Last week’s SNW show in Orlando had encouraging signs that the recession is receding. IT end-user attendance was slightly up on previous shows (although vendor attendance was down); IT end users had budget and were looking for the optimal way to invest it, and there was clear excitement around a number of topics – including solid state storage. Solid State Storage was well represented on the agenda, both in the vendor-neutral SNIA Tutorials, and in the SNW sessions: SNIA Tutorials: • Executive Overview and Current Topics in Solid State Storage, Rob Peglar, Xiotech • Apples to Apples, Pears to Pears in SSS Performance Benchmarking, Esther Spanjer, Smart Modular Technologies • Latency: the Heartbeat of a Solid State Disk, Levi Norman, Texas Memory Systems • The Benefits of Solid State in Enterprise Storage Systems, David Dale, NetApp • Using SSD MLC NAND in Data Center Applications, Tony Roug, Intel • Solid State Storage Architectures, Jamon Bowen, Texas Memory Systems SNW Vendor Presentations: • Panel: Is SSD Right for your Enterprise? Moderator: Jeff Janukowicz, IDC; Panelists: David Dale, NetApp; Steve Johnson, LSI Corporation; Gary Tressler, IBM; Rich Vignes, Seagate; Tom Lattin, HP • Dynamic Tiering – Taking Advantage of the Best of HDDs and Solid State, Ron P. Bianchini, Avere Systems • Getting the Most out of SSDs- Data Center IT System Optimization Best Practices, Mike Chenery, Pliant Technology • Flash Solid State Storage reliability & data Integrity – Are We There Yet? David Flynn, Fusion-io All of the presentations are available on the SNW website. In addition, the SNIA Tutorials are available on the SNIA website. Check them out.