trip to Storage Field Day 8 has officially started. With the first leg of the journey from DUS to AMS being over already, I can now settle for the long haul to SFO. It’s bound to be an incredibly exciting week once again and I’m looking forward to meeting up with a lot of familiar faces, two new members of the Tech Field Day family and 10 super exciting companies. Stroopwafels incoming!