Computer Measurement Group (CMG) 2007 International Conference

I attended the International CMG 2007 Conference Dec 1-8 in (not) sunny San Diego. I was the CMG Storage Subject Area Chair this year, and also am the Ohio Valley Regional CMG Chair. The conference attendance was down about 1-2% from last year, but we still had nearly 700 people in attendance from all over the world. The storage track had solid attendance at sessions all week. Some of our storage speakers in addition to myself were Greg Schulz, Randy Kerns, Tom Clark, Dr. Gilbert Houtekamer, Ted McGavin, Rich Milner, and John Baker.

My presentations are posted on my website. http://www.steveguendert.com/Presentations.html

One presentation was on the importance of FICON CUP for performance management of FICON directors. (To CUP, or Not to CUP....That is the (FICON) Question).

The second presentation was Understanding the Performance Implications of Buffer to Buffer Credit Starvation: Frame Pacing Delay.

At the publications meeting I was given the opportunity to essentially be the point person for the CMG Journal in 2008. I'm really excited about what Rick Ralston (CMG Publications Director) has asked me to do with the Journal. More to come on that.

UK JPMC

On Tuesday Nov 27th I led a 1 day FICON and mainframe I/O performance training class for JPMC UK. We were in Bournemouth which is right on the English Channel. My Brocade colleagues Steve Richards, and Bill Bolton were also present. Steve is our Resident Consultant at JPMC UK, and Bill is the Brocade presales systems engineer for the JPMC account in the UK. The class went very well, we had some great questions from the JPMC team, and had some great discussions.

The evening prior, Steve, Bill and I had dinner at a nice, quaint Italian restaurant in Bournemouth. The name of the restaurant was Pinochio's. We stayed at the Marriott Highcliff, which is right on the channel overlooking the water.

Prior to heading back to the States I caught up with my good friend Chris Hardy at the London Heathrow Marriott. Chris is one of our Strategic Account Managers in the UK, and is quite honestly one of the best sales people in the storage industry. We were joined for dinner at yet another Italian Restaurant (Antigo) by Mike Dailey and Jerry Ankenbrunner from Optica Technologies.

As I write this I am back at the Columbus, OH airport yet again. I am headed off to the Computer Measurement Group (CMG) International conference in San Diego this week.

Ohio State managed to get back to the National Championship game again, so I leave a happy football fan.

UK CMG Forum

On Monday Nov 26th 2007 I presented a session at the UK Computer Measurement Group (CMG) Forum. The event was held at the London Hilton Olympia. I presented a session titled "Consolidation drives storage virtualization". The session discussed how the IBM System z9 and its Node Port ID Virtualization (NPIV) technology is enabling open systems servers to be consolidated onto Linux images running on a System z9 mainframe. The NPIV technology allows for multiple Linux images to share the FCP node ports on the mainframe's FICON channel cards, as well as the ports on the attached FICON/SAN directors. The session was well attended. I will post the presentation on my website at www.steveguendert.com later this week. I was asked to submit abstracts for papers for the UK CMG Conference to be held in May 2008. I did so, and hope to have them accepted and have the opportunity to present to the UK CMG again. I thoroughly enjoyed the meeting.