Who?  SSD/Flash/NAND storage companies,  ecosystem players, and press, industry analysts, bloggers, influencers.  All in one room at one time.

Why?  Even “experts” in solid state storage technology agree…the technology, the industry and the messaging are misunderstood.  This summit is designed to promote the entire solid state storage industry as well as to learn and discuss how vendors can create more cohesive, unified messaging.   Plus it’s a great place to network with key industry folks.

Analyst and Press Relations - this is a fantastic way to generate PR for your company, to create and nurture analyst and press relations.  And it’s very a cost-effective way to network with and meet 20 or so press/analysts in one place dedicated to solid state storage discussions.  All of the press and analysts for both the Flash Memory Summit and for the Solid State Storage Conference are being coordinated by us – so that we can keep a well-coordinated line between the technical event and the business/PR/AR event.

When?  August 13-14 in Santa Clara, CA.

Even Better?  This conference is partnering with and will be  co-located within the Flash Memory Summit at the convention center.

Even More Betterer?  The 2nd day of the conference is going to revolve around end-users.  We will invite 50-100 carefully selected real, honest-to-God end-users who are using Flash or are planning to use Flash.  We will have a few end-user case study time slots to talk about real-world use cases.  We will also invite end-users to participate in a panel discussion discussing trends, purchasing decisions, issues solved with SSD/Flash products, predictions, etc.

Mini-Exhibition – as part of day 2, we will have space (5′ table with power)  for each vendor to allow conversations with end-users and partners.  Our goal is to facilitate one-on-one discussions between vendors and end-users – we are not promoting this mini-exhibition as a lead-generation forum (though that may happen….), rather as a way to gather information from real users and to share your products with a larger audience.

Delegates (press, analysts, bloggers, influencers) already requesting to attend include:

• Benjamin Woo – Managing Director, Neuralytix
• Chris Preimesberger, eWeek, Associated Press
• George Crump, Storage Switzerland
• Eric Slack, Storage Switzerland
• Rich Castagna – TechTarget, Storage Magazine
• Joe Unsworth, Gartner
• Dave Reine, The Clipper Group
• Jim Bagley, SSG NOW
• Ray Lucchesi, RayOnStorage.com
• Jo Maitland, GigaOm Pro
• Dan Iacono, IDC
• Mark Peters, ESG
• Enrico Signoretti, Juku.it
• John Webster, Evaluator Group
• Howard Marks, NAOL, Network Computing
• Others TBD (based on the number of vendors attending)

Next Generation Solid State Storage Conference – Program

Purpose:  SSD/Flash is hot and it’s widely talked about.  But nowhere else is there a laser-focused event that caters to marketing, messaging and business side of the market.

Why have a Solid State Storage Conference?  Users, despite vendors best efforts, are still concerned about reliability. Vendors are doing a lot of things to improve reliability, but it is a message that is lost on the users. They need  to understand what the reliability issues are AND what the different techniques are that vendors are using to address those.

Topics and Discussion Points:

• “Where is the best place to deploy Solid State?   In the server, as a networked appliance, or as a SAN array replacement” – Moderated discussion – Industry expert.
• “How to accelerate end user adoption of solid state flash?   What’s holding back faster adoption?”  Moderated discussion – Analyst.
• “Flash in Production:  3 end-users to describe why they went with flash and their real world experiences”  Moderated discussion – Journalist.
• “The future of solid state technology”  Presentation by a leading semiconductor supplier.
• “Solid state performance benchmarks and claims:  A million IOPS and a large bridge in New York (or some oceanfront property in Arizona)”  Presentation by an industry expert.
• Flash market overview including size and growth rates of the various flash segments and overall trends.”  Presentation by research analyst(s)
• Individual company briefings with delegates – custom schedule created by the ExecEvent

By meeting with industry influencers at the Summit, the desired result is to raise the importance of next-generation SSD/Flash storage and bring it top of mind – with the resulting articles, reports and discussions focused on educating end users on the concepts and benefits next-gen SSD/Flash provides to businesses. A solid baseline understanding of next-gen SSD/Flash then gives industry vendors an opportunity to elevate that message higher and share with influencers their differentiation, value and ability to grow the size (and their share) of the market.

This Summit will take place next to the extremely popular Flash Memory Summit, which is a technical event that attracts thousands of attendees.  The Solid State Storage Conference is geared towards marketing, AR/PR and business development folks – not technical folks.

Events and ideas include:

Tape Summit U.S. 2013  (Targeted for June 4-5 in Denver/Boulder, CO, in conjunction with the Spring LTO Consortium meeting)

Next-Gen Object Storage Summit 2013 (Targeted for June 18-19 in San Francisco, next to GigaOm Structure)

Flash/SSD Summit 2013 (Targeted for August 13-14 in Santa Clara, next to the Flash Memory Summit)

China Technologies Summit (in the bay area)

Delegates (press, analysts, bloggers, influencers) already requesting to attend include:

• Benjamin Woo – Managing Director, Neuralytix
• Chris Mellor, The Register  (** will be remote)
• Chris Preimesberger, eWeek, Associated Press
• Mike Kahn, Clipper Group
• Dave Reine, Clipper Group
• George Crump, Storage Switzerland
• Eric Slack, Storage Switzerland
• Deni Connor, SSG NOW, Information Week, Storage Bytes Now
• Ray Lucchesi, RayOnStorage.com
• Joseph Martins, Data Mobility Group
• Dave Russell, VP Storage, Gartner
• Jo Maitland, GigaOm Pro
• Jason Buffington, ESG
• Dave Simpson, The 451 Group
• Randy Kerns, Evaluator Group
• Others TBD

Program highlights:

·      End-User Case Studies on Tape Usage  in Cloud and Big Data Environments

·      Industry Analyst or Pundit Keynote on the State of the Tape industry

·      Panels exploring the business cases around Tape in Cloud and Big Data

·      Individual company briefings with delegates – as time and schedules allow

·      Networking cocktail reception(s) for all delegates and vendors

Nominate one of your end-user customers to speak and attend

We will have a handful of end-user case study time slots  – 20 minutes each.   Each end-user will also participate in a panel discussion discussing trends, purchasing decisions, issues solved with tape & cloud or big data products, predictions, etc.

Benefits for end-users:

• Intimate setting with full access to the tape & archiving community
• Opportunity to talk to influential, knowledgeable analysts
• Socializing and networking opportunities
• Meeting with peers

Benefits to vendors who bring an end-user

• Good promotion to delegates for your company
• Delegates love to talk to actual customers, write about them, quote them in their articles – great PR opportunity
• Vendor may have the end-user in their private briefing room if desired
• Great way to get closer to your customer
• Be looked at as an industry thought leader

Vendors are encouraged to nominate an end-user to bring with them.  Only 5 end-users will be chosen for each.

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Object Storage Vendors Unite !  Because united we can all win, divided we fall.

Companies participating in 2013:  HP, Ctera, Amplidata, NEC, Quantum, IBM, Exablox, EMC Isilon, Scality, DDN, Maginatics, Cleversafe, Intel, Nexenta, Amazon

Featured Speaker – Andrew Riechman, Marketing Lead for Enterprise, Amazon Web Services

Major Sponsor and Keynote Speaker – Ran Kurup – Storage Division, Intel – Object Storage and Intel: The Relationship

Presently co-located near GigaOm Structure in San Francisco on June 18-19th at the Sheraton Fisherman’s Wharf.

Updated agenda can be found HERE.

Delegates (press, analysts, bloggers, influencers) already requesting to attend include:

• Benjamin Woo – Managing Director, Neuralytix
• Chris Preimesberger, eWeek, Associated Press
• George Crump, Storage Switzerland
• Eric Slack, Storage Switzerland
• Colm Keegan, Storage Switzerland
• Anil Vasudeva, IMEX Research
• Mike Kahn, Clipper Group
• Deni Connor, SSG NOW, Information Week, Storage Bytes Now
• Jim Bagley, SSG NOW
• Ray Lucchesi, RayOnStorage.com
• Joseph Martins, Data Mobility Group
• Terri McClure, ESG
• Ashish Nadkarni, IDC
• Reuven Cohen, The Digital Provocateur, Forbes Magazine
• Randy Kerns, Evaluator Group
• Camberley Bates, Evaluator Group
• Howard Marks, Network Computing
• David Hekimian, ObjectStorage.com
• Marc Staimer, Dragon Slayer
• Others TBD

Next Generation Object Storage  Summit – Program

Purpose:  Based on initial discussions with industry peers, we all agree that object storage is a term that creates confusion, and for many, brings negative associations.  In the enterprise space, it is viewed as a compliance tool, an old technology and a form of content addressable storage (CAS).  The value of today’s object storage has grown beyond its enterprise compliance roots and is now being used for durable, lower cost distributed storage with cloud-type interfaces. The purpose of bringing this group together is to collaborate on how to change the perception of object storage in the market, by leveraging reporters and influencers to convey a consistent message that appeals to a large audience.

By meeting with industry influencers at the Summit, the desired result is to raise the importance of next-generation object storage and bring it top of mind – with the resulting articles, reports and discussions focused on educating end users on the concepts and benefits next-gen object storage provides to businesses. A solid baseline understanding of next-gen object storage then gives industry vendors an opportunity to elevate that message higher and share with influencers their differentiation, value and ability to grow the size (and their share) of the market.

Here’s a fun, short, video that George Crump put together for our inaugural Summit in 2012.  It will give you a good idea of why object-storage vendors attend.

This “memo” below is a direct result of the Tape Summit 2012 and was created by all of the leading tape vendors as a manifesto about the strength of the tape industry.  Way to go tape vendors !

/greg

2012 Tape Market State of the Union Memo

On May 16, 2012 representatives of tape storage providers BDT, Crossroads Systems, FUJIFILM, HP, IBM, Imation, Iron Mountain, Oracle, Overland Storage, Quantum, Spectra Logic and Tandberg Data issued the following memo to set the record straight on the current trends, usages and overall health of the tape industry.

While many organizations already know tape for its traditional uses – backup, disaster recovery and compliance – most probably don’t realize that modern applications now enable tape to be used as an active file archive and as low-cost NAS storage for latency-tolerant data.  For access to large quantities of stored data, tape’s role in big data, cloud, HPC and IT operations is expanding dramatically.  These markets take advantage of the integration of tape’s historical benefits (cost-effectiveness and media longevity) and new innovations (data integrity verification and file system interfaces) to use tape to protect large data sets.

Explosive data growth and shrinking IT budgets are putting pressure on companies to find innovative storage solutions to meet their organizational demands.  Increasingly that means tape, thanks to its significant cost advantages, reliability, and continued innovations improving tape’s capacity, speed, and ease-of-use.

Cost of Ownership

·         LTO-5 tape costs up to 15x less than SATA disk for long-term archive of large quantities of data^[i]

·         TCO of tape solutions is approximately 2-5 times less than VTL with deduplication for backup solutions^[ii]

·         A single administrator on average can manage up to one hundred terabytes of disk data or up to multiple petabytes of data on tape^[iii]

Greater Reliability

·         Individual tape media cartridges are 2-4 orders of magnitude more reliable than SATA disk drives^[iv]

·         NERSC study shows automated tape systems have a proven reliability of more than five 9’s (99.999%)^[v]

Innovations: Greater Capacity, Speed and Ease of Use

·         Largest disk drives stores 4 TB^[vi] vs. largest tape, which stores 5 TB (10 TB compressed)^[vii]

·         Active archive applications and LTFS let tape be used as NAS storage^[viii]

·         Automated media health and data integrity verification mitigates concerns of long-term data access^[ix]

These facts, coupled with the continued, rapid growth of data, have made tape increasingly important. According to IDC, the midrange and enterprise tape market is expected to grow over the next several years. Further, “As part of the continuing digital data creation explosion that is well documented, the amount of data kept on tape is expected to grow at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 45 % from 2010 through 2015.”^[x]   Additionally, tape is being quickly adopted in emerging data intensive markets:  “In a 2012 study of technology deployments for Big Data applications, Intersect360 Research found that 35% of respondents already are using tape as part of their storage infrastructure for Big Data.”^[xi]

Based on the latest research from 2011/2012, a few facts for the record:

•       Tape remains in heavy use for enterprise backup, as 78% of the respondents use tape, typically either disk-to-tape (D2T) or disk-to-disk-to-tape (D2D2T).   Gartner Group – July 2011 ^[xii]

•       The size of the tape market in 2011 was more than $2.2 billion dollars for just the tracked market revenue on drives, library automation and open system media.  This does not include the additive software ecosystems or proprietary enterprise media revenues.  IDC/SCCG – 2012^[xiii]

Over the past few years many of the facts around tape storage have been misquoted or misunderstood. For example, Dave Russell, Gartner analyst, has pointed out “continued misquotes re: Gartner and tape failure rates”^[xiv] in a recent discussion with Curtis Preston. Please join us on May 16 for a discussion with the tape storage group to discuss tape’s role in the data centers of 2012 and beyond.

Sincerely,

Representatives of the Tape Storage Industry

#tapestorage

^[i] Reine, D., et al. “In Search of the Long-Term Archiving Solution – Tape Delivers Significant TCO Advantage over Disk,” The Clipper Group, December 23, 2010, http://www.clipper.com/research/TCG2010054.pdf. — Study compared a 12-year TCO for Tape to Disk for long-term archived data

^[ii] Enterprise Strategy Group, Inc. “A Comparative TCO Study: VTLs and Physical Tape,” Feb. 2011

^[iii] Moore, F. Horison Information Strategies, “Tiered Storage Takes Center Stage,” http://www.horison.com/OracleTieredStorageTakesCenterStage.pdf. Accessed April 2012

^[iv] INSIC (Information Storage Industry Consortium), International Magnetic Tape Storage Roadmap, Part I: Applications & Systems, November 2011. http://www.insic.org/news/A&S%20Roadmap.pdf
Preston, Curtis. “Have we put tape out to pasture too soon?” Backup Central, updated 3/19/2012. http://www.backupcentral.com/mr-backup-blog-mainmenu-47/13-mr-backup-blog/376-have-we-put-tape-out-to-pasture-too-soon.html. “ From this: “you are 100 times more likely to have bad data on disk than you are on an LTO-5 tape drive, and 10,000 times more likely than if the data is stored on a T1000C or TS1130 drive.”

^[v] Active Archive Alliance. “NERSC Exceeds Reliability Standards With Tape-Based Active Archive,” Case Study, 2012.

[vi] Alabaster, Jay. “Hitachi GST Begins Shipments of a 4TB Disk Drive,” IDG News/PC World, December 12, 2011. http://www.pcworld.com/article/246013/hitachi_gst_begins_shipments_of_a_4tb_disk_drive.html

[vii] Harris, Robin. “World’s 1st exabyte storage system,” Storage Bits. January 31, 2011. http://www.zdnet.com/blog/storage/worlds-1st-exabyte-storage-system/1266

^[viii] Mearian, Lucas. “Quantum Releases LTFS Appliance that Makes Tape look like NAS,” Computerworld, April 16, 2012. http://www.computerworld.com/s/article/9226247/Quantum_releases_LTFS_appliance_that_makes_tape_like_NAS

^[ix] Guess, Angela. “Storing Big Data on Tape,” Dataversity, April 2011, http://www.dataversity.net/storing-big-data-on-tape/

^[x] INSIC (Information Storage Industry Consortium), International Magnetic Tape Storage Roadmap, Part I: Applications & Systems, November 2011. http://www.insic.org/news/A&S%20Roadmap.pdf

^[xi] Snell, Addison. “The Big Data Opportunity,” Intersect 360 Research, unpublished. Permission from author, 2012.

^[xii] Gartner Group, “Use of Disk for Backup Accelerates at the Expense of Tape,” Gartner Reveals Best Practices for Data Backup White Paper, June 15 2011. Referenced in http://www.cio.in/sponsored-white-paper/gartner-reveals-best-practices-data-backup

^[xiii] Combined data from Santa Clara Consulting Group report Backup Tape Technology: Global Review 2012, for mid-range drive and media market, with data from IDC report Worldwide Midrange and Enterprise Tape Automation, May 2012, which reviews automated systems. Total shown is our best interpretation of data as presented.

^[xiv] Preston, Curtis. “Gartner Never Said that 71% Tape Restores Fail,” Backup Central. 3/9/12. www.backupcentral.com

/greg

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Heidi Roizen, Silicon Valley’s legendary networker, would do away with the very term. “What is networking? I hate that term. It’s really about building an interesting collection of people around you,” she said.

Here are Heidi Roizen’s “do’s and don’ts” for networking like a pro:

• Do followup: Enjoyed a conversation on a more meaningful topic than stock markets or the weather? Connect on LinkedIn or send a courtesy email. If nothing else, their contact info will remain in your database. “It’s my quick and dirty way of keeping track of every interesting person I’ve ever met,” Roizen explained.
• Do keep your promises: If you’ve promised to keep in touch or make an introduction, do it. Your word is your bond.
• Do your homework: “How can you optimize the 1 minute window of time you have to talk to someone if you don’t know their background or interests?” asked Roizen. Before attending an event, review the list of attendees. Do you have mutual friends? Are there any potential professional contacts? If you recognize a potentially valuable contact, don’t shy away from reaching out to them prior to the event to suggest meeting up.
• Don’t try to meet everyone: “It’s crazy to go in and have some kind of quota,” said Roizen. Imagine you’re walking into a room full of strangers. Your goal should not be too meet every person at the event. It’s more likely that there are 2 or 3 people that you can connect with on some level. “It’s not easy to figure out if you share the same ethics, but find out, for example, if you bike in the same neighborhood or have kids in the same grade,” Roizen suggests.
• Do respond: The golden rule? “When people reach out to me I always respond to them. Even if it’s to say: “I’m sorry I can’t help you,” she said.
• Do connect people: It’s been 30 years since she started her first company in the Valley. Roizen has made thousands of connections and helped countless friends and acquaintances land their dream job. The lesson? Even if it won’t benefit you tomorrow, your efforts usually pay off in the long-run.
• Do give before you get: Don’t attend a networking event for the purpose of seeking out your new boss. “One of my techniques is to start with something you can give,” she said. Roizen suggests sending an article on an interesting topic or making an introduction.

To make the most out of an event or conference, Roizen suggests showing up early to meet the high-profile speakers. Thanks to tools like LinkedIn, you’re only 3 separations degrees of separation away from everyone, including your career idols.

This networking event has been postponed.  Please check back again soon for rescheduled dates.

Part of the vSciences virtualization event for end-users, we’ll bring vendor professionals together with top-tier virtualization professionals.  A senior IT end-user panel will speak directly to the vendor participants, and we’ll have 2 different networking receptions for meet and greet.  20-25 vendor execs expected to participate, along with 75+ end-users.  $300/person.

While the vSciences program caters to virtualization professionals – the ExecEvent program will expand to include discussions about storage, cloud, data center technologies and security, as well as virtualization.  So this Face-To-Face program is appropriate for any senior vendor professionals that want to learn, network and socialize with peers and end-user prospects.

Program and Agenda:

Monday July 23d

• 4:30pm – 5:30pm / Austin Convention Center – Private, moderated discussion for vendor participants with vSciences speakers – a great opportunity to network, learn what end-users are asking for from vendors and to hear from the top users of virtualization in our industry.

• 5:30pm – 7:30pm / Networking Cocktail/Food Reception – with the vSciences speakers and a select few senior end-users.  We’ll move to walking-distance restaurant (TBD) to continue the discussions, and we’ll bring along a small handful of senior end-users to add color to networking and socialization.

Tuesday July 24th

• 4:30pm – 5:30pm / End-User Panel at the Austin Convention Center – We’ll select 4-5 key end-users during the day to sit on a moderated panel to discuss their technology needs, desires, and future wishes.  The panel will be an interactive discussion between the end-user panelists and the vendor participants.  All vSciences attendees are welcome to attend and watch.
• 5:30pm – 7:30pm / Networking Cocktail Reception – Open to 50 vScience attendees (via special tickets handed out) – a great way to put vendors and end-users together in a casual, social atmosphere.  Walking-distance location TBD.

Registration for this special event can be found here

Marketing Summit Details

Powering the Cloud – Frankfurt

10/30/12

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The ExecEvent is proud to partner with Powering The Cloud, the event that hosts SNW Europe, Virtualization World and Data Centre Technologies.  We will be selecting 10-12 technology vendors to bring with us to participate in this special program – if you and your company are interested, please let us know.

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The costs to participate are:

**  Vendor Package – participation in all activities outlined below  - 7,500  €  (or USD Equivalent ).  If your company is already signed up as an exhibitor for Powering The Cloud, then the cost is reduced to 6,000 €

** Customized PR and Media access program available through our partner, including briefings scheduled – Omarketing

** Individual seminars (Booth staff training, Selling To C-Level), as outlined below

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The ExecEvent joins with Powering The Cloud – Frankfurt Germany

October 29th, 30th & 31th 2012, Frankfurt, Germany