Enterprise Computing: HP Blades Tech Day 0

By Chris M Evans On 24 February, 2010 · 4 Comments · In GestaltIT

Some of you may be aware that I’m heading to Houston today for an HP sponsored field day looking at blade technology. I have to admit that blades are not my area of speciality, in fact I know precious little about them other than the obvious. Having said that, this is a time to start being more aware of the technology “stack” as we move towards converged architectures in the data centre.

By convergence, I’m referring to what we already see with VMware, Cisco and EMC (VCE); the Acadia triumvirate. HP have already started to talk about their convergence strategy and I’m sure other vendors have ideas in plan. I’m looking forward to understanding where HP’s strategy is headed, how their relationships with VMware and Microsoft will play out at the virtualisation level and after this week, how they intend to manage the (storage) networking component.

Fortunately I’ll be in the company of some experts to keep me honest. Travelling with me from the UK is Simon Seagrave, plus the other following attendees:

Kevin Houston (http://www.bladesmadesimple.com) – @kevin_houston
Greg Knieriemen (http://www.storagemonkeys.com) – @knieriemen
Frank Owen (http://www.techvirtuoso.com) – @fowen
John Obeto (http://www.absolutelywindows.com) – @johnobeto
Rich Brambley (http://www.vmetc.com) – @rbrambley
Simon Seagrave (http://www.techhead.co.uk) – @Kiwi_Si
Martin MacLeod (http://www.bladewatch.com) – @martinmacleod
Devang Panchigar (http://www.storagenerve.com) – @storagenerve
Stephen Foskett (http://blog.fosketts.net) – @sfoskett

If you’re following on Twitter, the official hashtag is #hpbladesday and you can also follow @bladenews

Athough it’s only a three day visit, I’m hoping to see something of Houston; ten-gallon hats, steaks and firearms come to mind. More updates to come!

Disclosure: HP have funded my flight and accommodation for this trip. Everything else is self funded. I am under no obligation to write about what I see during the Tech Day and HP have no editorial rights over the content I produce.