Kate Davis (@KateAtHP) has done a great job of getting the conversation going around Software Defined Storage and I thought it would be helpful to do a ChalkTalk giving an overview on our perspective.  Here's a single link to all of the blog posts on ATSB focused on SDS.

One of the things I'm most excited about here at HP Storage is there's a strong focus on having a strategy and vision that we're driving toward - and as I've said here, I think it's right on the mark!.  That vision is Converged Storage.  In the ChalkTalk, you'll see how software-defined storage and Converged Storage.... dare I say it, converge.

Earlier this week I had a blog post talking about the HP Industry Analyst Summit.  The next day, David Scott, SVP and GM of HP Storage presented in a breakout session.  I know what his presentation covered and we'll be hitting many of those topics here in the next several months.  Topics that you'll hear more about and that David discussed were:

• Converged Storage (see the blog post for more details about each of these bullets)
• Storage for software defined data centers
• Flash and SSD
• Information retention and cloud storage

I told you how excited I am about the future in my last HP Summit blog post and I really am.  We have an unbelievable management team, support from Meg Whitman, and management like Dave Donatelli and David Scott who understand technology and are committed to storage leadership for the new style of IT. 

We are always looking for great people and if you're a storage expert, consider joining me at HP.  We are hiring and just to whet your appetite, I asked Anita Filip (@Anita4HP) to suggest a few open jobs that I could include.  Checkout this PDF she created with just a few of the hot (U.S.) jobs we have and check out www.hp.com/jobs for other jobs if one of these isn't a fit for you. 

I'm having a great time here, I think you will too and the future is bright!

Back in September 2009, I helped pull together what I believe was our industry's first Tech Day - events where bloggers are brought in to hear from experts.  The collection of people we brought to that first storage focused Tech Day in Colorado Springs was a who's who in the industry - guys like Stephen Foskett, Greg Knieriemen, Ray Lucchesi, John Obeto, and more. 

One of the attendees was Robin Harris (@StorageMojo).  I haven't had Robin back to another HP event since but brought him to HP Discover in Frankfurt and I noticed he just posted a great article talking about our Converged Storage strategy. 

In our Bloggers' Lounge at HP Discover, we have a full agenda of coffee talks - a chance for the independent bloggers to get some time with various HP execs and subject matter experts.  The first coffee talk that got it started with a bang was with SVP and GM of HP Storage David Scott.  David was joined by Alistair Veitch from HP Labs - his team is developed Express Query. 

It was a lively discussion - one of the topics a few of the bloggers wanted to talk about was the word "polymorphic".  David has a great intuition for what works and was the guy behind 3PAR using Autonomic - a word that many others are now copying.  While this is longer than most of my podcasts, I think every minute of it is a great discussion.

One of the announcements made was updates to the X5000.  The X5000 is a great example of making IT simple and is a product I love to talk about.  I have a video from HP Discover in Vienna (from December 2011) that shows a bit more about the X5000.

To learn more about what's new with the X5000 - click on over to the blog post. 

A step-by-step approach to moving from static to dynamic utility storage to support virtualization and cloud computing

They say that cloud is a journey. For most, it’s one fraught with challenges, obstacles, and, yes, grief, particularly when it comes to storage.

Having spent nine years managing a service provider data center, I can attest to the emotional attachment we have with infrastructure.  The job often forces us to spend more time with machines than our family. 

With that in mind, I thought it could be fun to examine the parallelisms in the death of an old IT model as we move to cloud… Taking some liberties with the Kübler-Ross model for the five stages of grief, let’s find our happy place.

Today I have an announcement on my blog - a sort of exclusive announcement.  So check out the new SSD-based member of the P4000 family - the P4900.

A couple of weeks ago I had a blog post pointing to the blog posts from our guest bloggers at the Tech Day in Ft. Collins.  A few of the bloggers have more content from our HP Tech Day. I wanted to point to them here as well as a new blog post from my HP Storage VP Tom Joyce.

Near "real-time" summary of this morning's first two sessions:

Welcome all to HP Storage Tech Days, Day 1 kicking off right now. The crowd awaits in hushed expectancy in this giant amphitheatre … well actually it’s a conference room in Building 6 of the HP campus in beautiful Fort Collins, Colorado, and the crowd is a few dozen tech bloggers and engineers, but expectancy there certainly is as Craig Nunes launches into his Strategy Overview I’ll be blogging live today and tomorrow morning – or until my hands drop off, whichever comes first -- about the themes of the Tech Day, our strategic focus on converged storage, and the products that HP is strategically investing in (3PAR, HP LeftHand, StoreOnce).