Media Coverage at Gartner Data Center conference - DataCenterKnowledge, SearchDataCenter

As my first time to Gartner’s Data Center conference and having a press pass, I was curious who else would be there.  I knew Rich Miller and Kevin Normandeau would be at  the event.

I was pleasantly surprised to see Mark Fontecchio from SearchDataCenter and he said Matt Stansberry was going to be there as well.

Mark has a couple of articles

http://searchdatacenter.techtarget.com/news/article/0,289142,sid80_gci1375821,00.html

Unified computing: A 2010 data center trend?

By Mark Fontecchio, News Writer
02 Dec 2009 | SearchDataCenter.com

LAS VEGAS -- Pundits and vendors swear that unified computing is the future of the server platform, but many IT pros won't sign on the dotted line.

Attendees at the Gartner Data Center Conference this week heard a lot about the future of servers, and that future involves a lot of so-called IT convergence, also known as unified computing," or 'converged architecture.' Andrew Butler, a Gartner vice president and analyst added his own buzzphrase: fabric-based computing and predicted that 30% of Global 2000 companies will run some form of it by the end of 2012.

http://searchdatacenter.techtarget.com/news/article/0,289142,sid80_gci1375836,00.html

Server depreciation cycles hold steady, Gartner attendees say

By Mark Fontecchio, News Writer
02 Dec 2009 | SearchDataCenter.com

LAS VEGAS -- Gartner Data Center Conference attendees say their server refresh cycles have stayed about the same despite the poor economy.

Recent numbers from the research firm indicate that the IT industry in stabilizing, with server shipments increasing 13.8% in the third quarter compared with the second quarter of this year. Server shipments declined 17.1% year over year.

IT pros at the show this week said their server refresh cycles – normally three to five years – haven't changed much, although some report that they're edging closer to the five-year end of the spectrum. "Three to five years is our average," said Greg Manahan, the deputy CIO of operations for Naval Air Systems Command. "They've definitely been stretching it out some. IT costs have been getting cut to pay for military environments and weapons systems. IT is certainly important, but not as important as that."

Rich Miller from DataCenterKnowledge doesn’t have any posts up yet, but I know he was pretty booked with meetings.  Kevin was busy as well.

One of the main benefits of going to an event like Gartner Data Center conference is to socialize.  It was good seeing Matt and Mark from SearchDataCenter, and we figured the next time we would all see each other is Uptime Institute’s spring event, but haven’t seen any dates for this.

Rich Miller and Kevin Nomandeau I had many small conversations discussing the industry and future direction.