Data Center Systems sponsors free Ray Johnston concert at Tech Museum, Apr 6, 2011

Data Center Systems is a Dallas based company and they have sponsored Dallas talent as the post event concert at Storage Network World conference on Apri 6, 2011.  If you did not attend the conference you can register to attend.

Other datacenter and IT professionals can attend the event by RSVPing to Data Center Systems’ Carol Barron at carol(dot)barron(at)datacentersys(dot)com or 214-239-2046.

Data Center Systems to Host Free Concert in Conjunction with Storage Network World Conference

Ray Johnston Band to Perform at Tech Museum in San Jose at Post-Conference Party on April 6

Dallas and San Jose (PRWEB) April 4, 2011

Data Center Systems (http://www.datacentersys.com) will host a free concert on April 6 at a post-conference party for Storage Network World (SNW) attendees and other datacenter and IT professionals. The event will be held at the Tech Museum in San Jose from 6:30-8:00 p.m. Attendees of Storage Network World can attend the event using their conference badges. Other datacenter and IT professionals can attend the event by RSVPing to Data Center Systems’ Carol Barron at carol(dot)barron(at)datacentersys(dot)com or 214-239-2046.

The concert will feature the Ray Johnston Band, led by former Dallas Maverick and inspirational Leukemia survivor Ray Johnston. The Ray Johnston Band, whose music is inspired by rock, blues and country music, released their first album Sweet Tooth in 2009 and is conducting a successful cross-country tour to promote the album and raise funds for cancer research and treatment. After achieving his lifelong goal of making it to the NBA, Ray Johnston was diagnosed with leukemia. Cancer cut his basketball career short, but started a new chapter in his life. After successfully beating the disease, not once but four times, Ray Johnston began a second career leading a band comprising some of the best musicians in Texas, including Cooper Appelt (bass), Bobby Sparks (organ, keyboard), Keith Anderson (sax), Jeff Randall (drums) and William Barnes (lead guitar). The band’s ongoing tour is not only raising awareness of the group’s talent, but also raising funds for The Ryan Gibson Foundation (http://www.trgf.org), a Dallas based non-profit organization that supports leukemia research. For more information about the Ray Johnston Band, visit http://www.rayjohnstonband.com. Their album Sweet Tooth is widely available through outlets including iTunes and Amazon.com.

Is this the last of Great Steven Manos LV parties, now that Lee Tech is part of Schneider Electric?

Steven Manos asked me if I had any pictures from the party at Pure Nightclub in Las Vegas at AFCOM/Data Center World 2011

Steven Manos and Katie O'Hara (no relation to me Dave Ohara)

If you are having fun at a LV party the last thing you want is a blogger taking pictures, so I don't bring a camera.

Even though I have no pictures I do want to write a blog entry about the organizers Steven Manos (Lee Technologies) and Jim Grice (Ewing Industrial Park).  Great people are going to change the data center industry, and getting together outside a data center industry typical venue allows people to get to know each other which then sets up better discussions later.  For those who have attended the events, we have all made business and personal friendships at the event that were not possible at other events.

Steve and Jim who get the business value of providing a party where people can just have fun and not worry about being sold. 

I posted about the last party at Data Center World in Oct 2010.

One question I have is whether this will be the last of Steven Manos parties now that he is a Schneider Electric employee with the acquisition of Lee Technologies.

I did take one picture to share with those who wanted to be there.  Recognize anyone. 

Attending SNW, Storage Network World in Santa Clara, April 4 - 7, 2011 Santa Clara

A storage friend said he was heading to SNW next week. I said I'll be in SJ, he said the conference is in Santa Clara.  So, I checked out the site and it looked pretty interesting.  So, now I am attending, and I'll know one person there, but I am sure I'll run into other people given it is is Silicon Valley.

Experience the World's Largest Storage, Data Center and IT Infrastructure Conference

Join us for SNW where we bring together top information technology executives, leading product and service providers and key industry influencers for the world’s largest conference focused on managing information infrastructure.

Produced by Computerworld and co-owned by Computerworld and SNIA (The Storage Networking Industry Association), SNW features more than 120 educational sessions and presentations by top IT management experts covering today’s hottest IT topics — from cloud computing to energy efficient data centers to virtualization to storage -- and so much more.

Top Keynote speakers are.

Steve Wozniak
Co-founder,
Apple Computer
and Chief Scientist, Fusion-io

Tom Kelley
General Manager
IDEO

Randy Mott
Executive Vice President
and CIO
HP

What also caught my eye is #1 of 15 listed tracks is energy efficiency.

Choose from 15 Topical Tracks:
Speakers for Spring Include:
Venue Information:

1. Energy Efficiency
2. Data Management
3. Data Security
4. The Converged Network
5. Backup and Archiving
6. Virtualization
7. Data Center
8. Cloud Storage
9. Storage Management
10. Solid State Storage
11. Data Protection
12. Cloud Computing
13. Virtual Desktop Infrastructure
14. Professional Development
15. Deduplication

Skipping the Green Data Center Conference, May 24 - 26, 2011

I go to a lot of data center conferences - Gartner, Uptime, Data Center Dynamics, Data Center World, SVLG, and many others as a blogger, but one I'll be skipping ironically is the Green Data Center Conference in SF on May 24 - 26, 2011.

Given I've been blogging on the Green Data Center topic and have 1,700 posts you may think how can I not go to the event.  And, I know my friends would ask me why I didn't go.

Here are a few reasons why.

1. I know many of the speakers and those I don't know I could get access to if I needed for a blog post, so I don't expect to learn much sitting in the audience.
2. The conference agenda  for 2 days doesn't excite me.
3. Most of the sponsors I have access to, so I don't need to travel to talk to the companies as they are usually contacting me.
4. Uptime Institute's seminar is May 9 - 12 in Santa Clara and will have much better quality content than Green Data Center Conference and a much higher caliber set of attendees.  And, this conference I get to attend with a media pass and plan on meeting a lot of the sponsors/exhibitors to get caught up on the latest green technologies.
5. There is the opportunity to network, but there are plenty of other networking opportunities.

I'll contact some of the speakers after the event and see what they thought and whether it is worth their time.

Policy Makers have bad aim, not focusing on the real problem

I am at The Green Grid Technical forum event, and I had the pleasure of chatting with the keynote speaker Robert D. Atkinson, Ph.D.  His company is Information Technology and Innovation Foundation.  Robert's keynote  is titled.

Policy Makers are Focused on You, Not the Real Problem

Regulators around the world are taking aim at IT in general, and data centers in particular, in their efforts to regulate reduced energy use and carbon emissions. But at the end of the day, we need more IT and innovation, not less. Rob Atkinson will discuss why policy makers should be concentrating on spurring digital transformation – incentivizing conversion of energy intensive atoms to energy savings bits. And why spurring fundamental clean energy R&D, rather than regulating IT efficiency, is the surer path to the needed low carbon global economy.

Robert is pro ICT

Points out of the irony of travelling to the conference on a plane and how video conference.

Teleworking is the fastest growing travel segment with the a positive environmental impact.

And a case for ecommerce for eBay and Amazon.

So what we should be doing given ICT has a reduction in energy overall.  What is needed is 84% less carbon energy.  And Robert says the focus on energy efficiency is a short term focus.  We need low carbon energy.

Which reminds me what I renamed the Green Data Center Blog to Green (low carbon) Data Center Blog.  When I hear guys like Robert talk I can easily see 5 years more of writing on the Green (low carbon) Data Center topic.

What are the low carbon technologies?

What should be done?  A clean energy strategy is Robert's closing recommendation.