Continuing my coverage of the IT Security and Storage Expo in Brussels, Belgium, here is my post on the presentations I gave during the week.
There were four presentations each day. Of the five rooms, I was assigned one room in which to give all of my presentations, room 3. My room was quite large, with sixty seats.
It is a good idea for public speakers to understand Dutch, French, German and English in Belgium. In recognition of the fact that Belgians are multi-lingual, I started each session with "Goede Middag, Bon Jour and Good Afternoon!" and ended each with "Dank U, Merci and Thank you for attending!"
| Time | Wednesday | Thursday |
|---|---|---|
| 12:00 to 12:30pm | What is big data? Architectures and Practical Use Cases | What is big data? Architectures and Practical Use Cases (repeat) |
| 12:45 to 1:15pm | An IBM Storage solution for small and mid-size business? The Storwize V3700! | An IBM Storage solution for small and mid-size business? The Storwize V3700! (repeat) |
| 1:30 to 2:00pm | A New Generation of Storage Tiering | A New Generation of Storage Tiering (repeat) |
| 2:15 to 2:45pm | Replication for High Availability, Business Continuity and Disaster Recovery | Storage, Server and Network in one Flexible and Integrated solution! The PureSystems family |
The sessions were all half-hour slots. The only presentation that I had a challenge getting down to 30 minutes was my session on "New Generation of Storage Tiering" in which I was asked to cover Easy Tier sub-LUN automated tiering, Server-to-Storage cooperative caching, Texas Memory Systems, hierarchical storage Management (HSM), Active Cloud Engine, and SmartCloud Storage!
Helping me out were three local IBM interns. From left to right: Joelle, Clara and Bryan. I hadn't noticed that there were only short breaks between sessions, all of this time consumed with one-on-one discussions with clients, so the interns were kind enough to fetch me snacks and drinks.
Joelle and Bryan speak Dutch, which is similar to the local Flemish language. Clara speaks French, which came in handy for translations.
I would like to thank my room monitors: Jolijn, Ella and Chloe. All three are local college students hired by the conference for the two days to scan name badges and count bodies in seats.
(I had to ask Jolijn to write her name on a piece of paper because it is Dutch and I had no clue how to spell it for this blog post.)
While it might appear that room 3 was "The Tony Pearson Show -- all Tony, all the time!" there were actually worthwhile sessions in the other rooms. Fellow blogger Jon Toigo [known for his DrunkenData blog] presented "Storage Infrastruggle 2013 -- Containing Storage Costs without Sacrificing Access, Protection or Management". My IBM colleague Ron Riffe presented a vendor-neutral look at Storage Hypervisors.
If the attendees wanted copies of my presentations, they were directed to get their name badge scanned at the IBM and I.R.I.S-ICT booth, all the way at the other end of the hall, and my presentations would be emailed to them.
(For those who have missed it, you can find all five of my presentations uploaded to the [IBM Expert Network] on Slideshare.)
Finally, I would like to thank my IBM colleagues who helped me develop and review my presentations: Brigitte Van Den Eynde, Joe Hayward, Jeff Jonas, Tom Deutsch, Chris Saul, Marisol Diaz, Iliana Garcia, Harley Puckett, Jack Arnold, and Steve McKinney.