Vlogs

• Icahn, Yahoo, Cuban and Microsoft

  Thu. May. 15, 2008
  by Marc Farley, Inside IT Lead Blogger

   When things like this start, where do they stop?
  

  Format: flv Duration: 02:27

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• Its the cash, not the cloud with HP/EDS deal

  Tue. May. 13, 2008
  by Marc Farley, Inside IT Lead Blogger

  There's a lot of buzz today surrounding HP's acquisition of EDS.  Some people are hung up on cloud things, but this deal doesn't have much, if anything, to do with cloud computing.  You buy mature companies for cash flow, not to grab share in high growth markets.  
  

  BTW, $5 dollars for the first person that correctly identifies the car wash. 

  Format: flv Duration: 01:50

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• Eric Schott on VMware access mode support in SRM

  Mon. May. 12, 2008
  by Marc Farley, Inside IT Lead Blogger

  This is a video shot last September at VMworld in San Francisco.  We had a birds of feather session with Eric Schott (Director of Product Management, EqualLogic) and Kiran Ranabhor (Technical Product Manager for DR, VMware) and the question was asked what kinds of storage provisioning (or access modes) would be supported with SRM.

  The answer is that in the initial release of SRM, the access method supported is VMFS.  Raw device maps and running iSCSI software initiators in the virtual system would not be supported initially for SRM.  I suppose that's possible it could have changed since September, but I doubt it.   

  FWIW, here's a link to a bonus video of Dell EqualLogic's Will Urban at VMworld Europe talking about SRM too.     

  Format: flv Duration: 02:36

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• Purdue punches out supercomputer in near-record time

  Tue. May. 06, 2008
  by John Mullen, VP, Higher Education, Dell, Inc.

  I got my bachelors ME degree at Michigan State and understand what competition means in the Big Ten.  You crush it when you can.  Well, the folks at Purdue University's Rosen Center for Advanced Computing crushed it on Monday. With a huge team effort, they installed their new supercomputer - including unboxing the equipment - in just half a day. C|net called it an "electronic barn-raising."

  The supercomputer, named Steele, features 812 Dell PowerEdge 1950 dual-quad-core computer nodes and is predicted to have a peak performance of more than 60 teraflops, which means it could perform more than 60 trillion operations in one second, placing Steele in the top 40 on the current Top 500 computers list.  Tinkergeek has 249 photos of the install , which is probably some sort of record by itself.  You get to see them working on the raised floor, installing racks, rails, switches HVAC, power and network cabling.  My favorites are #s 79, 90, 152, 179, 200 and the last one - the rack with signatures of the team that worked on it - very cool.  They have a brisk stop action video too.  

  The HPCC will be used for research across a variety of disciplines, including engineering, biological, earth and atmospheric sciences, mathematics and physics. The leading researchers at Purdue pooled their grants and provided a majority of the funding for the cluster, which is housed at Purdue's Mathematics Building on campus.

  High-performance computing is helping to support research that benefits society and Purdue is one example of major universities using Dell technology to enhance their teaching, learning and research initiatives.

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• Is technology just a pimp trick?

  Tue. May. 06, 2008
  by Marc Farley, Inside IT Lead Blogger

  I don't know about anybody else, but the whole Microsoft, Yahoo, Google, AOL  thing is leaving me a bit down.  Yeah, I know at the end of the day I don't have a job doing this if Dell doesn't sell enough data products and services, but the thought that ad revenue could be the ultimate engine for innovation leaves me feeling heavily greased.  I really hope not.
   

  Format: flv Duration: 01:20

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• Eric Schott on iSCSI/Fibre Channel coexistence

  Fri. Apr. 04, 2008
  by Marc Farley, Inside IT Lead Blogger

  This entry first appeared on my Storage@ Work blog, here.

  Questions about the future of both iSCSI and Fibre Channel. are popular with analysts and the press. Eric Schott, Director of Product Management gives his opinions in the interview below, which was filmed by UberPulse.

  Many readers will likely be surprised by what he has to say, although to me it just demonstrates the kind of clear, realistic thinking he always has. If you want to catch Eric in person, he will be presenting at SNW next Wednesday. Here is a link to a description of his presentation.

  Format: flv Duration: 01:37

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• Dell EqualLogic Discussions at VMworld

  Fri. Mar. 28, 2008
  by Kerry Bridge, EMEA Digital Media Communications

  I attended the inaugural VMworld Europe in Cannes, France, where Dell was a platinum sponsor discussing the future of virtualization. It was held in the same conference centre as the Cannes Film Festival. I attended the opening keynote and then joined the Dell team on the exhibition floor to see what they were sharing with customers on the Dell booth and in the breakout sessions.

  Note from Lionel 2/28: This was originally published at 10am in the category area. Due to a publishing oversight, did not publish it on the main page. Re-publishing now.

  During the keynote session Diane Greene, president and CEO of VMware, shared VMware’s future vision for virtualisation and we also jointly announced that Dell will begin the process of putting VMware ESX 3i hypervisor across all virtualization-certified Dell PowerEdge servers starting in early April. One thing that impressed me was that customers will be able to purchase this solution with a single click

  , easing virtualization planning, deployments and management.

  The other thing that really impressed me was that almost all the presenters focused on green IT. It’s great to see Dell as well as other companies putting such a focus on ReGeneration.

  At the Dell booth I met with John Joseph, VP of marketing for Dell EqualLogic storage solutions, and Tim Sherbak, Dell’s manager of virtualization solutions marketing. You can hear from the vlog that there was a lot of footfall and buzz in the Dell area.
  
  

  Format: flv Duration: 4:45

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  I also attended a breakout session with John where he shared that Simplifying IT with virtualization goes beyond the server. Storage infrastructure needs to be easy to deploy, manage and scale as well.

  It was great to meet our new EqualLogic team. I saw a demo of Site Recovery Manager (SRM) on the stand, an integrated snap-in to VMware VirtualCenter that provides a way to set up and test your disaster recovery strategy before you need it. Even at a first glance I could tell that with SRM, disaster recovery and business continuity are no longer expensive, complicated, uncertain processes. Another example of how Dell solutions do simplify IT.

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• GREEN: The New Black in Corporate Computing

  Wed. Mar. 05, 2008
  by Rebecca Thorburn, Green IT/ Power & Cooling

  Several weeks ago, I blogged about Michael Dell and members of our ReGeneration team were in Washington, DC to participate in the IT Energy Efficiency Summit hosted by CIO magazine. Gary Beach, publisher emeritus at CIO, conducted a moderated Q&A with Michael during the event, which was attended by about 100 CIOs and other IT decision makers from the public and private sectors.

  In this recent article, Are You Green?, Gary recaps his discussion with Michael and suggests that "green is the new black in corporate computing" - an IT fashion point that Dell strongly agrees with! Gary shares key takeaways for any CIO who wants to introduce green into their operations, including getting your CEO on board with your energy efficiency initiatives; reducing power consumption in your data center; aligning your IT and facilities departments; and holding your suppliers accountable.

  Gary intends to continue his green conversation with Michael with an online Q&A to be published on or around Earth Day, April 22. Stay tuned for more details on that. In the meantime, check out the following vlog in which Gary shares his thoughts and observations on the noticeable "awakening" happening amongst CIOs around the growing need to go green.
  

  Format: flv Duration: 5:20

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• Michael Dell Talks Green at IT Energy Efficiency Summit

  Wed. Feb. 13, 2008
  by Rebecca Thorburn, Green IT/ Power & Cooling

  Michael and other Dell team members spent the greater part of Wednesday morning last week in Washington, D.C. participating in the IT Energy Efficiency Summit. Dell partnered with CIO magazine to host this first-ever event designed to provide CIOs and other IT decision makers with insight into energy efficient computing strategies.

  In a moderated question and answer session with CIO publisher emeritus Gary Beach, Michael discussed various aspects of the greening of the IT landscape. (See highlights from his comments in vlog below.) He discussed Dell's drive to become the greenest technology company on the planet, our ReGeneration movement, how we consider the environmental impact behind everything we do as a business and the importance of carbon intensity—stay tuned for more on this front.

  He also shared different ways organizations can minimize their energy footprints, such as incorporating more energy efficient systems across their IT infrastructures, utilizing advanced power and cooling solutions and leveraging virtualization technologies. By applying an energy efficient approach to every aspect of their operations, Michael reminded attendees that their organizations stand to significantly reduce energy costs while meeting their corporate green initiatives. Put simply, embracing energy efficiency makes good business sense.

  Driving energy efficiency into the data center is certainly a topic of growing importance among CIOs considering that such facilities are massive consumers of power. According to the Environmental Protection Agency, data centers account for an estimated 1.5 percent of the nation's energy use. This number is expected to double within the next five years as power and computing performance demands continue to increase, costing an estimated $7.4 billion annually. 

  Attendees at the forum also heard from David Rodgers, deputy assistant secretary for energy efficiency with the U.S. Department of Energy. Mr. Rodgers reiterated Michael's point regarding the critical role that IT has and will continue to play in reducing overall power consumption. He spoke of the federal government's efforts to continue growing the economy without growing our nation's energy use, and encouraged attendees to make use of technology in new and innovative ways to help lower energy consumption within their organizations. Rodgers believes the path toward a more energy-conscious culture will be driven by industry rather than federal mandates. He envisions a future in which the IT industry works more closely with the federal government to help define new standards around energy use and drive increased adoption of energy efficient technology and best practices.

  We want to thank CIO magazine for organizing the IT Energy Efficiency Summit and helping to bring attention to an increasingly important subject. Here are video highlights from Michael's conversation with Gary Beach during the event.

  Format: flv Duration: 8:34

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• New EqualLogic Products

  Mon. Feb. 04, 2008
  by John Joseph, Storage VP of Marketing

  Hi, I'm John Joseph.  I recently joined Dell during its acquisition of EqualLogic, where I was vice president of marketing for 5 years.  It's been an amazing experience since 2003 when we worked to convince people that iSCSI SAN technology was real, and would cut the cost and complexity of deploying networked storage for IT. Five years later, we're a reference platform for VMware environments, we have nearly 4,000 customers in more than 30 countries and we're on the eve of bringing EqualLogic's products to the world on a massive scale as part of the Dell family. I'm excited, and Dell's reception has had a lot to do with it. The kind words, incredible enthusiasm and support of the Dell employees that I've met so far have been fantastic.

  What truly excites me about this opportunity is our ability to share with the world the experience that our customers have had with our products, partners, and employees.  The reason for this is that our customers are best situated to say what makes the EqualLogic PS Series so unique.  And thankfully, they are usually eager to tell their story. 

  Be assured we're not satisfied to sit on our laurels and wait for people to come to us.  We are well aware that serving a larger customer base can only be done by making the investments necessary to keep them delighted with Dell EqualLogic storage.  This includes expanding our support team while continuing their exceptional customer care, and making our VAR channel stronger, better trained, and profitably happy. Further, the technology innovation cannot stop. Look for us to enrich our storage management capabilities, broaden our application and third party integration, and build out end-to-end solutions for our customers.

  The latest example of our continuing product improvement came today in the new PS5000E array for that packs 16 TB into our standard 3U chassis - that's nearly 50% more capacity per modular array.  EqualLogic engineering, run by my partner in crime Paula Long, worked tirelessly to test, beat, bang on, stress, retest, and QA these cutting edge drives so that the Dell EqualLogic PS Series begins its new life with industry-leading terabyte-drive technology on a unified hardware platform. 

  Here's a vlog where I talk a bit more about what customers can expect from Dell and EqualLogic in the future.

   

  Format: flv Duration: 2:17

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  The latest example of our continuing product improvement came today in the new PS5000E array for that packs 16 TB into our standard 3U chassis - that's nearly 50% more capacity per modular array.  EqualLogic engineering, run by my partner in crime Paula Long, worked tirelessly to test, beat, bang on, stress, retest, and QA these cutting edge drives so that the Dell EqualLogic PS Series begins its new life with industry-leading terabyte-drive technology on a unified hardware platform. 

  

  If you think that's cool - stay tuned. We'll have more details to share on the new Dell EqualLogic products coming soon. For Dell storage, things are only going to get better.
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