Unigroup's May 2009 Meeting Announcement


Topic:
Converged Networks: Infiniband / FibreChannel / 10GbE / iSCSI

Speakers:
Vince Sykes,
Director, Channel Business Development for North America
Blade Network Technology

Date:
Thursday, 21-MAY-2009      (** 3rd Thursday **)

Location:
The Cooper Union
School of Engineering
51 Astor Place (8th Street, between 3rd and 4th Ave)
East Village, Manhattan
New York City
Meeting Room: The Driscoll Room: 136E (1st Floor)
** Please RSVP **

Time:
6:15 - 6:30 PM Registration
6:30 - 6:45 PM Ask the Wizard - Questions, Answers and Current Events
6:45 - 7:00 PM Unigroup Business
7:00 - 9:30 PM Main Presentation


MEETING INTRODUCTION

Unigroup's May 2009 meeting will be a discussion about the latest technology, standards and architectures for Converged Networks, the mixing/integration of classic networking (TCP/IP) and Storage Area Networks (SAN). Our presenter will be Blade Network Technology, a manufacturer of high speed network switches, which operates in this technology space. We hope to learn about, and compare and contrast, various high speed networking technologies including: Infiniband, Fibrechannel, 10GbE and iSCSI.


   SPECIAL INSTRUCTIONS:
   ---------------------

   To REGISTER for this event, please RSVP by using the
       Unigroup Registration Page.
   This will allow us to automate the registration process.
   (Registration will also add you to our mailing list.)
   Please avoid emailed RSVPs.

   Please continue to check the Unigroup web site and THIS page,
   for any last minute updates concerning this meeting.  If you
   registered for this meeting, please check your email for any last
   minute announcements as the meeting approaches.  Also make sure
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   If you block Unigroup Emails, your address will be dropped from
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   Please RSVP as soon as possible, preferably at least 2-3 days
   prior to the meeting date, so we can plan the food order.
   RSVP deadline is usually the night before the meeting day.

   Note: RSVP is requested for this location to make sure the guard
         will let you into the building.  RSVP also helps us to
         properly plan the meeting (food, drinks, handouts,
         seating, etc.) and speed up your sign-in at the meeting.
         If you forget to RSVP prior to the meeting day, you may
         still be able to show up and attend our meeting, however,
         we cannot guarantee what building security will do if
         you are "not on the list".


DIRECTIONS

   Location:
      The Cooper Union  (http://www.cooper.edu)
      School of Engineering
      51 Astor Place  (8th Street, between 3rd and 4th Ave)
      East Village, Manhattan
      New York City
      Meeting Room: The Driscoll Room: 136E (1st Floor)

   Located on the North side of Astor Place (8th Street), between 3rd & 4th Avenues.

   Building lobby sign-in is required at the guard's desk.
   Enter the building, check in with the guard at the lobby for directions
   to the room.  From the main entrance, keep going straight beyond the
   guard till the end of the hall, make a left, pass the elevators (on
   your left), keep going, and Room 136E will be on your right.

   Nearest mass transit stations are:
     '6'           to Astor Place (stops right at The Cooper Union).
     'R'           to 8th Street, then walk about 2 blocks East.
     '4/5/6/R/N/Q' to Union Square, then walk South and East.
     'B/D/F/V'     to Broadway-Lafayette, then walk North and East.

   Free street parking becomes available at 6pm.

   There are also parking lots on Broadway at Astor Place.


PRESENTATION OUTLINE

Topic: Converged Networks: Infiniband / FibreChannel / 10GbE / iSCSI

Meeting Outline:

As data centers evolve to Converged Enhanced Ethernet (CEE), a high-bandwidth, non-blocking network is required to support lossless I/O transactions over Ethernet, such as Fibre Channel over Ethernet, iSCSI, and IP NAS. CEE, is an enhanced Ethernet that enable convergence of various applications in data centers-onto a single interconnect technology.

(more-to-come)

Web Resources

   Blade Network Technology
     http://www.bladenetwork.net


SPEAKER BIOGRAPHY

Vince Sykes brings more than 15 years of networking and communications engineering, product management, product marketing, and business development expertise to BLADE Network Technologies in one and 10 Gigabit Ethernet, fiber optics, TCP/IP, ATM, SONET and data center routing and switching technologies.

Prior to joining BLADE, Vince was Senior Director of Technical Sales for Force10 Networks where he built the Northeast Systems Engineering Group from the ground up and was instrumental in expanding the Force10 brand.

As Director of Product Marketing for Southampton Photonics, in the United Kingdom, he was responsible for providing competitive analysis, as well as the total system level definitions of the company's fiber-optic components, and all marketing and sales collaterals.

Before that, Vince was a Product Manager and Consulting Systems Engineer for Cisco Systems, where he was responsible for a broad range of product management functions related to Cisco's routing and switching platforms including the Catalyst 8540, LS1010 and GSR 120000, working directly with customers such as Level 3, British Telecom, AT&T and Verizon.

Prior to joining Cisco, Vince was a Systems Engineer for Bay Networks/Wellfleet Communications in New York City, a Consulting Engineer at Stony Brook Technologies, and an Electronic Systems Engineer for the U.S. Air Force.

Vince Sykes has a BSEE from Stony Brook University, an MBA from Pepperdine University and a JD from Pace Law School.


COMPANY BIOGRAPHY

BLADE Network Technologies is the leading supplier of Gigabit and 10G Ethernet network infrastructure solutions that reside in blade servers and "scale-out" server and storage racks. The company's customers include more than 300 of Fortune 500 companies across 26 industry segments, and an installed base representing more than 250,000 network switches and nearly 6 million switch ports connecting more than 1,200,000 servers. For more information, visit www.bladenetwork.net. Follow us on Twitter at BLADENetwork or read our tweets at www.bladenetwork.net/twitter.html.


GIVEAWAYS

Addison-Wesley Professional/Prentice Hall PTR has been kind enough to provide us with some of their books, which we will continue to raffle off as giveaways at our meetings. Addison-Wesley also has a new end-user discount, available through their User Group program. We will be announcing the details at our next meeting!

O'Reilly has been kind enough to provide us with some of their books, which we will continue to raffle off as giveaways at our meetings.

Unigroup would like to thank both companies for the support provided by their User Group programs.

Note: The chances tend to be about 1 in 5, that any attendee of our meeting will walk away with a fairly valuable giveaway (ie. many of these books are valued between $30 and $60)!

As always, all of the books will be available for review at the start of the meeting.


FEE SCHEDULE

Unigroup is a Professional Technical Organization and User Group, and its members pay a yearly membership fee. For Unigroup members, there is usually no additional charges (ie. no meeting fees) during their membership year. Non-members who wish to attend Unigroup meetings are usually required to pay a "Single Meeting Fee".

         Yearly Membership (includes all meetings):      $ 50.00
         Student Yearly Membership (with current! ID):   $ 25.00
         Non-Member Single Meeting:                      $ 20.00
         Non-Member Student Single Meeting (with! ID):   $  5.00

       * Payment Methods: Cash, Check, American Express.

       ! Students: We are looking for proof that you are
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         containing NO dates whatsoever, and in the
         current environment, perpetual/non-expiring access
         to university facilities just does not feel right.
         If your ID contains no date, please bring
         additional proof of current enrollment.  Thanks,

NOTE: Simply receiving Unigroup Email Announcements does NOT indicate membership in Unigroup.


FOOD AND REFRESHMENTS

Complimentary Food and Refreshments will be served. This includes "wraps" such as turkey, roast beef, chicken, tuna and grilled vegetables as well as assorted salads (potato, tossed, pasta, etc), cookies, brownies, bottled water and assorted beverages.


Please join us for this meeting, you won't want to miss it!

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