Tony Pearson is a Master Inventor, Senior IT Architect and Event Content Manager for [
Christopher Vollmar is a Storage Architect supporting customers in Canada and the Caribbean. He is a Certified Consulting IT Specialist and a Design Thinking practitioner. He has also been a contributing author to the the 
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My Presentations at the Belgium IT Security and Storage Expo
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Continuing my coverage of the IT Security and Storage Expo in Brussels, Belgium, here is my post on the presentations I gave during the week.
There were four presentations each day. Of the five rooms, I was assigned one room in which to give all of my presentations, room 3. My room was quite large, with sixty seats. It is a good idea for public speakers to understand Dutch, French, German and English in Belgium. In recognition of the fact that Belgians are multi-lingual, I started each session with "Goede Middag, Bon Jour and Good Afternoon!" and ended each with "Dank U, Merci and Thank you for attending!"
The sessions were all half-hour slots. The only presentation that I had a challenge getting down to 30 minutes was my session on "New Generation of Storage Tiering" in which I was asked to cover Easy Tier sub-LUN automated tiering, Server-to-Storage cooperative caching, Texas Memory Systems, hierarchical storage Management (HSM), Active Cloud Engine, and SmartCloud Storage! 
Helping me out were three local IBM interns. From left to right: Joelle, Clara and Bryan. I hadn't noticed that there were only short breaks between sessions, all of this time consumed with one-on-one discussions with clients, so the interns were kind enough to fetch me snacks and drinks. Joelle and Bryan speak Dutch, which is similar to the local Flemish language. Clara speaks French, which came in handy for translations. 
I would like to thank my room monitors: Jolijn, Ella and Chloe. All three are local college students hired by the conference for the two days to scan name badges and count bodies in seats. (I had to ask Jolijn to write her name on a piece of paper because it is Dutch and I had no clue how to spell it for this blog post.) 
While it might appear that room 3 was "The Tony Pearson Show -- all Tony, all the time!" there were actually worthwhile sessions in the other rooms. Fellow blogger Jon Toigo [known for his DrunkenData blog] presented "Storage Infrastruggle 2013 -- Containing Storage Costs without Sacrificing Access, Protection or Management". My IBM colleague Ron Riffe presented a vendor-neutral look at Storage Hypervisors. If the attendees wanted copies of my presentations, they were directed to get their name badge scanned at the IBM and I.R.I.S-ICT booth, all the way at the other end of the hall, and my presentations would be emailed to them. (For those who have missed it, you can find all five of my presentations uploaded to the [IBM Expert Network] on Slideshare.) Finally, I would like to thank my IBM colleagues who helped me develop and review my presentations: Brigitte Van Den Eynde, Joe Hayward, Jeff Jonas, Tom Deutsch, Chris Saul, Marisol Diaz, Iliana Garcia, Harley Puckett, Jack Arnold, and Steve McKinney.
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Getting to the Belgium IT Security and Storage Expo
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The Belgium IT Security and Storage Expo was a great success! (I am back to the USA in Portland, Oregon this week, so these posts relate to last week.) However, that wasn't to say I didn't encounter a few challenges during my week in Belgium. The first was getting to the venue. The Belgium Expo is a large complex of buildings to the north of the city. The local IBM team suggested I go to the facility a day in advance so that I would be able to see where it was and how to get there. I was staying in the center of town, in Place Rogier section. I had many transportation options:
Upon arrival to the building complex, I was unsure of which building I needed to be in. Standing in front of the beautiful Building 5, I found this legend that provided the answer: Building 8. In front of Building 12 was a map that showed where Building 8 was located on the campus. 
For this event, IBM joined forces with IBM Business Partner I.R.I.S-ICT to have a fabulous booth, with plenty of experts and equipment demos. As is often the case, the team had to work late into the night to get all the equipment set up, all the podiums and counters constructed, and the demos fully operational. 
Apparently, I was not the only one to have troubles finding the place, so I did not feel alone. Some with cars drove around the complex several times before figuring out which parking lot to park in. Others parked at the first spot they found, and still ended up walking as much as I did. For future reference, If you plan to attend any event at the Belgium Expo, either (a) ask for more explicit directions, and (b) plan to do lots of walking!
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The new Tucson EBC - A Sneak PeakWell, I am back safely from my trip last week to Chicago, and now I am writing this in Madrid, Spain, on my way to Brussels, Belgium for the IT Storage Expo. For those who have asked how the construction on the new Tucson EBC is going, here are a few pictures I took on Friday. As you can see, it is coming along nicely. The official grand opening will be April 2. 
This is Building 9032 
We have a row of dedicated parking spaces! 
Our main entrance is through the lobby! 
I get to walk past fresh flowers every day! 
Our front door! 
This is the "Catalina" room. 
Shelly's command-and-control desk 
Signage for the "Santa Rita" room 
The "Santa Rita" room. 
The Dining Area As you can see, we are not quite there yet. |
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Did You Miss IBM Pulse 2013?Did you miss IBM Pulse 2013 this week? I wasn't there either, having scheduled visits with clients in Washington DC this week, only to have those meetings cancelled due to the [U.S. sequestration cuts]. Fortunately, there are plenty of videos and materials to review from the event. Here's a [12-minute video] interview between Laura DuBois, Program VP of Storage for industry analyst firm [IDC], and fellow IBM executive Steve "Woj" Wojtowecz, VP of Tivoli Storage and Networking Software. (Update: Apparently, IBM had not secured re-distribution rights from IDC to post this video prior to my blog post. IBM now has full permission to distribute. My apologies for any inconvenience last week.) The two discuss client opportunities and requirements for storage clouds and compute clouds. Client cloud storage requirements include backup and archive clouds, file storage clouds, and storage that supports compute cloud environments. On a related note, IBM has published a Redbook on its latest addition to the SmartCloud Storage family. I have added [IBM SmartCloud Storage Access V1.1 Configuration Cookbook] to the right panel for "Featured IBM Redbooks".
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Pardon our Dust -- Tucson EBC is MovingWe're moving! We often joke that I.B.M. stands for "I've Been Moved", and the Tucson Executive Briefing Center is no exception. 
Today is the last day for us in Building 9070. Starting tomorrow, the Tucson EBC will operate out of Building 9032 instead. While moving is always painful, there are some distinct advantages to the new facility:
For myself, as the lead Subject Matter Expert on the Tucson EBC staff, I get a much larger office with brand new furniture! Now is the time to book a briefing in Tucson to check out the new facility. Go to the [Tucson EBC landing page] for contact information. |
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