This week, I am attending the [InterConnect Conference] in Las Vegas, Feb 21-25, 2016. This is IBM's premier Cloud & Mobile conference for the year.

4955A IBM and Box: Delivering Hybrid Solutions for Enterprise Content Management

Rich Howarth, IBM VP of Enterprise Content Management, and Rand Wacker, Vice President at Box, co-presented this session on the [IBM-and-Box partnership], integrating content management, social and analytics products with the Box cloud content management offering to enable enterprise customers to deploy hybrid solutions leveraging the best of their existing on-premise technologies along with new cloud technologies.

IBM and Box are partnering to re-imagine content management, case management and governance in the cloud. For example, IBM StoredIQ that scans various data sources to find documents and evidence needed to defend yourself against lawsuits can be run against files uploaded to Box.

On a personal note, the IBM Tucson Executive Briefing Center where I work now uses Box to upload presentation files that are then sent to the client attendees.

6524A The Role of Tape in a Cloud-Based World for Economical and Secure Data Retention

This was a 50/50 session. The first half was presented by Shawn Brume, IBM, that covered Linear Tape File System (LTFS) and IBM Spectrum Archive.

Like the cloud, tape has made great strides -- evolving independently in capacity, durability and data access capability while maintaining its economic benefits. As a result, today's tape is just as well suited to cloud service providers as it is to the enterprises and midsize organizations that rely on it to support their production and data protection strategies.

If a cloud service provider does not use tape, the provider and its customers are almost guaranteed to experience a long-term cost outlay that is higher than necessary, and will be putting their oldest and most compliance-sensitive data at risk, thanks to a disk-only based MSP model. See how incorporating tape into your storage strategy can reduce costs and improve MSP margins.

How does tape compare to disk for Cloud providers? A [Zettabyte] of data would cost $41 billion USD per year on disk, but only 8 billion USD per year on tape. Electricity for a Zettabyte of data requires 1.2 Gigawatt for disk, but only 300 Megawatt for tape.

For access to files that require a tape mount, an access time to first byte averages 45 seconds, with a worst case around 75 seconds. After that, tape can stream data as fast as the Internet can deliver it, so performance is not an issue beyond first byte access.

The second half was presented by Michael Piltoff, from value-added reseller Champion Solutions Group, covering their latest product called EchoLeaf. This can run on Windows or Linux that attaches to any IBM tape library, and exports the files on those cartridges as NFS or CIFS/SMB.

In other words, the entire library appears as a single mount point or drive letter, and each tape cartridge appears as a sub-directory. This uses IBM Spectrum Archive Library Edition under the covers.

(See related document [LTFS and EchoLeaf Virtual Drive Technology - White Paper - September 2014])

4759A Cloud Storage Success: MSPs and Enterprises Reveal their Secrets

How do you distinguish fact from fiction when it comes to claims made by vendors about storage for cloud? Eric Herzog, IBM Vice President Marketing for IBM Storage Systems, served as emcee for a panel of experts using IBM Storage solutions across different industries for their Hybrid Cloud deployments.

The panel shared their experiences in using various technologies to get the most out of their private and hybrid cloud, discussed how they are building out their next-gen data centers to cope with today's business needs, talked about how they are using flash and software defined storage to place them where they need to be to succeed in the future.

On the panel were:

• Richard Spurlock, Cobalt Iron, using PB of storage on Spectrum Scale and Cleversafe
• Paul Rafferty, IBM Silverpop, using Spectrum Accelerate with different Cloud providers
• Johnny Oldenburg, Tieto Sweden AB, using SVC, Storwize V7000 and FlashSystem
• Keith Dobbins, Time Warner Cable/Navisite, over 30 fully-populated XIV storage systems

Here were some of the nuggets of wisdom:

• Eliminate the debate between private or public cloud. Consider everything to be a unique shade of Hybrid Cloud.
• Get the network right, all data and management control is done through the network in the Cloud
• Take an "Outside-In" approach, focusing on the business problems being solved, rather than trying to exploit specific technologies.
• Workloads are unpredictable in the Cloud. Cloud can sometimes be unreliable in their response to workload changes. Partner with vendors like IBM to provide support and scalability to handle the unexpected.
• Ensure that you comply with government and industry regulations. For example, Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard [PCI-DSS] for credit card transactions.
• Use VMware Storage Vmotion and VVols to migrate data from one Cloud to another.
• Software defined network (SDN) and Software Defined Storage (SDS) greatly automate the provisioning process, pushing many storage admin tasks down to NOC personnel.
• Use tools like Spectrum Control to provide a single-pane-of-glass management of your entire environment.
• Build abstraction layers at touch points to avoid being impacted by external changes, and use documented reference architectures to ensure success.
• Educate your clients and end-users on what is possible, and what is probable, in the Cloud.
• Use "Flash Cache" technologies, such as IBM XIV, Oracle, Spectrum Scale, and VMware.
• Analytics can help with "data rationalization", which identifies the business value of the data.
• Object Store is a first-class citizen and should seriously be considered for new projects.

5467A My Data is Out of Control! Managing the Lifecycle of Your Data with "Big Storage" Cloud Archive

Jeff Karmiol and Quaid Nasir, both from IBM, presented a technology preview of a deep archive to be launched later this year.

A staggering 80 percent of data is never touched after 90 days of capture or creation. However, the data may need be kept for business, compliance or regulatory reasons.

"Big Storage" offers cloud storage for customers who need to store large amounts of data and retrieve it on-demand at the lowest cost possible. This easy-to-use cloud service provides fast retrieval times with affordable, transparent pricing and retrieval rates.

This service uses standard OpenStack Swift and POSIX interfaces so you don't need to learn any new APIs. Files and objects remain visible while archived, making it easy and affordable to continue to extract business value from your archived data.

This deep archive is located in a secure, IBM-managed data center. How deep? The facility is 350 feet deep under a mountain, which allows that tape cartridges to be kept at constant humidity and 40 degree Fahrenheit temperature.

Multiple resiliency and data protection options will be available. The data can be part of a global namespace, with some data on premises, connected to data migrated to the archive. Data movement can be either manually-initiated or policy-managed.

7256: Blogging 301: The Art of Opinion

"Turbo" Todd Watson and I started blogging 10 years ago, and we have both been ranked in the top-10 bloggers for IBM. He presented a series covering the basics of blogging. This session was a deeper dive into best writing practices and structures for being confident, engaging, and convincing in their writing.

Here are some of his bits of wisdom:

• Base your opinions on fact and well-research information.
• Educate your readers, without being "preachy"
• Generate interest and enthusiasm, and encourage readers to participate
• Don't equivocate, pick a position or side of a debate and stick with it
• Leave your reader with the next logical step, a call to action, or pointer to additional information
• Comply with your employer's corporate blogging guidelines. If your company doesn't have any, consider following [IBM Social Computing Guidelines]
• Deal with detractors by acknowledging their right to disagree or complain, help them off the ledge, but recognize that some "haters are always gonna hate."
• Be transparent of who you are, who you work for, and your affiliations. In the USA, Federal Trade Commission (FTC) has specific rules for bloggers who are paid to blog.
• Never talk about revenues, sales figures or other information that your company has not made publicly available.
• Don't be overly stuffy, formal or corporate in your writing style.
• Do not make commitments in your blog about products or features that may not happen

You can follow Todd's blog at [TurboTodd.com].

The rest of the evening was spent with my IBM colleagues that man the booths at the IBM Solutions Expo, which then moved over to a great follow-on discussion at 1923 Bourbon at the Mandalay Shoppes.

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