Around The Block Blog
by Liem Nguyen, Director of Corporate Communications — September 01, 2010
We are very excited to have Heineken Netherlands join us at VMworld 2010, particularly for the press conference at the VMware Social Media and Blogger’s Lounge in Moscone South at 9:15 AM PST and the SuperSession today at 3:00 PM in Room #134 in Moscone North. Being the number one brewer in Europe with more than 200 regional, local and specialty beers and ciders, it’s no surprise that Heineken Netherlands generates a lot of data. What you may not know is that not too long ago Heineken Netherlands wanted to upgrade their VMware infrastructure but was faced with capacity, performance and reporting issues with their HP EVA storage systems. After evaluating other vendors they landed on Compellent Fluid Data for our automated tiered storage with enterprise SSD, scalable and persistent hardware, and, of course, the seamless integration with VMware. Together, Compellent and VMware have increased performance for Heineken Netherlands by as much as 300 percent and reduced disk requirements significantly using tiers of SSD, FC and SATA. In the future, Heineken Netherlands will be able to save even more money adding SATA disks almost exclusively.
As part of the team preparing for the press conference and SuperSession, it’s been a pleasure working with the IT folks from Heineken Netherlands and talking with them about the real-world problems they were faced with and how they went about addressing those enterprise challenges. I remembered how we joked about the connection between Fluid Data and enjoying your fluids in moderation, but in the end, the Heineken Netherlands IT story is really about better enterprise performance and storage efficiency since they’ve introduced Compellent into their VMware environment.
Here are additional press conference details:
-
Who: Phil Soran (CEO of Compellent), Tod Nielsen (COO of VMware), Lucien de Konink and Mike Robers (Heineken Netherlands)
-
When: Wednesday, September 1 from 9:15 AM to 9:45 AM (PST)
-
Where: VMware Social Media and Blogger’s Lounge, Moscone South
Can’t make it to the press conference? Or even worse…couldn’t make it to VMworld? No problem. Tune in to find out more and watch it streaming live at http://www.SiliconAngle.TV starting at 9:15 AM PST
SuperSession details:
-
Who: Bruce Kornfeld (VP of Alliance for Compellent), Parag Patel (VP of Global Alliances for VMware), Lucien de Konink and Mike Robers (Heineken Netherlands)
-
When: Wednesday, September 1 from 3:00 PM to 4:00 PM (PST)
-
Where: Room #134
by Amanda Zook, Systems Administrator, Biola University — August 30, 2010
Editor's Note: Amanda Zook from Biola University is a Compellent customer MVP and our social media woman-on-the-street at VMworld. She has safely arrived and ready for some VMworld excitement.
Read
Amanda's Adventures
to get all the latest updates about Amanda Zook’s trip to VMworld and the numerous activities she has planned. We look forward to reading more about what Amanda learns and shares this week at VMworld, it’s going to be a great week!
In Route to VMworld:
Things started off a little scary. Took the metro from my house to LAX—I have only done it once before, and it went okay, but some times there are delays, so I left at 9 AM for an 11:40 flight. Just to be safe. I ended up at the gate by 9:30, so needless to say I was way early. Good thing though; I found out the travel agent company who booked my flight booked it from San Francisco to LAX for today and then LAX to SF for Thursday. Umm, I’m standing at the ticket counter in LAX, obviously I’m not flying out of SF! Praise God that the ticketing agent was willing to change it for me for no charge! That flight was supposed to leave at 11. Unfortunately there was such thick fog in SF that we weren’t able to leave until 1:30! So I had a long morning at the airport, but I’m a mobile girl: have laptop, book/magazine, iPhone always on me. I’m always working/studying/prepping/learning about something. I can work anywhere, even if I don’t have internet (like now, while I’m waiting for the Calitrain to take me to San Jose to visit a friend and take a tour of Apple’s headquarters).
Excited to go to Apple! I’m visiting a friend who works at Apple. We were MIS students together at Biola University, and I’m always fascinated by what he’s doing. He’s a SysAdmin too (but way smarter than I am!). I always like catching up with him to see what he’s working on and how he’s doing. Maybe one day I’ll work with him at Apple (or wherever he is at that point in time; last year when I visited he was at eBay). For now I’ll live vicariously through his SysAdmin duties at a Fortune 500, but one day I’ll be there too!
What a week this will be! I’m excited! Looking forward to meeting lots of people at VMworld, going to sessions, helping out as a customer rep in the Compellent booth, AND going to the Women of Purpose meeting! Please let me find another woman sysadmin! I’m tired of no lines in the women’s bathroom at tech conferences. Women aren’t used to that! We like go take group trips to the bathroom 
haha.
On a side note not related to VMworld, my house should close escrow this week! So it’s a big week in all areas of life! Woo hoo! Hopefully when I get back, they’ll hand me the keys. Pray that it all goes smoothly!
Goals:
- Find out how large scale companies use VMware. What does it look like in a big environment? We have about 150 VMs, but if you had more, how do you manage them? I think when you grow larger, you have to be more efficient as you can’t manually power on 500 VMs one click at a time. I’m interested in learning about this. It probably involves….
- …Powershell scripting. I’m going to a session. I really want to learn how to script. How can you be a SysAdmin without knowing it? From anyone I’ve talked to, you’re not a true SysAdmin until you can. When we set up our goals for the year (in October) this will be at the top of my list. I’ll start it as a goal now so that I can have a head start.
- Find some good gluten free bakeries! I looked online and SF has lots of GF places. Ahh, fresh bread! Can’t wait. I want soup in a bread bowl. Not sure if they do that, but I’ve heard that the San Francisco Soup Company does gluten free bread, so maybe! Also going to hit up the Mariposa Artisan Bakery to get some muffins. Love it! Maybe I should start a GF bakery in LA… hmm. Food for thought.
- Having fun on Public Transportation. Metro to LAX, plane, shuttle, BART, Caltrain to San Jose, Muni to Moscone, walking to hotel.
- I want to be intentional at networking. (Not quite sure how this will play out, but I don’t want to just be the friendly person that people are talking to. I want to be a useful resource where I can help teach and explain things to people and be beneficial to them and their time; also to learn from them and take good information back to my team. Of course I do want to meet people just to have some new tech friends. But I feel like I’m pretty good at that. Intentionality is to be learned.) Anyone have good questions that you’re interested in knowing about for people in the tech industry?
- Utilizing social media: I’m the social media person (or something like that, correct me if that’s not right) for Compellent, as their customer representative. I’m going to be talking with people, interviewing some VMworld-ers on camera, blogging about sessions, and talking with potential customers in their booth.
Also, I’m going to be trying an experiment: My first Tuesday night class for Intro to MIS is going to be taught via Skype. Expanding Biola University’s use of online resources. Someone should tell the Department of Distance learning. Maybe The Chimes (Biola’s newspaper) will write about me 
I think it will be cool! (I have to give props to my mom for thinking of the idea; She’s never used skype even, but she totally thought of the idea!) Hopefully it works out well.
- Learn about the different products that VMware has. Maybe see some Virtual Desktop demonstrations, or take other ideas about cool new technologies back to Biola.
Keep your eye on the blog here. I’ll be posting every day about the sessions and highlights of the day.
Lots of firsts for me this week: first time visiting Apple headquarters (and hopefully not the last), First Tuesday Intro to MIS class via skype, first big conference (Only been to Compellent’s C-drive conference, which at 500-ish people I guess isn’t big compared to the 12,000+ people that I’ve heard are going to be at VMworld!), first house purchased (hopefully!), and first time being Compellent’s MVP customer!
Get ready for a great week at VMworld and otherwise!
by Liem Nguyen, Director of Corporate Communications — July 09, 2010
Compellent is excited about sponsoring Tech Field Day (@techfieldday) next week in Seattle. In case you didn't already know, Tech Field Day is run by Stephen Foskett (@sfoskett) over at Gestalt IT. A great group of bloggers from around the world will converge on Seattle to meet privately with storage and virtualization vendors. On Friday, July 16, Compellent will host the delegates in the Microsoft Partner Solution Center where we have offices and lab facilities on Microsoft’s Redmond campus. Stay tuned for updates from me. Besides Compellent, vendors presenting are F5, NEC, and Veeam, plus a new company will launch in Seattle. I'm looking forward to meeting a lot of new faces and connecting with people I've only talked to online.
Stephen and I thought it would be fun to ask each other three questions about Tech Field Day Seattle. You can see my comments on Gestalt IT. Below are Stephen’s answers:
1.
Why did you start Tech Field Day?
SF: The basic Field Day idea came from the community. At an HP-sponsored blogger event, they wondered aloud whether other companies could put on similar events and how they could make it work. Planning such an event is extremely difficult and expensive, after all. But the biggest challenge is getting the independent industry folks on board. It's hard to know who to invite and reassure them that it won't be a cheerleader session or a bore.
The breakthrough came when we thought of flipping the idea on its head: The bloggers run the event and invite the companies instead! We all saw the value of live and direct interaction with the companies we talk and write about but wanted an equal seat at the table when it came to selecting who to hear from. That's the core idea of the Field Day: Getting companies and independent voices together to talk.
2.
What are you planning on showing everyone in Seattle?
SF: I always want to challenge the delegates with products and technologies that are surprising or a little outside their comfort zone. I love when people walk out of a session saying "that's not at all what I thought it would be" or "I didn't know anything about that before now!" No one wants to sit through a boring presentation about something they already know and love - they're here to see something new, whether it's a technology, a use case, a value proposition, or a whole company.
I'm also looking to keep things on the right level. The event has to meet the needs of the delegates, both in terms of technical content and plain fun. I'm planning to mix both together!
3.
How would you know if you had a successful event?
SF: It's easy to know if the event is successful: The delegates and sponsors come right out and say it! Shrinking violets need not apply for the Field Day. We're all about open communication, and I'll know we're successful whenever a rousing, boisterous conversation starts.
Another great measure of success is the community that comes out of the event. When I see newly-introduced folks talking like old friends and relying on each other for help on various technical topics, I know things have worked out. The Field Day events tend to bring people together across the usual lines that separate different technical areas of focus, vendors and independents, and focus on large and small business. It's so cool to see a post-event conversation between these diverse folks, and everyone benefits.