This EMC World was different from previous conferences for me as I spent almost as much time in NDA sessions as regular breakout sessions.

The good = hearing lots of roadmap info and being able give input. The bad = I can’t blog as much. 😉

Varrow side-note: wouldn’t you want to work with a partner who has access to this kind of info ahead of time and can give guidance based on knowing what’s coming? (even if I can’t talk about it publicly yet? 😉 Ok…..end of advertisement.

Second side-note: if you have sufficient NDA with EMC, contact me and I can send you links to notes from the various sessions – contact me at amiller at varrow dot com.

Note: apologies for the prior lack of clarity – in general this is partner only info (have had some customers under NDA contact me asking for info – I’d recommend checking with your EMC account team for this kind of info).

So what were the sessions? Here are some high-level notes…

• VNX/VMAX Futures – 1 hour Monday morning
  • Met with Denis Vilfort (Sr. Evangelist, VNX & VMAX) and Matt Cowger
  • Great thanks to Matt Cowger for setting this up – I was basically the +1 with Chris Horn and Jason Nash. Discussion around…
  • VNX and VMAX similarities and differences.
  • Potential for how the new VNXe impacts the current lineup and sweet spots/positioning
  • Cores – lots of cores in the various platforms and what we do with them/what we could do with them
  • More info on Project Liberty – virtual VNX – first mentioned by Chad here
  • VMAX & XtremIO – where overlap and where don’t
  • SSD endurance and impact
  • VNX roadmap (both VNXe and core VNX/VNX2)
  • Some of this may sound vague…but suffice it to say there was a lot of highly NDA discussion under each topic
• VMware Software Defined Storage NDA Roadmap & Input Session – 1.5 hours Wednesday morning
  • Sponsored by Chuck Hollis – Vijay Ramachandran presenting and multiple other VMware folks/Product Managers there to review
    • Vijay was interviewed on VSAN here.
  • Focused on partners – Chris, Jason, and myself were there along with 2 other partners
  • LOTS of feedback from Chris/Jason/myself on what we’re seeing in the market and what to focus on as far as roadmap priority – felt almost like a focused PTAB session at times.
  • Next 3 year roadmap of Software Defined Storage
  • Focus on the application – SDS allows us to do that much more than before.
  • Roadmap info = I can’t even really hint at this….suffice it to say VMware is heavily investing into VSAN and the roadmap reflects that. Having been doing storage for the last 12 years now, it’s fascinating to see ideas from other platforms come back around with mild to major variations.
  • Organizational impact – if the operational team isn’t already converged, there’s usually not much interest. BUT….that environment is ripe for major financial disruption like it or not.
• VMAX Beta Briefing – this was all day Thursday.
  • I was able to attend this due to being EMC Elect (thanks Sean Thulin). Chris Horn and Jason Nash were there due to Varrow getting a VMAX beta unit in our lab soon.
  • Review of upcoming hardware – engine sizing, drive types, DAE types, flash impact.
  • Changes in FAST – lots coming here.
  • TimeFinder – new and improved items.
  • ProtectPoint – first mentioned in Area 52 Keynote (live blog on that here) and much deeper dive on how it works/how to set it up
  • New FAST VP management methods – major changes coming here….the room gave a lot of feedback.