So the Storage Professionals Group started as storage, virtualization networking group on LinkedIn about a year and a half ago. Over this year, the group has grown phenomenally and has just surpassed 5000 members.

It did take about 12 months to grow to 2000 members but the last 3000 members came in over the past 4 months. As the economic challenges continue, people rely on social / professional networking sites to promote their public profiles and get involved in social networking groups to hunt for new opportunities.

Storage Professionals is a group of 5000+ members with strong storage, virtualization backgrounds. As we all know these days, part of every person’s resume is a link to their public profile (LinkedIn), a blog address and possibly addresses to publically connect to them.  

The Storage Professionals Group is growing at an average of 30-40 members a day.

These social media groups open up opportunities to network with all the group members, without having a connection to them. In short, if you are looking to connect / email to any of the members, it’s an open door to do so.

Please read the group details below.  

To Join the Storage Professionals Group:

http://www.linkedin.com/groups?gid=93470

Storage Professionals Group Description:

Group of Data Storage Professionals – SAN, NAS, CAS, DASD, Cloud Optimized Storage (Cloud Computing), Virtualization that follow trends and products from leading manufacturers like EMC, HDS (Hitachi), HP, NetApp, 3Par, Data Domain, Pillar Data, VMware, Citrix for Service, Support, Product Features, Networking, Jobs, Message Board, Discussions, Blogs. Storage Engineers, Storage Architects, Datacenter Managers, SAN Implementation Specialist, Storage Managers join to discuss issues and projects related to Storage. If you are certified on EMC, VMware, HP, HDS (Hitachi), NetApp or are an Industry leader or visionary please feel free to join this group.

Group Discussions:

http://www.linkedin.com/groupAnswers?viewQuestions=&gid=93470&forumID=3&sik=1243212786310

Over the past 7 days:

21 New News Articles

38 New Discussions

250+ New Members

Group News:

http://www.linkedin.com/news?display=&sik=1243212803613

Job Board:

http://www.linkedin.com/groupAnswers?viewQuestions=&gid=93470&forumID=5&sik=1243212786315

More than 50 Job postings over the past 7 days

To Network with the 5000+ Group Members:

http://www.linkedin.com/groups?viewMembers=&gid=93470&sik=1243211890893

To connect to me on LinkedIn:

http://www.linkedin.com/in/devangpanchigar

With this group we are currently looking for active members to be group managers that would promote various activities within the group. If you are an individual and would like to explore this, please feel free to email us at devang @ storagenerve . com

Happy LinkedIn’g!!!!

To read about my previous blog post on EMC World 2009, please follow the links below.

To read about EMC World 2009: Day 0 (Sunday – 05/17/2009)

And about EMC World 2009: Day 1 (Monday – 05/18/2009)

And about EMC World 2009: Day 2 (Tuesday – 05/19/2009)

So really today was the last day at EMC World. All the TC’s, sales and marketing folks headed back. Things were busy in the morning and started dying down as the day progressed. Today’s day was primarily focused on sessions, there were no keynotes.

So I guess everyone has heard about the 72 hour effect. You walk into a conference and for the next 72 hours the OEM will just keep on pumping information about them, their products, and their services, etc, etc.  People from these conferences go back home with tons of gifts and other collectible items. They leave with an agenda to go back and change their entire infrastructure (add new software, add new hardware, correct wrong things, etc, etc), but are they successful.

The question is what have you got from this conference, was it useful for you? As Frank Hauck said in a keynote, before you go back make a list of 5 important things you want to accomplish and try to achieve it in the possible shortest duration.  

I have been to some other conferences and they haven’t been as attractive as this EMC conference. But then I have also been to some Microsoft Conferences, and they just hammer you with all the MS products, so by the time you go back, you just feel you want to change every OS in your environment and every application in your environment with MS products……but again every OEM has a different agenda with these conferences.

What did you think about this EMC conference (EMC World 2009) if you attended, or heard about it on Twitter?

Highlights

Quite a few good sessions today, attended several of them related to CX4, V-Max and FCOE. Also a ton of customers and EMC’ers turned around for the test for the bone marrow (DNA test). There was a short form to fill out and some swabs to be taken, but relatively a very short process. Please read the blog post about Nick from EMC and his battle with leukemia.

Speakers

No keynotes today….

Pictures

No Pictures today, but it was a rainy day, I don’t think I have seen 4 days of continuous heavy rains ever…may be I am wrong.

Videos

Sorry didn’t use my flip camera today…

Also look for some interesting blog post on EMC World 2009 on StorageNerve, hopefully later this week.

Exhibitors

The solutions pavilion was also open today for almost half a day. Hope you had a good change to cover most of the vendors.

Technology

More Technology blogs coming up on StorageNerve.com and Gestaltit.com. You might see some collobration going on with some Gestaltit Writers on some common topics. 

The Blogging Lounge

The blogging lounge was full today, but everyone just looked so much tired. I think the 72 hour effect is true here as well. You can drink as much as you want every night, you can stay up at the bar hanging out until 2 or 3 am in the morning, but it’s just matter of time, it will catch-up with you.

At the blogging lounge we had @storagenerve, @edsai, @storageio, @storagedc, @storagezilla, @thestorageanarchy, @stu, @levdevenna, @davegraham, etc.

Had some good discussions with @edsai and @storageio. Also one on one discussion with @stroagedc.

The after Party

So EMC appreciation party was today at Universal Studios. It was a great place to be, but as you know it was raining pretty hard when we all got there. Everyone walking around with their ponchos on and soaked clothes and shoes.

Along with Merrick (no twitter account), @edsai and @storagezilla, went to a few rides, it was good. Had some food at an international food place and then a mojito party at the Rosen Center hotel.

Highlights for Tomorrow

There are a few courses on Documentum, Avamar, and Recoverypoint tomorrow.

EMC World 2009 comes to an end tomorrow. Most or all the folks will be heading back tomorrow. If you are in the FL area and are traveling, please have a safe flight home.

Alright…., wrapped up day 2 at EMC World 2009. Unfortunately no pictures or videos taken today.

To read about EMC World 2009: Day 0 (Sunday – 05/17/2009)

And about EMC World 2009: Day 1 (Monday – 05/18/2009)

Highlights

Attended a partner luncheon and couple of sessions on V-Max in the morning and then a Clariion session in the afternoon. EMC bloggers lounge was quite crowded in the morning and as day progressed, activity faded. In the afternoon there was a photo session with of the blogging community, here is a link on Blog Stu (Sorry I am not in the picture….had to attend a session).

Solutions Pavilion was still the highlight of the day, with some heavy activity in there, quite a few blog post by Beth and Storagezilla on their take on some of the vertical market providers.

Got 60 mins of face time one on one with Greg Schulz (@storageio) and his views about data center optimization and some of his visions into the next tidal way after virtualization.

Also another 45 mins of chat with @stevetodd (Steve Todd) and his views into how the storage industry has shaped over the past 15 years.

These meetings are great, as much as I love attending the sessions; it is great to talk to the industry experts about their views.

Speakers

Speeches by Mark Lewis (President, EMC Content Management and Archiving Division)

Howard Elias (President, EMC Global Services and Resource Management Software)

Frank Hauck (Executive Vice President, EMC Storage Division and Global Marketing and Customer Quality).

Pictures

Videos

Exhibitors

Technology

Look forward to some new blog posts on Gestalt IT and Storagenerve over the next week for some of our views on Clariion (SAN, NAS & CAS) platforms.

The Blogging Lounge

Busy morning at the EMC bloggers lounge.

Spotted: @storagenerve, @chrismevans, @edsai, @storageio, @stevetodd, @chuckhollis, @storagezilla, @stu, @davegraham, @chadsakac, @lendevanna, @gregorywhite, @jtablat, @basraayman, @davevallente, …..

The after Party

A dinner party with some EMCer’s and Bloggers tonight at Portfino Bay Restaurant, @stevetodd & his wife, @davidspencer, @edsai, @storagezilla

Highlights for Tomorrow

No more keynotes, only sessions….

Look for some technical data next week on some of the sessions I have attended related to V-Max, Clariion, etc.

An exciting day (1) at EMC World 2009.

To read about EMC World 2009: Day 0 (Sunday – 05/17/2009)

I guess I have been lucky over the past two days, yesterday was the early registration gift of an IPOD Nano (8GB) and today was winning the flip camera at the EMC Bloggers Lounge. Later in the blog post see pictures and videos from this flip camera.

Tomorrow we have another surprise gift from iomega at the EMC bloggers lounge, trying to see if I can be lucky 3 days in a row now.

Highlights

The highlights of the day were around the keynote speeches and really some much focused Clariion and V-Max sessions.

EMC Bloggers lounge was another happening place. Outside the bloggers lounge, crowds of people watching the flat screen TV monitors displaying EMC World Pictures, Twitters, again great work by @lendevanna and his team.

Solutions Pavilion as usual had a lot of exciting stuff around some vertical market space.

Also repeated heard these messages, EMC does not discuss any future products and features related to its products until it is released. If you would like to see any enhancements to EMC products, please get in touch with your account managers. I think the market competitiveness is causing issues where the OEM’s are not even offering a glimpse of what we might see in the next releases.

We (@storagenerve & @edsai) got absolute 30 mins of face time with Barry Burke to pick his brain about EMC Symmetrix V-Max and where he sees the play for EMC and how the market will kind of follow certain technologies over the next few years. It was a very impressive discussion with him and kind of pick his brain about the symmetrix technology.

Speakers

So I missed the keynote speeches this morning by Joe Tucci and Paul Maritz. Had a very important conference call to attend and it did not wrap up until 11:00 AM.

One thing I heard from various folks, the keynotes were focused on technologies around Cloud and Virtualization, but the crowd didn’t hear anything different than what they have heard in the past at VMware World or VMware partner conference.

Saw Frank Hauck walking around by the bloggers lounge this afternoon, he has been spotted several times today near the solutions pavilion.

Pictures

Just look at these guys, they are all smiling and happy.
Picture 1: From the left we have @edsai, @storagezilla, @davegraham, @chrismevans, @basraayman at the EMC Bloggers Lounge.

Picture 2: Another kool hangout spot, EMC Bloggers Lounge

Picture 3:  The EMC Celerra CREATURE

Videos

My first attempts at making movies……..

EMC Symmetrix V-Max at EMC World 2009

EMC Bloggers Lounge

EMC Bloggers Lounge

Axxana Black Box Chat with Alex Winokur

Exhibitors

Sanpulse: Met up with Inna Gordin and Peter Mehta from Sanpulse. Trying to setup a meeting with them next week to see how the migration tool operates and how it might overall help customers minimize migration times and cost.

(I have no current affiliations with SanPulse)

Axxana: Black box recovery device, primarily used with Asynchronous Replication. Using this box, customers can achieve nearly 0 recovery point objectives. Please see the video attached above. Had a chance to meet up with Alex Winokur, Ph.D.,  Liat Malki and Eli Efrat.

These guys are just so smart, very impressed by Alex, Liat and Eli.

(I have no current affiliations with Axxana)

Technology

Attended the V-Max Sessions and gathered tons of info. Look out for the V-Max Speeds and Feeds over the next few days, you will be surprised to see some facts.

The Blogging Lounge

During the day we had quite a few bloggers come in and out of the lounge, primarily we saw presence of  @chrismevans, @edsai,  @basraayman, @lendevanna, @davegraham, @aproov, @jtabar, @storageio, @storagezilla, @mike_fishman, @storageanarchy, @stu and @dmartek,. Sorry if I forgot your name……

More contacts to follow up tomorrow.

The after Party

So dinner was at TGIF’s with some of the twitter/blogger friends…..okay food…….

Highlights for Tomorrow

@chuckhollis will spend an hour at the EMC Bloggers lounge between 1:00 PM and 2:00 PM.

EMC Bloggers Lounge photo sessions at 2:00 PM

@sfoskett, @chrismevans, planning to setup a skype video conference at 2:00 PM

Look out for more videos and pictures tomorrow.

Agenda for tomorrow……

7:30 to 8:30         Breakfast

8:00 to 9:00         Best Practice for Symmetrix V-max configuration

Clariion CX4: Software, Technical, Install, Provision, Manage, Tune

Symmetrix Auto Provisioning Groups, SMC, SYMCLI

9:30 to 10:30       Clariion CX4: New Architecture

EMC Powerpath and Powerpath VE

Symmetrix Tiered Storage Best practices and power of FAST

11:00 to 12:00    Saymmetrix Virtual Provisioning

12:00 to 2:00       Lunch

1:00 to 2:00         EMC Bloggers Lounge Q&A

2:00 to 2:30         Photo session and Skype

2:45 to 3:45         Symmetrix virtual Provisioning Hands On

4:15 to 5:15         New Storage features in VMware Infrastructure

3:45 to 5:30         Keynote speech by Frank Hauck