Wow – the first day of HP Tech Day 2010 was jammed pack full of meetings, presentations and good information.  Unfortunately, it appears there won’t be any confidential, earth shattering news to report on, but it has still been a great event to attend.

My favorite part of the day was going to the HP BladeSystem demo, where we not only got to get our hands on the blade servers, but we got to see what the mid-plane and power bus looks like outside the chassis. 

From HP Tech Day 2010

Kudos to James Singer, HP Blade engineer, who did a great job talking about the HP BladeSystem and all it offers.  My only advice to the HP events team is to double the time we get with the blades next time.  (Isn’t that why were were here?)

Since I spent most of the day Tweeting what was going on, I figured it would be easiest to just list my tweets throughout the day.  If you have any questions about any of this, let me know.

My tweets from 2/25/2010 (latest to earliest):

Q&A from HP StorageWorks CTO, Paul Perez

• “the era of spindles for IOPS will be over soon.” Paul Perez, CTO HP StorageWorks
• CTO Perez said Memristors (http://tinyurl.com/39f6br) are the next major evolution in storage – in next 2 or 3 years
• CTO Perez views Solid State (Drives) as an extension of main memory.
• HP StorageWorks CTO, Paul Perez, now discussing HP StorageWorks X9000 Network Storage System (formerly known as IBRIX)
• @SFoskett is grilling the CTO of HP StorageWorks
• Paul Perez – CTO of StorageWorks is now in the room

Competitive Discussion

• Kudos to Gary Thome , Chief Architect at HP, for not wanting to bash any vendor during the competitive blade session
• Cool – we have a first look at a Tolly report comparing HP BladeSystem Flex-10 vs Cisco UCS…
• @fowen Yes – a 10Gb, a CNA and a virtual adapter. Cisco doesn’t have anything “on the motherboard” though.
• RT @fowen: HP is the only vendor (currently) who can embed 10GB nics in Blades @hpbladeday AND Cisco…
• Wish HP allowed more time for deep dive into their blades at #hpbladesday. We’re rushing through in 20 min content that needs an hour.
• Dell’s M1000 blade chassis has the blade connector pins on the server side. This causes a lot of issues as pins bend
• I’m going to have to bite my tongue on this competitive discussion between blade vendors…
• Mentioning HP’s presence in Gartner’s Magic Quadrant (see my previous post on this here) –> http://tinyurl.com/ydbsnan
• Fun – now we get to hear how HP blades are better than IBM, Cisco and Dell

HP BladeSystem Matrix Demo

• Brian Jacquol and Ute Albert are demo’ing the HP BladeSystem Matrix
• RT @Connect_WW: Dan Bowers’ Early Afternoon Update at HP Blades Tech Day #hpbladesday http://bit.ly/9lxga0

Insight Software Demo

• Whoops – previous picture was “Tom Turicchi” not John Schmitz
• John Schmitz, HP, demonstrates HP Insight Software http://tinyurl.com/yjnu3o9
• HP Insight Control comes with “Data Center Power Control” which allows you to define rules for power control inside your DC
• HP Insight Control = “Essential Management”; HP Insight Dynamics = “Advanced Management”
• Live #hpBladesday Tweet Feed can be seen at http://tinyurl.com/ygcaq2a

BladeSystem in the Lab

• c7000 Power Bus (rear) http://tinyurl.com/yjy3kwy #hpbladesday complete list of pics can be found @ http://tinyurl.com/yl465v9
• HP c7000 Power Bus (front) http://tinyurl.com/yfwg88t #hpbladesday (one more pic coming…)
• HP c7000 Midplane (rear) http://tinyurl.com/yhozte6
• HP BladeSystem C7000 Midplane (front) http://tinyurl.com/ylbr9rd
• BladeSystem lab was friggin awesome. Pics to follow
• 23 power “steppings” on each BladeSystem fan
• 4 fan zones in a HP BladeSystem allows for fans to spin at different rates. – controlled by the Onboard Administrator
• The designs of the HP BladeSystem cooling fans came from Ducted Electric Jet Fans from hobby planes) http://tinyurl.com/yhug94w
• Check out the HP SB40c Storage Blade with the cover off : http://tinyurl.com/yj6xode
• James Singer – talking about HP BladeSystem power (http://tinyurl.com/ykfhbb2)
• DPS takes total loads and pushes on fewer supplies which maximizes the power efficiency
• DPS – Dynamic Power Saver dynamically turns power supplies off based on the server loads (HP exclusive technology)
• HP BladeSystem power supplies are 94% efficient
• HP’s hot-pluggable equipment is not purple, it’s “port wine”
• Here’s the HP BladeSystem C3500 (1/2 of a C7000) http://tinyurl.com/yhbpddt
• In BladeSystem demo with James Singer (HP). Very cool. They’ve got a C3500 (C7000 cut in half.) Picture will come later.

 Lunch

• Having lunch with Dan Bowers (HP marketing) and Gary Thome – talking about enhancements need for Proliant support materials

 Virtual Connect

• HP’s published a “Virtual Connect for Dummies” Want a copy? Go to http://tinyurl.com/yhubgld
• New blog posting, HP Tech Day – Live TweetFeed – http://tinyurl.com/yegm9a5
• Next presenter – Mike Kendall – Virtual Connect and Network Convergence

ISB Overview and Data Center Trends 2010

• check out all my previous HP posts at http://tinyurl.com/yzx3hx6
• BladeSystem midplane doesn’t require transceivers, so it’s easy to run 10Gb at same cost as 1Gb
• BladeSystem was designed for 10Gb (with even higher in mind.)
• RT @SFoskett: Spot the secret “G” (for @GestaltIT?) in this #HPBladesDay Nth Generation slide! http://twitpic.com/159q23 
• If Cisco wants to be like HP, they’d have to buy Lenovo, Canon and Dunder Mifflon
• discussed how HP blades were used in Avatar (see my post on this here )–> http://tinyurl.com/yl32xud
• HP’s Virtual Client Infra. Solutions design allows you to build “bricks” of servers and storage to serve 1000’s of virtual PCs
• Power capping is built into HP hardware (it’s not in the software.)
• Power Capping is a key technology in the HP Thermal Logic design.
• HP’s Thermal Logic technology allows you to actively manage power overtime.