Live From Orlando: It’s SNW

Torrential rain met attendees Sunday as they began arriving at Rosen Shingle Creek resort for the Storage Networking World show.

The four-day conference features 160 speakers and 140 educational sessions across seven tracks, encompassing regulatory issues, high-performance computing, several tutorial programs and the Storage Networking Industry Association (SNIA) certification program.

Top issues this year are clearly the “green” data center and the value of storage virtualization.

Check back on *InternetNews.com* later today to read what NetApp’s Tim Russell, VP and GM of the Storage Security Business Unit, has to say about staying one step ahead of new regs and compliance issues.

Pretty much everyone who’s anyone seems to be here from the big boys to lots of newcomers pitching new technologies and ‘break throughs.’

One disappointment is the cancellation of Ray Kurzweil’s anticipated key note on Tuesday due to a last minute emergency. His topic, The Accelerating Future of Information Technology, surely would have drawn a huge crowd.

Standing in for Kurzweil is Mark Showers, CIO of Monsanto Company, who’s speaking on “Responding to the Growing Demands for Actionable Information from Around the Globe.”

But Tuesday still bodes exciting as Xiotech is expected to make a big splash that could end up being the big news of the show.

The vendor even took out the back page of the conference booklet to invite attendees to a celebration event featuring its “revolutionary new product” that will provide a “new foundation of data storage.”

The event will surely draw a huge crowd — two hours of free drinks and food usually does.