W. Curtis Preston launched his own series of Backup Central Live! seminars for 2011

Last week, after the Exec Event in Palo Alto, I joined my friend W. Curtis Preston for his first Backup Central Live! event. Curtis has spent years educating IT pros about data protection, this was the first week of a new series of self-produced events. And let me tell you, although I’ve seen him present dozens of times, Curtis was really in his element here. He held the packed room enthralled, and the vendor sponsors I talked to were very pleased about the event!

Introducing Backup Central Live!

The Backup Central Live! series are day-long seminars across the USA in 2011. Each event includes over 3 hours of content from “Mr. Backup”, W. Curtis Preston, as well as presentations from Jacob Farmer and the sponsoring vendors. The seminars are free for qualified end-users, which includes most of the readers of this blog!

Curtis and company will cover the challenges of backing up and recovering data in a variety of settings:

• Virtualized servers (e.g. VMware, Hyper-V, Xen)
• Very large servers and data centers
• Remote offices and laptops
• Data retained for multiple years

The session also includes technical detail about key products and technologies:

• Cloud Backup Services
• Deduplication
• Continuous data protection (CDP) and near-CDP
• Archive software
• Tape and its proper role

Attendees even get free breakfast and lunch, which was of a good hotel caterer quality in my opinion.

Stephen’s Stance

The Backup Central Live! crew does a great job putting together a professional event

I knew Curtis could put together quality backup content, but the crew deserves credit for such a professional and successful event. They attracted some great sponsors, too, including AppAsure, Aptare, FalconStor, NEC, Quantum, Spectra Logic, and Cirtas. And Jacob Farmer’s involvement was a pleasant surprise, too: I’ve always enjoyed the deep technical conversations I’ve had with him!

If you enjoyed my own backup, archiving, and storage seminars in the past, I know you’ll love this event. The next Backup Central Live! cities are as follows. If you’ll be around, you really ought to attend!

• Orlando, FL Feb 1 Register here
• Houston, TX Feb 8 Register here
• Chicago, IL Feb 22 Register here

My only suggestion for the crew is that they get a bigger room next time!

© Stephen Foskett for Gestalt IT, 2011. | See W. Curtis Preston’s Backup Central Live!
Read more posts categorized as Desktop, Events, Featured, Server Virtualization, Storage

Tech Field Day has come a long way since the first event back in 2009. The hectic rush to pull together delegates, presenters, and logistics has been replaced by a steady and predictable process. A crew of professionals has been assembled to make everything happen smoothly, from contracts and paperwork to travel planning to streaming video. After selecting over 50 presentations and almost 100 delegates, we’ve gotten good at making this thing happen.

But we didn’t start the Field Day series to become event planners; we wanted to build a community of the new guard of freelance writers, bloggers, and other influential folks that included interesting companies in IT infrastructure. Measuring success can be challenging, but the surest metric is repeat visits: Most of the companies that presented in the past have asked to join us for another event, as have most of the delegates.

The two previous Data Robotics presentations are favorites among the Field Day delegates!

This is why I’m so pleased to announce our first three-time Tech Field Day presenter: Data Robotics was quick to come on board for our very first event, and returned for Tech Field Day 2. Now they will make a third presentation as part of Tech Field Day 5! Data Robotics will host the afternoon presentation at their headquarters in Santa Clara, following Symantec’s morning session on Thursday, February 10.

Data Robotics gave those first Field Day delegates an advance peak at their new Drobo S and DroboElite models, and launched their Drobo FS product at Tech Field Day 2. Will the Drobo product line continue to grow at Tech Field Day 5? I’ll definitely be paying attention! The Field Day presentations, including Data Robotics, will be streamed live on February 10 and 11!

The new Sr. Director of Product Marketing at Data Robotics, Mario Blandini, explained why he wanted to bring the company back a third time. ”Tech Field Day events are a great value for us at Data Robotics,” he told me. “There is never a shortage of productive input among the delegates, and the intimate gathering makes for fantastic technology discussions.” I couldn’t have put it better myself. We’re glad to have you back!

© Stephen Foskett for Gestalt IT, 2011. | Data Robotics Is First Three-Time Tech Field Day Presenter
Read more posts categorized as Events, Exclusive, Featured, Storage, Top Story

Gestalt IT is pleased to announce our next Tech Field Day event. The Field Day delegates will convene in and around San Jose, CA on February 9 and 10, 2011. There, they will engage some of the most innovative and interesting IT infrastructure companies, with leading enterprise software provider, Symantec, headlining.

Follow the news at our Tech Field Day 5 page!

The unique Field Day℠ concept brings together as equals two groups that rarely meet: Product vendors and independent thought leaders. The event includes a dozen hand-picked delegates and just five speaking slots. Both vendors and delegates are nominated and selected by an independent team of volunteers based on interest, technology and passion. The resulting discussions are packed with technical information, with feedback and questions flowing both ways across the table. To expand access, the event will also be streamed live on the Internet.

Delegates will spend two to four hours with each vendor, learning about their products, technology, and relevance to modern IT practices. The Gestalt IT Tech Field Day events have attracted some of the biggest names in information technology, and this event is no exception. Symantec will headline, bringing the delegates on-site for a half-day session. Other presenting sponsors will be announced in the coming month.

Only about a dozen hand-picked delegates will attend this Tech Field Day event. Our selection process focuses on the unique characteristics of thought leaders: Independence, open-mindedness, technical knowledge, and influence are key criteria. The global team of delegates come from a variety of backgrounds, including server virtualization, enterprise storage, networking, security, and systems administration.

Field Day alumni, Bill Hill, Scott D. Lowe, Devang Panchigar, and W. Curtis Preston will be joined by new delegates, Sean Clark, Eric Siebert, and others. Each has distinguished himself in his community, and each was selected by a team of delegates from past events.

About Gestalt IT and Tech Field Day

Complete delegate and sponsor lists are available at the Gestalt IT web site. We encourage those interested in IT infrastructure topics to follow the delegates on Gestalt IT (gestaltit.com), Twitter (bit.ly/TFD5TL), Facebook (bit.ly/TFDGFB), LinkedIn (bit.ly/TFDLI), Flickr (bit.ly/TFDpics) and Vimeo (bit.ly/TFDvids).

The whole is greater than the sum of the parts. This is the concept behind Gestalt IT – that experts in a variety of disciplines are stronger when they work together. As a group, we formed a media organization focused on promoting community among independent thought leaders in IT infrastructure topics. Our productions include the Gestalt IT web site and the series of Tech Field Day events. Gestalt IT Media LLC community organizer, Stephen Foskett, can be contacted at GestaltIT.com, sfoskett@gestaltit.com, or (508)451-9532.

© Stephen Foskett for Gestalt IT, 2010. | Announcing Tech Field Day 5: Returning to Silicon Valley in February 2011!
Read more posts categorized as All, Events, Exclusive, Featured, Networking, Security, Server Virtualization, Storage, Top Story

The Tech Field Day staff have been working behind the scenes to improve the quality and timeliness of video output from our event. We are pleased to present the first result of this work, in the form of live streaming from Tech Field Day 4 in San Jose this week.

After fighting yet more networking gremlins, Tech Field Day resumed at The Hoffman Agency wit a presentation by SolarWinds. We had come to expect quite a lot from this company after their fine presentation at Net Field Day in September, and the delegates were not disappointed. SolarWinds discussed their various management products, as well as their approach to high availability and database design.


The Delegate roundtable revealed that almost everyone knew of SolarWinds, and two used their products in production! Many positive comments were made about the product as well as their “Thwack” online community.

© Stephen Foskett for Gestalt IT, 2010. | SolarWinds: Live From Tech Field Day San Jose
Read more posts categorized as Events, Exclusive, Networking, Storage

The Tech Field Day staff have been working behind the scenes to improve the quality and timeliness of video output from our event. We are pleased to present the first result of this work, in the form of live streaming from Tech Field Day 4 in San Jose this week.

Day 2 of Tech Field Day began with data management startup, Actifio. The Boston-based software company just recently came out of stealth and were eager to discuss their technology with the Field Day delegates.

The Actifio presentation was led by Ash Ashutosh, a well-known storage industry veteran. Ash discussed the data management issues faced by companies today and his personal decision to lead the company to address them. Rather than duplicating both effort and data, Actifio attempts to address backup and disaster recovery in a unified fashion.

The following delegate roundtable discussion began with a consideration of the company’s products but quickly turned to the state of the industry. Would companies buy from a startup? Is this a sign of a new trend in which intelligence is moved away from storage capacity? These are the questions addressed by the delegates.

© Stephen Foskett for Gestalt IT, 2010. | Actifio: Live From Tech Field Day San Jose
Read more posts categorized as Events, Exclusive, Storage

The Tech Field Day staff have been working behind the scenes to improve the quality and timeliness of video output from our event. We are pleased to present the first result of this work, in the form of live streaming from Tech Field Day 4 in San Jose this week.

NAS acceleration specialist Avere, led by industry veteran Ron Bianchini, was the third presenter at Tech Field Day 4 in San Jose. Ron and marketing VP Rebecca Thompson led the team through a rousing technical presentation, and left many delegates saying they were very impressed.

Following the Avere presentation, the delegates spent 20 minutes discussing the technology, application ideas, and the future of the company.

© Stephen Foskett for Gestalt IT, 2010. | Avere: Live From Tech Field Day San Jose
Read more posts categorized as Events, Exclusive, Storage

The Tech Field Day staff have been working behind the scenes to improve the quality and timeliness of video output from our event. We are pleased to present the first result of this work, in the form of live streaming from Tech Field Day 4 in San Jose this week.

The second presentation at Tech Field Day San Jose was by I/O virtualization pioneer, Aprius. This session began with CEO, Varun Nagaraj, who set the stage for VP of product marketing, Craig Thompson. Also contributing were VP of systems engineering, Afshin Daghi, and founder and chief architect, Peter Kirkpatrick.


Following the Aprius presentation, the Field Day delegates regrouped for our roundtable discussion. Our chat ranged over the technology and spent much time discussing the appropriate use cases for I/O virtualization. We also talked about the likely outcome for the company: Whether to license or sell out.

© Stephen Foskett for Gestalt IT, 2010. | Aprius: Live From Tech Field Day San Jose
Read more posts categorized as Events, Networking, Server Virtualization

The Tech Field Day staff have been working behind the scenes to improve the quality and timeliness of video output from our event. We are pleased to present the first result of this work, in the form of live streaming from Tech Field Day 4 in San Jose this week.

Tech Field Day in San Jose began at the NetApp briefing center. The session kicked off with an introduction by co-founder and engineer, Dave Hitz. Dave spent the rest of the session in the audience, contributing his knowledge to every session. Next up was Steve Daniel, who discussed benchmarks and performance. Steve also covered the role of NAS and SAN in today’s datacenter.

Joshua Konkle talked about cloud and object storage NetApp’s acquisition of Bycast. At our prodding, Konkle also talked a bit about pNFS and alternative object storage approaches.

After Konkle was Greg Kleiman who initiated a discussion of the role of tiering and caching in storage. (We will revisit this topic with Aprius this afternoon!)

Santosh Rao covered the development of NetApp’s storage operating system, ONTAP. After discussing the progress from 7.x to 8.x, Rao discussed the new features in 8.0.1, introduced just this week.

Our morning with NetApp concluded with a joint discussion about the new FlexPod offering, along with Cisco and VMware. NetApp was represented by “virtual storage guy”, Vaughn Stewart. Joining him was Ravi Neelakant of VMware and Thomas Scheibe of Cisco. The FlexPod discussion was a highlight for many Field Day delegates, who compared it to “the elephant in the room”, the VCE vBlock.

We finished up with our roundtable discussion focused on NetApp’s morning session. This discussion will be posted to our podcast feed, but here’s a sneak preview!

Our video crew also grabbed some interviews with the NetApp folks, presented at the top and below.

© Stephen Foskett for Gestalt IT, 2010. | NetApp: Live From Tech Field Day San Jose
Read more posts categorized as Events, Exclusive, Server Virtualization, Storage

The unique Field Day℠ concept brings together as equals two groups that rarely meet: Product vendors and independent thought leaders. The event includes 11 delegates and just five speaking slots. Both vendors and delegates are nominated and selected by an independent team of volunteers based on interest, technology and passion. The resulting discussions are packed with technical information, with feedback and questions flowing both ways across the table.

Presenting Sponsors

Just seven companies will sponsor and present at Tech Field Day 4. Delegates will spend two to four hours with each vendor, learning about their products, technology, and relevance to modern IT practices. The Gestalt IT Tech Field Day events have attracted some of the biggest names in information technology, and this event is no exception.

Tech Field Day 4 begins Thursday, November 11 at the NetApp campus in Sunnyvale. We will spend the morning learning about their unified storage technology and looking into their latest product updates. After lunch, the delegates will move to the PlugandPlay Tech Center to learn about the virtual I/O products developed by Aprius. Avere Systems is up next, presenting their tiered NAS appliances.

Friday begins with data management startup, Actifio. Intel hosts the delegates next, covering converged networking and their latest Xeon server processor technology. Friday afternoon will be hosted by The Hoffman Group in San Jose. There, Field Day veterans, SolarWinds, will cover their management and monitoring software. We will conclude the event with a look at the cloud backup capabilities made possible by Asigra.

Selected Delegates

Only eleven hand-picked delegates will attend this Tech Field Day event. Our selection process focuses on the unique characteristics of thought leaders: Independence, open-mindedness, technical knowledge, and influence are key criteria. The global team of delegates come from a variety of backgrounds, including server virtualization, enterprise storage, networking, security, and systems administration.

Field Day alumni, Brandon Carroll, Matt Simmons, Derek Schauland, and Robin Harris will be joined by seven new delegates: Jon Owings, Edward Aractingi, Frank Owen, Chris Dearden, Bill Hill, Paul Miller, and Joe Onisick. Each has distinguished himself in his community, and each was selected by a team of delegates from past events.

About Gestalt IT and Tech Field Day

Complete delegate and sponsor lists are available at the Gestalt IT web site. We encourage those interested in IT infrastructure topics to follow the delegates on Gestalt IT (gestaltit.com), Twitter (bit.ly/TFD4TL and bit.ly/TFD4TS), Facebook (bit.ly/TFDGFB), LinkedIn (bit.ly/TFDLI), Flickr (bit.ly/TFDpics) and Vimeo (bit.ly/TFDvids).

For the first time, Tech Field Day will be streamed live over the Internet. Visit the special Tech Field Day 4 live stream page during the event to follow along!

The whole is greater than the sum of the parts. This is the concept behind Gestalt IT – that experts in a variety of disciplines are stronger when they work together. As a group, we formed a media organization focused on promoting community among independent thought leaders in IT infrastructure topics. Our productions include the Gestalt IT web site and the series of Tech Field Day events. Gestalt IT Media LLC community organizer, Stephen Foskett, can be contacted at http://GestaltIT.com, sfoskett@gestaltit.com, or (508)451-9532.

© Stephen Foskett for Gestalt IT, 2010. | Announcing Tech Field Day 4: This Week in San Jose!
Read more posts categorized as All, Cloud Computing, Desktop, Events, Exclusive, Featured, Networking, Security, Server Virtualization, Storage, Tech, Top Story

Learn more at Gestalt IT’s Networking Field Day page!

The unique Field Day℠ concept brings together as equals two groups that rarely meet: Product vendors and independent thought leaders. The event includes a dozen delegates and just seven speaking slots. Both vendors and delegates are nominated and selected by an independent team of volunteers based on interest, technology and passion. The resulting discussions are packed with technical information, with feedback and questions flowing both ways across the table.

Sponsors and Delegates

Just seven companies will sponsor and present at our 2010 Networking Field Day event. Delegates will spend hours with each vendor, learning about their products, technology, and relevance to modern data networking practices. The Gestalt IT Tech Field Day events have attracted some of the biggest names in information technology, and this event is no exception. Our presenting sponsor list for this event includes industry leaders Arista, Cradlepoint, Force10, HP, Juniper, SolarWinds, and Xsigo.

“We value the blogger community but since most bloggers operate virtually, finding a means to cost-effectively meet them not only face to face, but as a group, is extraordinarily valuable  to us” notes Steve Garrison of Force10 Networks. ”It’s rare to get the chance to sit down and have a candid conversation with the folks behind some of the best practical guidance and thinking in the networking space,” agrees Josh Stephens, SolarWinds‘ Head Geek and VP of Technology.

The Tech Field Day delegates have immense influence on the ways that products and companies are understood in the IT industry. The world of media has changed, with social media and blogging gaining importance, impact and reach. The Field Day events provide an opportunity for these writers (and their readers) to interact with top technology providers.

Only twelve delegates were nominated for this Tech Field Day event. Our selection process focuses on the unique characteristics of thought leaders: Independence, open-mindedness, technical knowledge, and influence are key criteria. The global team of delegates come from a variety of backgrounds, but all are focused on high-end data networking.

Two-time Field Day delegate Bob Plankers commented, “Networking Field Day offers me access to networking vendors so that I can talk directly and honestly with them about their technology, to learn and ask questions and give feedback. There is no other event like this, where marketing takes a back seat to the technology itself, and I’m honored and excited to be part of it.” New Field Day delegate Jennifer Huber agrees, adding “I’m looking forward to learning about technologies I’m not familiar with and bringing back that new information to my co-workers as well as anyone who might be following my blog.”

The Networking Tech Field Day delegates (L-R): Brandon Carroll, Stephen Foskett, Jeremy Stretch, Jennifer Huber, Bob Plankers, Josh Horton, Jeremy Gaddis, Jeremy Filliben, Greg Ferro, Ivan Pepelnjak, Steve Rossen, Ethan Banks, Terry Slattery

About Gestalt IT and Tech Field Day

Complete delegate and sponsor lists are available at the Gestalt IT web site. We encourage those interested in enterprise networking to follow the delegates on Gestalt IT (gestaltit.com), Twitter (bit.ly/NFD1TL), Facebook (bit.ly/TFDGFB), LinkedIn (bit.ly/TFDLI), Flickr (bit.ly/TFDpics) and Vimeo (bit.ly/TFDvids).

The whole is greater than the sum of the parts. This is the concept behind Gestalt IT – that experts in a variety of disciplines are stronger when they work together. As a group, we formed a media organization focused on promoting community among independent thought leaders in IT infrastructure topics. Our productions include the Gestalt IT web site and the series of Tech Field Day events. Community organizer, Stephen Foskett, can be contacted at http://GestaltIT.com, sfoskett@gestaltit.com, or (508)451-9532.

Field Day is a registered trademark of Gestalt IT Media LLC, an Ohio company.

© Stephen Foskett for Gestalt IT, 2010. | Announcing Gestalt IT Networking Field Day 2010
Read more posts categorized as All, Events, Exclusive, Featured, Networking, Top Story