Summary of Monday’s Announcements at Dell EMC World 2017

As you might have expected from a conference that was essentially created by combining two huge tech events (Dell World and EMC World), there were a large number of announcements made on the first day of Dell EMC World 2017. To help you manage the influx of so much information, this post will attempt to summarize them for you.

Dell EMC made announcements across the following areas:

  • New PowerEdge Servers
  • New VxRail Hyperconverged Hardware, Software, and Pricing Model
  • Software-Defined Storage
  • New Storage Arrays
  • New Integrated Data Protection Appliance
  • New Open Networking Products
  • New Flexible Consumption Models
  • Dell Technologies Venture Practice Emerges from Stealth

I’ll review each of these in more detail below: Continue reading

NetApp United 2017 — A Numerical Breakdown

As you likely saw, earlier this week, NetApp announced the official kick-off of their 2017 NetApp United influencer program, welcoming 111 members.

While 111 members gives us a little idea of what the 2017 NetApp United looks like, I thought it was worth taking a closer look.

So, as I’ve done in the past for the EMC Elect program, I’ve taken a look at the information that’s available to see what other insights we could gain into the new program.

In addition to the numbers themselves, I’ve created some graphics to help visualize what the numbers tell us. You’ll find them below. Continue reading

Look Who’s Coming to Dell EMC World 2017

It’s official. I’ll be attending Dell EMC World 2017. I’ve been invited to attend on a Media/Analyst pass.

Naturally, I’m excited and looking forward to it. This conference seems to be causing a small amount of confusion for folks who’ve attended past events. Folks who came from the EMC side (I include myself in this group) have to keep correcting themselves when they call it “EMC World”, and folks who came from the Dell side have to keep correcting themselves when they call it “Dell world”.

But “Dell EMC World” it is. I’m looking forward to seeing the joint solutions and how the two technology portfolios are coming together.

A Brief Personal History

Continue reading

A Closer Look at the All-Flash Isilon, aka Nitro

isilon-all-flashOn 19 October, Dell EMC made an announcement about the All-Flash Isilon nodes. This product line has been code-named “Project Nitro”. The announcement was timed to occur during the first-ever Dell EMC World event.

I’ll walk through what was announced, and then provide additional details.

Continue reading

Minicast, Season 1, Episode 8: EMC Proven Professional with Kate Hutchinson

On Wednesday at EMC World, I caught up with Kate Hutchinson of EMC Educational Services. In the MiniCast episode with the least background noise so far, we talked about the EMC Proven Professional program and other educational services offered by EMC.

We recorded in a lounge space maybe 50 yards from where the Proven Professional testing center was set up, so I headed over to take a certification test after we wrapped up.

You can hear Kate’s perspective on technical education here:

Minicast, Season 1, Episode 7: EMC TV with Greg McCarthy

On Wednesday at EMC World, I had the opportunity to do something I haven’t seen (or heard) done before:

I appeared on an episode of EMC TV while recording my podcast.

Or EMC TV guest-starred on my podcast while filming a video episode.

Yes, Greg McCarthy and I interviewed each other — while being broadcast live on-screen all around the conference.

It was a lot of fun doing the double-recording. We started the video first, and Greg started out interviewing me. Within the first minute, I started recording, too, live on camera, interviewing Greg. The video ended first, and we continued for the full 15 minutes of the Minicast.

When I can find a link to the video, I’ll post it here, but in the meantime you can listen to the audio here:

As a bonus, I was recording sound when the video started, so you can hear the beginning of the video here:

MiniCast, Season 1, Episode 6: Competitive Intelligence with Natalie Corridan-Gregg

On Monday at EMC World, Natalie Corridan-Gregg, Director of Competitive Intelligence for EMC held a session on Competitive Intelligence and Marketing. I wasn’t able to attend her session, but I was able to catch up with her on Tuesday to talk with her about it.

Full Disclosure: Earlier in my career, I worked in the Competitive Intelligence Group at EMC, and for a while reported directly to Natalie. So, obviously, the topic is one of great interest to me.

Natalie and I were able to take advantage of the EMC Radio space in the EMC Social Media Lounge to record our discussion live at EMC World. You can take a listen here.

 

MiniCast, Season 1, Episode 5: EMC World Data Center with Stephan Voss

Tuesday morning at EMC World, the Solutions Expo was opened up early to allow Media and Analysts some time on the show floor when things would be less crowded. In the middle of the Expo floor, EMC had installed a stand-alone, raised-floor data center.

Stephan Voss, Director of Product Marketing at EMC, and a long-time colleague of mine, took some time to talk with me about that data center set-up and what EMC had on display in there. We recorded this episode about ten feet away from the entrance to the demo data center.

You can listen to our conversation below.

 

MiniCast, Season 1, Episode 4: EMC Isilon OneFS 8.0 with Ed Beauvais

On Monday at EMC World, I had the opportunity to sit down with Ed Beauvais, EMC’s Director of Isilon Product Marketing. Ed was gracious enough to agree to be interviews for the MiniCast. We talked about new features in Isilon OneFS 8.0 and how they fit into EMC’s “Edge to Core to Cloud” message.

At one point in the interview, it appears that Ed and I confused each other about CloudPools functionality. Ed and I chatted about that after the 15-minute time limit and cleared it up pretty quickly. Turns out we were talking about two similar but different things.

Ed was saying that CloudPools does not, at this time, allow you to use an IsilonSD Edge virtual instance running in the Cloud as your remote tier. I neither confirm or deny whether or not that functionality is on the Isilon roadmap. (No, seriously, I can’t. Sometimes I use that phrase to be cute and let folks know that I know something I’m not allowed to talk about yet, but in this case I can’t tell you anything because I really don’t know. Ed gave me nothing on this one at all…)

What I was talking about was using a physical Isilon cluster at another site as your remote CloudPools tier. That is supported, and can be done today.

With that clarification in mind, take a listen to Ed and I talking Isilon.

MiniCast, Season 1, Episode 3: EMC Unity with Mark Geel

Being part of the Media program at EMC World gave me the opportunity to sit down and talk with Mark Geel on the same day EMC announced their Unity unified storage platform.

Take a listen to what mark and I had to say about Unity below.