Small problem . . .
I am greatly amused that, on the signup page, the t-shirts come in medium and above only. Is that a comment on the general fitness level of IT bods?
Also, where is the sales part being held and will there actually be some hands-on of the gear and some demos of deploying and managing it?
Like many in IT running virtual workloads (rather than racks of NoSQL boxes) I am interested in the new wave of converged boxes and have previously considered rolling my own with the various software packages available to share storage and cache to SSDs but, again, like many in IT, just can't find the time.
But I've really no interest in a sales pitch - I've seen the fluff and read the somewhat ambitious numbers and what I need now is actual face-time with these things because we don't have the resources to buy a couple for testing.
Jet boating is fine and a beer to see off the last of the sun is always welcome but if we can get some clarification of exactly what we'll be getting out of the 'boring' part, that would be helpful.
When it comes down to it, the thing - beyond some hands-on - that would be most helpful is a frank discussion about what particular workloads and at what scale this makes sense over other setups, like the traditional cluster+SAN. Because, let's face it, this kit is bloody expensive - at least in these early days - and one can easily deploy a perfectly capable SAN-backed cluster (packing more compute power) for the price of a trio of these units. Especially if you already running other such systems and have those expertise in house.
Thanks,
d