Continuing my coverage of the [IBM Edge2014 conference], IBM’s premiere conference for System Storage and related products, here are my notes from the afternoon of Day 1 at the general keynote sessions.
Stephen Leonard, IBM General Manager, STG Sales, served as emcee for the general session.
- Tom Rosamilia, IBM Senior Vice President, STG and ISC
- Tom (my fifth-line manager, BTW) started off with a joke: “All this talk about Cloud, but it has to run on hardware somewhere!”
Tom insists it is imperative for clients to build an infrastructure that enables business growth. However, less than 10 percent of clients are ready for Cloud, Analytics, Mobile or Social (CAMS) initiatives. Clients need to embrace these new workloads, ensure right-time decision making, and integrate front-office with back-office IT systems.
Tom is also proud that IBM’s Software Define Storage solutions manage over 1 [Yottabyte] of information today. That’s a billion Petabytes, in case you were wondering. If all of this data was stored on 1TB disk drives, instead of a mix of disk and tape, it would take over one million city blocks to house all the data centers required.
Tom indicated that data is to the 21st century what steam was for the 18th century, electricity was for the 19th century, and hydrocarbons were for the 20th century.
(Fact check: The first [steam engine applied for industrial use] was in 1698, and later improved in 1712. The first industrial-class [electrical generator] was not invented until 1884, and use of electricity was not widespread until the 20th century. Most of the steam and electricity was generated from hydrocarbons such as coal, natural gas or oil. In the 20th century, hydrocarbons were not just used for fuel, but also [plastics, wax, lubricants, and asphalt for roads and parking lots].)
Tom invited Mike Reagan, CIO of Cleveland Clinic in Abu Dhabi, to say a few words on why Infrastructure matters to his IT environment. The [Cleveland Clinic in Abu Dhabi] is a 364-bed multi-specialty facility, the first US-hospital replicated outside of North America. Mike explained their great success partnering with IBM to develop a private cloud solution. Each patient has a bedside tablet that can be used to control the entertainment, lighting, temperature and window shades. It can also be used to Skype with family and friends. The facility is four times the floorspace of the Sands Expo that this event is being helenovo 61 CES awardsld in. - Jamie Thomas, IBM General Manager, Storage and Software Defined Systems
- Jamie feels that data is all about security and economics. Storage admins must become the new [data scientists] for IT.
It is important to integrate traditional “Systems of Record” with new “Systems of Engagement” workloads. Her focus areas are Software Defined Storage, Flash technologies, and storage virtualization. Specific examples included:
- New hardware models of the IBM Storwize family: [SAN Volume Controller 2145-DH8 and Storwize V7000] along with v7.3 software enhancements.
- New 1TB flash modules to offer smaller entry versions of the IBM [FlashSystem 840 and V840].
- High-performance Flash enclosures (HPFE) for the IBM [DS8870 disk system].
- The new [Codename: Elastic Storage] for GPFS v4.1 and related products.
Jamie invited two clients to join her on stage: Mike Smith is CIO of [Lee Memorial Health System] and Greg Lavender is CTO of [Citi]. Mike talked about how important Electronic Health Record [EHR] systems and advanced clinical diagnostics are to help make the right medical decisions. Greg explained that Citi was operating at global scale in 100 countries. Citi partnered with IBM to deploy commodity compute servers, 10GbE/40GbE Ethernet networking and IBM Software Defined Storage to achieve Cloud economics and Cloud scale. Citi can’t afford for server, storage and network admins to work separately.![Jamie Thomas Panel]()
- Adalio Sanchez, IBM General Manager for System x
- Adalio expressed his excitement in Lenovo’s [plans to acquire IBM’s x86 Server Business],
(Note: The deal is not yet complete, awaiting approval from the [Committee on Foreign Investment in the U.S.] over [national security concerns].)
Rather than contesting [Hewlett-Packard CEO Meg Whitman's FUD about this deal], Adalio took the high road, and focused on IBM’s success in the x86 server space. New offerings include the X6 architecture, including PureSystems and the NextScale dense computing platform. Adalio invited Christian Teismann, Lenovo, on stage. Christian re-iterated that IBM and Lenovo are both committed to a smooth transition, continuing IBM’s roadmap for the x86 server platform, and full consideration for the x86 servers and related storage, software, service and maintenance. IBM has had a strong relationship with Lenovo already with the acquisition of IBM’s PC division, and now this deal brings together Chinese supply chain efficiency with Western ideals and design principles. Lenovo has about 46,000 employees, nearly 4,000 R&D engineers, and will acquire an additional 7,500 IBMers when the deal completes. Adalio then invited two clients to join him on stage: Ron Grabyan, Manager of Data Warehousing Services at [Southern California Edison], and Rohit Lal, IT Direction of Coca-Cola. Ron indicated that actionable insights must be fast for productivity. He mentioned the funny [MetLife television commercial featuring Charlie Brown and Lucy] declaring that term-life insurance should cost only “five cents” per month. In the same manner, end users often request that response times should be short. IBM was able to get response times from 40 seconds down to “5 seconds” by helping Ron deploy SAP HANA. Another process that took 53 minutes was down to 1 minute 20 seconds. Rohit talked about their exciting new “Coke One North America” (CONA) project. This will provide consolidated IT services for 6 different Coca-Cola bottlers in North America. With $46 Billion USD in revenue serving 1.8 billion servings of beverage per day, the use of Analytics, SAP HANA and private cloud were critical to their business. The industry recognizes Lenovo as a major x86 player, having had 20 quarters of growth outpacing the market. Lenovo has [won 61 CES 2014 awards], more than the other top five x86 vendors combined. IBM x86 servers are ideal for Enterprise solutions, Cloud, HPC, embedded designs, and IT infrastructure deployments. IBM is #1 in x86 server customer satisfaction, #1 in x86 server up-time, and boasts the #1 fastest x86-based supercomputer. IBM and Lenovo want to take this to the next level: #1 leadership in every x86 category.
For those on Twitter, my handle is @az990tony and the hashtag for this event is #IBMEdge.