By Calvin Zito, aka @HPStorageGuy

If you have any issues viewing the embedded video, click here.

And again, don't forget that I'll be at HP Tech @ Work next week.  If you're there, be sure to say hello!  You can follow our tweets from the event with the hashtag #HPTAW (you need a Twitter log-in to see the tweets using this hashtag).   And if you're not using Twitter yet as a great source of information, try it out by following me today!

 By Calvin Zito, aka @HPStorageGuy

Time for another video from our StorageWorks Tech Day.  Wow, has it really already been four weeks since we did our Tech Day?  Today's video is the HP StorageWorks P2000 G3 MSA session with Norman Morales.  The discussion in this session was very interactive and lots of questions from the bloggers.  Norman talked about what's new with the P2000 and covered a lot of ground in this 25 minute session. 

If you have any problems viewing this embedded video, click here.

At our April 2010 Tech Day, one of the sessions was a technical overview of the X9000 Network Storage System.  The X9000 is based on technology from our acquisition of IBRIX.  The presenter is Efrin Molina, a technical specialists.

 By Calvin Zito, aka @HPStorageGuy

During our Tech Day at the end of March, we took a tour of three different labs at our Houston campus.  First of up is the event lab, timely as Chris Hornauer talked about getting equipment ready for Storage Networking World and the National Association of Broadcasters, both happening this week.  The other interesting thing is a closer look at the HP StorageWorks MDS600 - Chris pulls out the enclosure to show the drives and you'll get a look at the mechanism that allows the enclosure to slide out of the rack.  The MDS600 gives you shared storage at the price of direct attached storage.  I think a deeper dive on it is warranted here on the blog.  Here's that video:

If you have trouble with the embedded video, click here to launch the viewer.

The next stop was the Enterprise Backup Solutions Lab.  This is the lab where we test our backup hardware (HP tape storage and virtual tape systems like the D2D Backup System and Virtual Library System) with leading ISV backup software, including our own HP Data Protector.  Phil Lang mentioned the EBS compatibility matrix - it's one of the most downloaded pieces of content on hp.com.  If you want to take a look, you can click here. 

Again, if you have any issues with the embedded video, click here. 

The last stop was Integrated Systems Test: Automated Test and Verification Lab.  There's a lot of interesting stuff here: 

• David Sheffield (you can call him Sheff) was our host here - you can tell he loves his job!  The bloggers were also interested at how "clean" an environment this test lab was - not your typical lab that has pieces/parts of systems all over.

• The bloggers were very interested in how we collect data from our array controllers in the test lab (you'll see the "diving board" that is used to grab data off a controller). 

Last time, if you have any issues with the embedded video, click here.

There are still more videos to come from the StorageWorks Tech Day  and I'll post them over the next several days.  A special thanks to all of the guys in Houston (and Yvette!!!) that helped make the lab tours possible.

 By Calvin Zito, aka @HPStorageGuy

I came across some video someone else using my video camera had grabbed of most the bloggers (sorry Simon and Kirby) - it's short and thought it would be nice to include in my post today.  

If you have any difficulties with the embedded player, click here to watch the video. 

The video from our HP StorageWorks Tech Day that I really wanted to share is from Kyle Fitze.  Kyle is the director of our Storage Platforms Division.  One of the many products under Kyle is the StorageWorks EVA.  I wanted Kyle to be one of the speakers at our Tech Day to reinforce the importance of the EVA.  With all the focus we've had on convergence and unified storage, there have been some questions about the EVA.  Kyle's session put those questions to rest.

At this point in our Tech Day, we had moved into a lab area.  You'll hear some background noise - those are all the fans whirling in the to keep the systems cool. There were some demos presented after Kyle - one showing the new vCenter plug-in for all of our StorageWorks arrays (that also integrates with our HP Insight Software) and the other the Cluster Extension EVA Live Migration with Hyper-V.  We had engineers on the phone from California doing those demos and the audio is very hard to hear.  I'll see if I can somehow recreate those demos and post them at some point in the future.  Here's Kyle's presentation:

Again, if you have any difficulties with the embedded player, click here to view this video.

  By Calvin Zito, aka @HPStorageGuy

At our HP StorageWorks Tech Day last week, one of the sessions was presented by a customer.  Matthew Gingrich (VP of Information Technology) and Bryan McMullen (Infrastructure Manager) Litigation Management, Inc. (LMI) flew in from Cleveland to talk about their experience with the HP StorageWorks P4000 SAN Solution (formerly HP LeftHand).  Matt ran into some pretty foul weather getting to Houston the night before his presentation.   His flight into Charlotte, NC was diverted to Greenville because the winds were so bad.  Bryan had told me he came through Charlotte earlier in the day and it was one of the bumpiest flights he'd ever been on - so bad that the passenger next to him lost their cookies (you know what I mean) more than once.  I say all that because I really appreciated the efforts they went through to join our Tech Day. 

During his session, Matt talked about their infrastructure and how their requirements changed since 2004.  I just watched it again and I enjoyed his presentation.  Thanks again to Matt and Bryan for coming to our Tech Day!

If you have any difficulty viewing the embedded video, click here.

(UPDATE on 8 April)

Here's a link to check out Matt's slides on SlideShare.com. 

 By Calvin Zito, aka @HPStorageGuy

The third HP session at our HP StorageWorks Tech Day was titled "The market is coming to HP" and was lead by Andrew Manners, director of solutions and field enablement.  Andrew had been acting VP of marketing as the search for someone was going on for more than six months - and of course that someone who we introduced at our Tech Day is Tom Joyce.  If you haven't seen it yet, you can see Tom's StorageWorks Tech Day session as well on this blog. 

I met Andrew back in early 2003 when I was in Australia presenting to both Australian Channel Partners as well as a customer counsel that was meeting in Brisbane.  I spent some time talking to him about a marketing push at HP and I found him to be a very down to earth, customer knowledgeable guy.  I was very impressed.  He later moved to the UK to run the StorageWorks business there and came to the US a couple of years ago to work in the worldwide StorageWorks organization.  So with that brief background on Andrew, let's move on to his session. 

At just under 16 minutes, Andrew's session was the shortest of the StorageWorks Tech Day - but it's a very interesting session.  For the first eight minutes, Andrew asked the bloggers to brainstorm four questions:

1. What is the key customer issues related to storage?

1. Where is the growth coming from?

1. What are the fastest growing applications?

1. What storage technologies are game-changers?

Here's a chart of what they came up with (if you're short on time, skip to the 8 minute mark in the video which is where Andrew summarizes this chart):

Is there anything you think is missing from the list?

In the later half of the session, Andrew talks about which storage vendors are in the best position to address where we think the market is going.  Here's the video of Andrew's session.

If you have any issues viewing this embedded video, click here. 

As always, I welcome your comments!  And stop back over the next few days as I have more HP StorageWork Tech Day videos and posts.

  By Calvin Zito, aka @HPStorageGuy

The second session at our HP StorageWorks Tech Day was with Paul Perez, VP and Chief Technologist.  Paul has been around HP and technology for a long time - over 24 years.   I've talked to Paul several times recently and I'm very confident about the direction he is taking us.  While you'll probably have many questions about where we are going, Paul gives some pretty good hints in this session.  Unfortunately, since the details require an NDA (non-disclosure agreement), there's a lot that Paul couldn't say.  Nonetheless, its a very interesting session and I always get a lot out of hear Paul talk. 

If you have any issues with the embedded video, click here to view the video.

 By Calvin Zito, aka @HPStorageGuy

Our HP StorageWorks Tech Day ended earlier today.  Over the coming days, I'll post videos and posts about the event.  Today, I'm really happy to have the first session from the Tech Day.  (I uploaded the file, which was 1.7GB, via the wireless internet at my hotel in Houston - it took all night to do it). 

Tom Joyce is our new VP of Marketing.  Tom has a very impressive background and did a fantastic job kicking off the Tech Day.  Tom has been at HP since November, working on the ProCurve team leading the 3Com integration team.  He's only been on the job working in StorageWorks for a couple of weeks but he shows his knowledge of the storage industry and even a deep understanding of HP StorageWorks.  I'm REALLY excited to have Tom as our new marketing leader. 

Here's the video of his opening session: 

If you have any problems viewing the embedded video, click here.

(Update to this post on 5 April)

If you'd like to see the slides that Tom used, we've loaded them on SlideShare.net.  While I was videoing Tom, I didn't get all of the slides so this might help you as you watch the video.  Click here to see the slides.