* Meet Mike at Comdex
IT managers don’t often think much about Comdex. After all, it has traditionally been a forum for end users, tire-kickers … and for those who for some reason feel drawn to America’s cultural epicenter, Las Vegas. But Comdex is undergoing something of a facelift this year and seems to be in the throes of morphing itself into a show with more of an IT focus.
As a part of this, my colleague Mark Ehr, fellow senior analyst at Enterprise Management Associates, and I are running a two-day conference track on on-demand computing. If you are at Comdex right now, here is what will interest you.
At 10:15 a.m. on Wednesday, Nov. 19, I will be chairing a panel discussion titled “Data Storage: Is the Future Bright or Hopeless?” (Forgive me for the title.) This session looks at how “on-demand” and virtualization offer the promise of improved utilization and simplified administration of storage resources. Sitting on this panel are some key players in the industry: Ash Ashutosh, AppIQ CTO; Rich Escott, HP’s Director of Software Engineering; Rich Napolitano, vice president of Data Services Platforms at Sun; and Jens Tiedemann, Marketing vice president for IBM’s Storage Software Division.
At 11:30 a.m. the same day, I’m also moderating a panel discussion on “The Truth about Virtualization.” We will be looking at virtualization for both storage and systems. On this panel are Gale Persil, CA’s Product Director; Ken Horner, vice president of Marketing at DataCore; Bernie Wu, vice president of Business Development at FalconStor; and Lee Himbeault, Director of Enterprise Solutions at Nortel.
Later at 2:00 p.m., my final panel meets to separate the hype about a topic that’s both near and dear to my heart, “autonomic computing.” Currently scheduled to speak here are Ric Telford, Director of Architecture and Technology at IBM; Charlie Boyle, Director of Product Management at Sun; and Lorie Wigle, Intel’s Director of Small and Medium Enterprise (SME) Systems.
Also of interest to storage managers should be the 2 p.m. session on Thursday, Nov. 20, when Mark will be presenting on a topic dear to all of our hearts: The future of automation.
If you are reading this while at Comdex, please stop over and say hi.
