By Antony Savvas, technology reporter
As you can imagine I have attended a very large number of events both in the UK and abroad, including the type of event that Technology Live! offers, with a group of vendors presenting to a group of journalists and analysts.
One difference with Technology Live! though is that it is highly focused on the important data storage and data management sectors, which are increasingly under the microscope as a result of the widening demands of data security and data compliance.
So, with that in mind, I thought I would use February’s London event to get a freshener as to what the industry could offer in these areas. When attending these types of events though, it is not just the presenters who are important when it comes to offering a good educational on specialist subjects, it is also the quality and spread of the attendees brought in to listen to them.
This is because the Q&A and the interjections that are allowed become just as important. When attending such events the speakers often seem to let the power go to their head, or forget that the people they are talking to may actually know some things about the subject that they don’t know, or at least have an opinion on some aspect of the subject that the whole group would like to discuss.
Technology Live! did not disappoint when it came to sharing, with all four presenters being open to answering questions succinctly both during their presentations and after.
Micron Technology explained their place within the $110bn global memory market, as more and more data storage is moving towards the edge of the network to reduce network latency as enterprises adopt cloud working. And infrastructure testing firm Virtual Instruments talked about increasing performance of cloud testing tools, and how their alliance with Cisco is making sure that enterprises can measure whether they are getting the service they are paying for, from both service providers and hardware providers.
Acronis, now a key player in the cloud-based data backup market, showcased its latest products and the Storage Networking Industry Association (SNIA) Europe gave a comprehensive overview of the future network storage standards designed to improve the lot of end users.
The in-depth nature of the presentations and questions allowed was reflected by 1.5 hours being given to each organisations, and getting journalists in particular to stay in one place for that long can prove difficult at some events.
But I think this was achievable in this arena as attendees were there because the event was billed as an opportunity to learn what you wanted to learn about a subject, and that was delivered through open speakers, fanatically knowledgeable journalist and blogger attendees, and a sprinkling of analysts who can bring different angles to the debate.
The five star Haymarket Hotel in Piccadilly provided a central location for the event and both breakfast and lunch were gracefully served.
Antony Savvas is a freelance technology editor and corporate writer. He works for various technology magazines and websites and has been working in the sector for over 25 years.
