Pogo Linux checks out the latest Xeon Processor E5 and more at Intel Solutions Summit in New Orleans

Here at Pogo Linux, we pride ourselves on the hard work we put into taking care of our customers, working through tech issues, and burning the midnight oil in pursuit of solutions. However, sometimes you have to unplug a little and see what’s going on in the rest of the tech community. We recently had the chance to do just that at the Intel Solutions Summit in New Orleans.

Intel Solutions Summit – ISS for short – is Intel’s yearly event that brings manufacturers, distributors, and channel partners together to discuss the latest and greatest at Intel and how it affects everyone in the IT eco-system. As an Intel Platinum channel partner, it’s a great opportunity for us to learn about new Intel products and how to best utilize them for our customers. With the recent Xeon Processor E5 family launch, there was a lot of content about the new platform and the advantages of the enhanced I/O, better performance, and larger memory footprints. (All of these technologies can be seen in our updated line of Intel Iris servers.)

Other highlights from the show included updates on the current hard drive supply issue, and changes in the datacenter to accommodate 10GB networking. Western Digital gave a talk on their upcoming product roadmap, as well as an update on what drive availability will look like in the coming months. Supply is getting better, but it will be a few months before we’re out of the woods and things return to ‘normal’. On the networking front, data centers are aggressively moving to 10GB Ethernet wherever they can. This is happening not only with inter-switch communication, but also on the servers themselves. The price point for 10GB is becoming more reasonable, as evidenced by the many servers on the new platform supporting built-in 10GB.

There was a lot to learn at the ISS conference, but we made sure to have a little fun, too. No visit to New Orleans would be complete without a trip to Bourbon Street. For anyone who has never been to Bourbon Street, the best way to describe it is sensory overload. There are lots of people, all having way too much fun. We ended the night at a karaoke bar where peer pressure got the best of us. Let’s just say nobody will be quitting their day job anytime soon… 🙂