This week, I will be in Las Vegas for the 30th annual [Data Center Conference]. For those on Twitter, follow the conference on hashtag #GartnerDC, and follow me at [@az990tony].
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Once again, I will be working the IBM Exhibition Booth of the Solution Showcase, attending keynote and break-out sessions, and meeting with clients and analysts. Today is mostly setting up the booth, getting my registration badge and materials, an orientation meeting for first-timers, and finish off the evening with a networking event to get the party started!
Traffic to and from the hotel was a mess today because of the [Las Vegas Strip at Night Rock-n-Roll Marathon]. The entire Las Vegas Boulevard was blocked off from 2pm to 11pm, causing taxis some headaches getting to and from each hotel. This marathon included a "Stiletto Dash" where women had to run in shoes that had at least three inch heels! (Only in Las Vegas!)
The conference is organized into 8 tracks:
- Navigating the Journey to Cloud-Delivered Services
- Achieving and Maintaining IT Operational Excellence
- Modernizing Your Storage Strategy to Keep Pace with Burgeoning Demand
- Ensuring Your Business Continuity Management Plan Reflects Today's Realities and Tomorrow's Challenges
- Virtualization: Moving at Light Speed While Leveraging Your Existing Investments
- The Future of Servers and Operating Systems
- Data Center Modernization: Staying Agile in Chaotic Times
- Pervasive Mobility: What Infrastructure and Operations Needs to Know Now
I am glad to see that storage got its own track this year! If you are attending the conference, here are the sessions that IBM is featuring for Monday:
- IBM: Watson and Your Data Center
This is a lunch-time talk. Steve Sams, IBM VP of Sites and Facilities, will explain how to leverage Watson-like analytic approaches to provide flexible, cost-effective data center solutions. Analytics can be used to better align IT to the business needs, optimize server, storage and network utilization and improve data center design.
- IBM: University of Rochester Medical Center cracks the code on data growth
Rick Haverty, Director of Infrastructure for University of Rochester Medical Center (URMC), will discuss how his team built a storage strategy that transformed their environment to bring savings right to their bottom line without sacrificing the speed, criticality and performance requirements of their imaging and EMR systems. I will be there to introduce Rick at the beginning, and then moderate the Q&A after the talk.
- Solution Showcase Reception
The Solution Showcase opens up Monday night with a reception, serving food and drinks. Look for the IBM Portable Mobile Data Center (PMDC), the big trailer on the show floor. We also have an exhibit booth, across from the PMDC, to ask questions and talk with various IBM experts. You can look for me and the other experts wearing white lab coats!
It's gearing up to be a great week in Vegas!
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Continuing my post-week coverage of the [Data Center 2010 conference], we had receptions on the Show floor. This started at the Monday evening reception and went on through a dessert reception Wednesday after lunch. I worked the IBM booth, and also walked around to make friends at other booths.
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Here are my colleagues at the IBM booth. David Ayd, on the left, focuses on servers, everything from IBM System z mainframes, to POWER Systems that run IBM's AIX version of UNIX, and of course the System x servers for the x86 crowd. Greg Hintermeister, on the right, focuses on software, including IBM Systems Director and IBM Tivoli software. I covered all things storage, from disk to tape. For attendees that stopped by the booth expressing interest in IBM offerings, we gave out Starbucks gift cards for coffee, laptop bags, 4GB USB memory sticks and copies of my latest book: "Inside System Storage: Volume II".
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Across the aisle were our cohorts from IBM Facilities and Data Center services. They had the big blue Portable Modular Data Center (PMDC). Last year, there were three vendors that offered these: IBM, SGI, and HP. Apparently, IBM won the smack-down, as IBM has returned victorious, as SGI only had the cooling portion of their "Ice Cube" and HP had no container whatsoever.
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IBM's PMDC is fully insulated so that you can use it in cold weather below 50 degrees F like Alaska, to the hot climates up to 150 degrees F like Iraq or Afghanistan, and everything in between. They come in three lengths, 20, 40 and 53 feet, and can be combined and stacked as needed into bigger configurations. The systems include their own power generators, cooling, water chillers, fans, closed circuit surveillance, and fire suppression. Unlike the HP approach, IBM allows all the equipment to be serviced from the comfort inside.
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This is Mary, one of the 200 employees secunded to the new VCE. Michael Capellas, the CEO of VCE, offered to give a hundred dollars to the [Boys and Girls Club of America], a charity we both support, if I agreed to take this picture. The Boys and Girls Club inspires and enables young people to realize their full potential as productive, responsible, and caring citizens, so it was for a good cause.
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The show floor offers attendees a chance to see not just the major players in each space, but also all the new up-and-coming start-ups.
 technorati tags: IBM, booth, LSC29, David Ayd, Greg Hintermeister, PMDC, SGI, HP, VCE, Michael Capellas
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Wrapping up my coverage of the IBM Dynamic Infrastructure Executive Summit at the Fairmont Resort in Scottsdale, Arizona, we had a final morning of main-tent sessions. Here is a quick recap of the sessions presented Thursday morning. This left the afternoon for people to catch their flights or hit the links.
- Data Center Actions your CFO will Love
Steve Sams, IBM Vice President of Global Site and Facilities, presented simple actions that can yield significant operational and capital cost savings. The first focus area was to extend the life of your existing data center. Some 70 percent of data centers are 10-15 years old or worse, and therefore not designed for today's computational densities. IBM did this for its Lexington data center, making changes that resulted in 8x capability without increasing footprint.
The second focus area was to rationalize the infrastructure across the organization. The process of "rationalizing" involves determining the business value of specific IT components and deciding whether the business value justifies the existing cost and complexity. It allows you to prioritize which consolidations should be done first to reduce costs and optimize value. IBM's own transformation reduced 128 CIOs down to a single CIO, and from 155 host data centers scattered were consolidated down to seven, and 80 web hosting data centers down to five. This also included consolidating 31 intranets down to a single global intranet.
The third focus area was to design your new infrastructure to be more responsive to change. IBM offers four solutions to help those looking to build or upgrade their data center:
- Scalable Modular Data Center - save up to 20 percent than traditional deployments with turn-key configurations from 500 to 2500 square feet that can be deployed in as little as 8-12 weeks to an existing floorspace.
- Enterprise Modular Data Center - save 40 to 50 percent with 5000 square foot standardized design for larger data centers. This modular approach provides a "pay as you grow" approach that can be more responsive to future unforeseen needs.
- Portable Modular Data Center - this is the PMDC shipping container that was sitting outside in the parking lot. This can be deployed anywhere in 12-14 weeks and is ideal for dealing with disaster recoveries or situations where traditional data center floor plans cannot be built fast enough.
- High Density Zone - this can help increase capacity in an existing data center without a full site retrofit.
Here is a quick [video] that provides more insight.
Neil Jarvis, CIO of American Automobile Association (AAA) for Northern California, Nevada and Utah (NCNU), provided the customer testimonial. Last September, the [AAA NCNU selected IBM] to build them an energy-efficient green data center. Neil provided us an update now six months later, managing the needs of 4 million drivers.
- Virtualization - Managing the World's Infrastructure
Helene Armitage, IBM General Manager of the newly formed IBM System Software product line, presented on virtualization and management. Virtualization is becoming much more than a way of meeting the demand for performance, capability, and flexibility in the data center. It helps create a smarter, more agile data center. Her presentation focused on four areas: consolidate resources, manage workloads, automate processes, and optimize the delivery of IT services.
Charlie Weston, Group Vice President of Information Technology at Winn Dixie, one of the largest food retailers in the United States, with over 500 stores and supermarkets. The grocery business is highly competitive with tight profit margins. Winn Dixie wanted to deploy business continuity/disaster recovery (BC/DR) while managing IT equipment scattered across these 500 locations. They were able to consolidate 600 stand-alone servers into a single corporate data center. Using IBM AIX with PowerVM virtualization on BladeCenter, each JS22 blade server could manage 16 stores. These were mirrored to a nearby facility, as well as a remote disaster recovery center. They were also able to add new Linux application workloads to their existing System z9 EC mainframe. The result was to free up $5 million US dollars in capital that could be used to remodel their stores, and improve application performance 5-10 times. They were able to deploy a new customer portal on Linux for System z in days instead of months, and have reduced their disaster recovery time objective (RTO) against hurricanes from days to hours. Their next steps involves looking at desktop virtualization.
- Redefining x86 Computing
Roland Hagan, IBM Vice President for IBM System x server platform, presented on how IBM is redefining the x86 computing experience. More than 50 percent of all servers are x86 based. These x86 servers are easy to acquire, enjoy a large application base, and can take advantage of readily available skilled workforce for administration. The problem is that 85 percent of x86 processing power remains idlea, energy costs are 8 times what they were 12 years ago, and management costs are now 70 percent of the IT budget.
IBM has the number one market share for scalable x86 servers. Roland covered the newly announced eX5 architecture that has been deployed in both rack-optimized models as well as IBM BladeCenter blade servers. These can offer 2x the memory capacity as competitive offerings, which is important for today's server virtualization, database and analytics workloads. This includes 40 and 80 DIMM models of blades, and 64 to 96 DIMM models of rack-optimized systems. IBM also announced eXFlash, internal Solid State Drives accessible at bus speeds.
The results can be significant. For example, just two IBM System x3850 4-socket, 8-core systems can replace 50 (yes, FIFTY) HP DL585 4-socket, 4-core Opteron rack servers, reducing costs 80 percent with a 3-month ROI payback period. Compared to IBM's previous X4 architecture, the eX5 provides 3.5 times better SAP performance, 3.8 times faster server virtualization performance, and 2.8 times faster database performance.
The CIO of Acxiom provided the customer testimonial. They were able to get a 35-to-1 consolidation switching over to IBM x86 servers, resulting in huge savings.
- Top ROI projects to Get Started
Mark Shearer, IBM Vice President of Growth Solutions, and formerly my fourth-line manager as the Vice President of Marketing and Communications, presented a list of projects to help clients get started. There are over 500 client references that have successfully implement Smarter Planet projects. Mark's list were grouped into five categories:
- Enabling Massive Scale
- Increase Business Agility
- Manage Risk, Compliance and Security
- Organize Vast Amounts of Information
- Turn Information into Insight
The attendees were all offered a free "Infrastructure Study" to evaluate their current data center environments. A team of IBM experts will come on-site, gather data, interview key personnel and make recommendations. Alternatively, these can be done at one of IBM's many briefing centers, such as the IBM Executive Briefing Center in Tucson Arizona that I work at.
This wraps up the week for me. I have to pack the XIV back into the crate, and drive back to Tucson. IBM plans to host another Executive Summit in the September/October time frame on the East coast.
technorati tags: IBM, dyninfra, summit, Scottsdale, CFO, rationalization, PMDC, AAA, NCNU, CSAA, PowerVM, AIX, RTO, HP
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While clients and IBM executives were in meetings today, in and around the Scottsdale Fairmont resort here in Scottsdale, Arizona, I helped to set up the "Solutions Showcase". There were three stations:
- Smarter Systems
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David Ayd and I manned this one, covering storage and server systems. From left to right: a fully-populated 15-module XIV storage system, my laptop running the XIV GUI; two-socket 16-core POWER p770 server, a solid-state drive, PS702 POWER blade, my book Inside System Storage: Volume I, HX5 x86 blade, and four-socket 16-core x3850 M3 server with MAX5 memory extension; David's laptop with various POWER and System x presentations, and our Kaon V-Osk interactive plasma screen display.
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- Smarter Clouds
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Eric Kern manned the Smarter Clouds station. He had live guest images on the IBM Developer and Test cloud, which one the "Best of Interop" award up in Las Vegas this week. I covered IBM's cloud offering in my post [Three Things To Do on the IBM Cloud].
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- Smarter Data Centers
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Ken Schneebeli manned the "Smarter Data Centers" station. He directed people out to the parking lot to see Brian Canney and the Portable Modular Data Center (PMDC). The one here is 8.5 feet by 8.5 feet by 40 feet in size and can be configured and deployed in 12-14 weeks to any location. We can fit any mix of IBM and non-IBM equipment, provided it meets physical dimensions. Want a DS8700 disk system? The PMDC can hold up to 3-frame configurations of the DS8700. Want an eclectic mix of Sun, HP and Dell servers with HDS and EMC disk in your PMDC? IBM can do that too.
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After we finished setup, we joined the clients at the "Welcome Reception" on the Lagoon Lawn. The weather was quite pleasant. |
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Special thanks to Jasdeep Purdhani, Lisa Gates, and Kelly Olson for their help organizing this event.
technorati tags: IBM, XIV, POWER, p770, ps702, hx5, ex5, x3850, KAON, V-osk, Interop, Cloud Computing, PMDC,
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This week, Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday, I am at the IBM Dynamic Infrastructure Executive Summit at the beautiful Fairmont Resort in Scottsdale, Arizona. This is a mix of indoor and outdoor meetings, one-on-ones with IBM executives, and main-tent sessions.
The Solutions Showcase will cover the following:
- Smarter Systems
As the bar for performance gets higher and the need to manage, store and analyze massive amounts of information escalates, systems must scale to meet the needs of the business. The latest server and storage technology innovations including: POWER7, eX5, XIV, ProtecTIER, SONAS, and System z Solution Editions.
- Smarter Data Centers
Today’s data centers are under extreme power and cooling pressures and space constraints. How can you get more out of your existing facility, while planning for future requirements? IBM energy efficiency consultants will tell you how you can reduce both CAPEX and OPEX costs and plan for future growth with consolidation and virtualization, energy efficient (energy star) equipment and modular data center solutions. Be sure to check out the IBM Portable Modular Data Center (PMDC) that fits in a standard shipping crate!
- Smarter Clouds
IBM’s Cloud Computing solutions provide you with flexible, dynamic, secure and cost-efficient delivery choices from pay-per-use (by the hour, week or year) at IBM cloud centers around the world, conditioning your infrastructure to build your own private cloud or out-of-the box cloud solutions that are quick and easy to deploy. Which workloads are the best fit for cloud computing? How do you decide which cloud computing is right for your organization? Cloud experts will talk about the options, give you recommendations based on your business objectives and help you get started.
Hope to see you there!
technorati tags: IBM, Dynamic Infrastructure, Executive Summit, POWER7, eX5, Fairmot, XIV, ProtecTIER, SONAS, PMDC, Cloud Computing
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This week several IBM executives will present at the 28th Annual Data Center Conference here in Las Vegas. Here is a quick recap:
- Steve Sams: Data Center Cost Saving Actions Your CFO Will Love
A startling 78 percent of today's data centers were built in the last century, before the "dot com" era and the adoption of high-density blade servers. IBM Vice President of Global Site and Facility Services, Steve Sams, presented actions that can help extend the life of existing data centers, help rationalize the infrastructure across the company, and design a new data center that is flexible and responsive to changing needs.
In one example, an 85,000 square foot datacenter in Lexington had reached 98 percent capacity based on power/cooling requirements. They estimated it would take $53 million US dollars to either upgrade the facility or build a new facility to meet projected growth. Instead, IBM was able to consolidate servers six-to-one, an 85 percent reduction. IBM also was able to make changes to the cooling equipment, redirect airflow and changed out the tiles, re-oriented the servers for more optimal placement, and implement measurement and management tools. The end result? The facility now has eight times the compute capability and enjoys 15 percent headroom for additonal growth. All this for only 1.5 million US dollar investment, instead of 53 million.
IBM builds hundreds of data centers for clients large and small. In addition to the "Portable Modular Data Center"(PMDC) shipping container on display at the Solution Showcase, IBM offers the "Scalable Modular Data Center", a turn-key system with a small 500 to 2500 square foot size for small customers. For larger deployments, the "Enterprise Modular Data Center" offers standardized deployments in 5000 square foot increments. IBM also offers "High Density Zones" which can be perfect way to avoid a full site retrofit.
- Helene Armitage: IT-wide Virtualization
Helene is IBM General Manager of the newly formed IBM System Software division. A smarter planet will require more dynamic infrastructures, which is IBM's approach to helping clients through the virtualization journey. The virtualization of resources, workloads and business processes will require end-to-end management. To help, IBM offers IBM Systems Director.
Helene indicated that there are four stages of adoption:
- Physical consolidation - VMware and Hyper-V are the latest examples of running many applications on fewer physical servers. Of course, IBM has been doing this for decades with mainframes, and has had virtualization on System i and System p POWER systems as well. A quick survey of the audience found that about 20 percent were doing server virtualization on non-x86 platforms (for example, PowerVM or System z mainframe z/VM)
- Pools of resources - SAN Volume Controller is an example solution to manage storage as a pool of disparate storage resources. Supercomputers manage pools of servers.
- Integrated Service Management - in the past, resources were managed by domain, resulting in islands of management. Now, with IBM Systems Director, you can manage AIX, IBM i, Linux and Windows servers, including non-IBM servers running Linux and Windows.
Service management can provide monitoring, provisioning, service catalog, self-service, and business-aligned processes.
- Cloud computing - Helene agreed that not everyone will get to this stage. Some will adopt cloud computing, whether public, private or some kind of hybrid, and others may be fine at stage 3.
For those clients that want assistance, IBM offers three levels of help:
- Help me decide what is best for me
- Help me implement what I have decided to do
- Help me manage and run my operations
With IBM's compelling vision for the future, best of breed solutions, leadership in management software, extensive experience in services, and solid business industry knowledge, it makes sense to tap IBM to help with your next IT transformation.
technorati tags: IBM, GDC09, LSC28, Steve Sams, Helene Armitage, CFO, PMDC, SVC
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to Tony Pearson
The Tony Pearson Daily
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Tony Pearson is a Master Inventor and Senior Software Engineer for the IBM Storage product line at the
