The iXsystems team recently attended the Oracle OpenWorld conference, held at the Moscone Center in downtown San Francisco. OpenWorld, an annual event hosted by Oracle and their sponsors, features educational demos and showcases the latest innovative technology. Many big-name firms were present, such as Cisco, Dell, HP, and Intel; as well as new emerging companies. Everyone had their own booths where they could showcase and promote their products. It was a perfect opportunity for iXsystems to interact, discuss ideas, and share information involving hardware, middleware, software, and anything in between.
The first thing me, Ben, and Peter did after we picked up our entry badges was to snag a complimentary tote bag. Although we were there for serious business, there was no harm in getting some cool, free stuff. As we proceeded from booth to booth, our bags got steadily heavier with T-shirts, flash drives, Frisbees and even candy (some early practice for Halloween!)
There was a broad spectrum of firms, each with their specialized products. Spanish Point is an overseas company from Ireland; we watched a demo of their LookupPoint software. LookupPoint is database integration software that allows the user to access business information (e.g. invoice number) linked to an item in Microsoft Word, Outlook, and Excel without leaving their work environment. Another note-worthy booth was Violin Memory, a company based in Mountain View. Their 3rd generation flash memory array storage with spike-free latency and sustainable “hot swap” memory architechture caught our eye and provided food for thought.
We also took note of technology that had shared functions with our products. Thin provisioning from 3PAR, inline deduplication and compression from Pure Storage, and volume replication from F5 Networks are all features offered in our TrueNAS systems. Before we headed out, we made sure to stop by and give our support to our partners, STEC and Fusion-io. STEC’s PowerSafe™ technology protects the data in our TrueNAS storage in the case of power failure. The ioDrive, Duo, and Octal cards from Fusion-io we incorporate in our products offer accelerated storage performance. Overall, it was a fun and rewarding experience. OpenWorld cultivated new interests for me and allowed us to acquire a better understanding of the industry status quo. I already look forward to my next conference!
Ben and Peter checking out a touchscreen display showcasing information in a visually attractive, user-friendly interface at the Fusion-io booth.
Lisa Liang
Marketing Assistant
