InteropNet 2011 wrap-up: The last word on more with less
By Tim Swiader, Senior Program Manager, HP Technology Consulting
In some respects it is amazing to find yourself at the end of a road. During the journey, at times, I find myself asking when it will be over. Those times are when the journey takes you away from family and friends (missed my wife’s birthday and Mother’s Day). That is time you can never get back. Yet when it is over I find myself reflecting on all that was accomplished. The accomplishments can be merely the close out of a contract OR something far more persuasive.
When Jeff Enters and I first discussed the InteropNet 2011 Network Operations Center theme (Wiki - theme: a broad idea, message or moral of a story) for this show, the discussions were at dinner during Hot Stage. Hmmm…theme for the NOC…we never did anything like that before. Another glass of wine (after all we are in wine country) and several ideas later we arrived at “More with Less.”
What a week it was
The show ended last week. All the equipment is back in the warehouse in San Francisco (three days later everything is back where it started!!) I am back in my far less noisy office, yet the buzz is still in my ears. Flex Networking…More with Less…the network design withstood the test of time. Way to go project team!! Product performed as expected and we had ZERO equipment failures. To quote a team lead with the show host, “…in the twelve years I have been doing this, this is the FIRST show we did not have a major customer impacting event. NOT ONE!!” Persuasive?? OH YEAH!!!
Yet what can get lost are the people behind the buzz. In front are the marketing people doing their jobs with media and press. Behind is usually a quite bunch of engineers keeping the buzz from turning into a splat.
More teamwork at every turn
More with Less…I had the privilege of working with team of HP Technology Consulting engineers that built an entire data center in three weeks. Oh yea…the data center had to be packed into trucks and transported 570 miles. Upon arrival expected to work. This achievement was because of the team! Nothing “More” and nothing “Less."
The people that made it happen are (IN no particular order and pictured below): Jeff Enters, Cory Gunter, Alan Weingarten, Brett Reid, Jack Castine and Joe Martinello. In saying my good-byes with other vendors in the NOC, the feedback about this team was echoed and some of that was from the least of likely sources. If you ever see one of these names on one of your projects, rest assured you have some to the best!!
Before I go…a couple of funny moments.
We all get a chance to roam around the convention floor and pick up some swag. Some forms of that can travel long distances (footballs, rockets and …). Well the last couple of hours your head better be on a swivel as the swag can start flying. Launching things over the wall is fair game!! I can say I went unscathed but other new members well…sometimes you just have to let them learn on their own.
Second funny moment was when we were rolling a rack out to the trucks. Carpet guys were rolling up the carpet in one direction, we were rolling the other. No problem turn left and head down another isle, EXCEPT the carpet guys heading at us here too. Let’s just say, Mario Andretti would have been impressed!!
Well this is the “Less” part as this is a wrap. WAIT!!!!!!!! Emailed just ding’d. Hot Stage for Interop 2011 – New York is when? August 15? Less than three months?? The show is October 3 – 7? Wrap nothing…back into planning mode. Check back in less than three months!
And coming soon:
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