Although I must confess that I have been eagerly awaiting the right blog post that required using “snazzy sessions” in the title, this one is spot on. As you may have guessed, I’m headed to HP Discover in Barcelona to learn and share interesting technical and business knowledge with the greater IT community. This is the one conference I try to never miss – HP does a fantastic job at making sure the show floor is packed with engaging folks who want to chat about technology, and cramming the session roster full of a variety of – you guessed it – snazzy sessions.
I understand that, for many folks, Barcelona is a difficult journey to finance. Have no fear – you can watch the live stream storage announcement on December 9th at 8:00 AM CST. That’s a bit early for me (I am NOT a morning person), but with a few sips of coffee and a chance to win an HP ENVY X2 laptop, you might find additional motivation to throw on some slippers and sit back at your computer. I’ve been rocking an HP SpectreXT for almost a year now, after seeing it first hand at HP Discover in Frankfurt, and love it (and yes, I paid for it with my own hard earned currency), so I’m a bit jealous of whomever wins this thing. 🙂
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Note: All travel and incidentals were paid for by HP to attend HP Discover. There’s also an opportunity for me to win some Beats by Dr. Dre Solo HD headphones while at the event. I plan on giving them away to a reader if that happens.[/symple_box]
Snazzy Sessions – My Picks
It’s always tough to pick sessions. I heavily weigh my selections based on the speaker – mainly so I can assault the speaker with questions afterwards (or during Q&A).
These three are my “top picks”
[symple_tabgroup][symple_tab title=”DT2547″]DT2547 – HP OneView and VMware integrations: managing your HP infrastructure with VMware vCenter
Tuesday, Dec 10, 4:40 PM – 5:10 PM – Discover Theater DT5.6, Hall 5
Brad Kirby – Product Group Manager, HP
Nearly every VMware implementation uses VMware vCenter to manage virtual resources. Our plug-in solutions fully integrate HP’s management ecosystem with VMware vCenter. This combination delivers capabilities such as proactive monitoring and remote management and provisioning of HP servers, networking, and storage. Our new flagship management solution, HP OneView, introduces a software-defined approach to configurations and processes for hardware provisioning. Join this session to learn how our existing integration in VMware vCenter can now leverage HP OneView capabilities to create and grow your VMware clusters consistently and reliably.[/symple_tab]
[symple_tab title=”DT2342″]DT2342 – Optimizing HP Storage for VMware: current integrations and software-defined storage
Wednesday, Dec 11, 9:00 AM – 9:30 AM – Discover Theater DT5.6, Hall 5
Rory Choudhuri – EMEA Senior Product Marketing Manager, VMware
Storage is a critical part of a VMware environment and is a key factor in determining the success and efficiency that customers achieve with virtualization. The role of storage in the datacenter is significantly different then it was 10 years ago and storage must adapt to be able to support the demands of a virtualized environment. VMware and HP have a long history of joint collaboration and development and both companies feature innovative storage technologies that can help customers take the stress out of storage in their VMware environment. Come hear from the industry leaders in virtualization and cloud and learn how storage technologies from VMware and HP are revolutionizing the virtual datacenter.[/symple_tab]
[symple_tab title=”DT3393″]DT3393 – Boost application performance and reduce TCO by 2-10x with Fusion-io (applicable for SQL server, Oracle, VMware and others)
Wednesday, Dec 11, 11:30 AM – 12:00 PM – Discover Theater DT4.1, Hall 4
Jean-Michael Langlet – Systems Engineer, Fusion-io
Michael Murphy – Executive Account Manager, Fusion-io
Find out how to increase application performance while reducing infrastructure and licensing costs with Fusion-io solutions.
This session will outline how HP customers have been able to consolidate/enhance their infrastructure for applications like SQL server , Oracle database, and VDI. We’ll cover customer cases in both virtualized and non-virtualized environments and for both bladed and rack infrastructures.[/symple_tab][/symple_tabgroup]
The VMware Guru Bar and Expert One
I’m also pleased to hear that Brent Sullivan, Director of HP Strategic Alliance at VMware, will be on hand at the VMware Guru Bar during Tues 4-6, Wed 12-3, Thurs 10-12. I’m definitely going to try and stop by and pick his brain, since I sort of like VMware stuff. 😉
Additionally, the fine folks from the Expert One program will be on hand. I’ve worked with them over the past few years as I worked towards my ASE in BladeSystem – these folks really care about training and certification, and it shows. If you’re on the twitters (and who isn’t?) make sure to follow @HPExpertOne, which is mostly run by my good friend Karl Kovacs. 🙂
Follow Along!
Have a burning question? Want to follow along with the action? Myself and a ton of other bloggers are headed to the conference (here’s our HP Discover Barcelona Bloggers Twitter list) – feel free to send me a tweet, carrier pigeon, messenger crocodile, or whatever else floats your boat. I’ll do my best to get it answered!
