I have been kindly invited to attend the HP Blade Tech Day blogger event at the HP campus here in Houston.  I am being joined by nine other bloggers, including fellow VMware vExpert  Rich Bramley, from both the UK and the US who between them cover server, storage, networking, operating system and virtualization technologies.

So What’s Happening HP?

At this invitation only non-NDA event technology leaders and business executives from HP will discuss with the group of bloggers the current state of the blade server market, the key trends and what HP is doing in this space to stay ahead of the game at both a technical and business level.  There will also be the opportunity to visit HP’s portable data center in a cargo container, the HP POD.

There is an openness to the Tech Day with attending bloggers being actively encouraged to publicly comment and blog about what is discussed during this day and a half event.  If last years HP Storage Tech Day is anything to go by then this event should be a marketing fud free zone where HP will hopefully provide an honest and frank insight into their infrastructure software and blade system products, whilst openly answering the questions posed to them by the bloggers.

Questions Welcome

Now as you can imagine this is great opportunity to ask questions regarding HP’s infrastructure software and blade systems and I imagine that they’ll be a few.  I have my list all ready to go though if you have a question(s) that you’d like asking of the HP tech leaders or business execs then get in touch with me via email (which can be found on the right hand side of this page) or Twitter and I will ask them on your behalf.

Whilst at the HP campus I will also be meeting with the HP Proliant teams for the DL360, DL380 and ML110 and ML115 so watch this space for some interesting Proliant related posts.

So, send me those HP BladeSystem or Infrastructure Software questions you may have… 

Follow the Event!

The Twitter hash tag for this HP event is #hpbladesday so be sure to follow this tag over the next couple of days for live updates.  Greg Knieriemen has put together a convenient Twitter list here which allows you to follow all of the attending bloggers via a simple click of button.

The bloggers attending this event are:

Another person definitely worth a mention is HP’s own Calvin Zito (@HPStorageGuy) who runs the popular HP Storage Blog who is also in attendance. Check out my interview with Calvin at last years HP Storage Tech Day.

Busy Time Ahead (in a good way)

I look forward to finding out more about HP’s road map around their BladeSystem and Infrastructure Software product range and where they intend taking things moving forward, taking into account the strong emergence of virtualization technologies in both the SMB and Enterprise space.  Looking at the schedule for the next day and a half it is certainly going to be fast paced and no doubt information filled.  I will be blogging on those subjects that will be of particular interest to myself and my TechHead readers.   So, don’t forget to forward on to me any questions however straight up or technical you may have.

Disclaimer:  HP have covered my flight, accommodation and some food costs for attending this event.  I make no secret to thinking HP Proliant and BladeSystem products are rather good and have formed this opinion over years of working with products in these ranges.  That said I am just as happy to point out any product or company short comings as this would hopefully lead to improvements being made.