27. February 2009 by Dr. Steve.

I went to Hong Kong and Taipei as part of a 2 1/2 week business trip to Asia and Australia. I was in Hong Kong Feb 13-17, and Taipei Feb 17-20. The flight to Hong Kong was incredibly long, or so it seemed. I left Columbus, Ohio early the morning of Feb 12th, and arrived in Hong Kong late evening on Feb 13th. In other words, the time zone change made it seem like 2 full days had passed. In Hong Kong I stayed at the Hilton Conrad. Certainly an extremely nice hotel. While in Taipei I was at the Grand Hyatt.

I had some free time the weekend in Hong Kong to walk around and see some things. I went to the Pacific Place mall and actually saw a movie there. I saw Valkyrie, and it was in English. Most of the time in Hong Kong was quite busy going to customer and OEM meetings. I met with several banking customers and our FICON OEM partners. My Brocade colleagues Tony Thomas, Emily Cheung, Eric Lam, and Wilfred Wong managed to pack a lot of things into the schedule to ensure a productive, yet fun trip. I expect to be coming back to Hong Kong within the next three months due to how well the visit and meetings went.

In Taipei we also were quite busy with business meetings with banking and telecommunications companies, as well as with IBM and HDS. I even had a chance to give a presentation that was more open systems SAN focused to an open systems audience. Tony Thomas , Ivy Lin, Michelle Hsu, Moris Tso and I enjoyed several wonderful dinners. Tony Thomas and I went up to the top of the world’s tallest building: Taipei 101. http://www.taipei-101.com.tw/index_en.htm I will add some pictures when I get home next week. Eric Lam and Mori Tso took me to a really neat mall that had only electronics/computer stores. Amazing. And even more amazing was how low the prices are on things. $150 for a HD 22″ Widescreen display for example. Michelle and Moris convinced me to try a very spicy soup for lunch my final day in Taipei, and the lunch was right before a meeting with HDS. As luck would have it, I was giving a presentation when my stomach started to cramp, but fortunately I was able to finish. I had to run out the door to use the lavatory right after, but I did finish the presentation. I expect to be coming back to Taipei as well.

I took a Thai airways flight to Melbourne via Bangkok Friday Feb 20th. More on the Australia trip, including hopefully some pictures from the Sydney Bridge Climb (assuming I do not chicken out).

Here is a couple of pictures of the Taipei 101 building, and view from the observation deck.

 Taipei 101

Taipei 101 view from Observation Deck (89th floor) 

Dr. Steve

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21. February 2009 by Dr. Steve.

I have come to the conclusion that I should be posting to a blog regularly. Far too many people are using blogs nowdays, and the key to having readers is to post consistently. So, I will be posting once a week minimum. Tomorrow I will be posting on my recent business trip to Hong Kong and Taipei.

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16. April 2008 by Dr. Steve.

The week of April 6th I was on a business trip to Europe. During the trip I visited 6 large financial clients in Belgium, the Netherlands, and Scotland. I always enjoy trips that allow me to visit multiple countries during one single visit. It is always very interesting to compare how different mainframe end users in different countries do things. Although, such trips are quite hectic. One night you’re in Brussels, the next night you’re on a train bound for Amsterdam, or a flight for Edinburgh.

Speaking of Edinburgh, I had the opportunity to visit one of my favorite Chinese restaurants on this trip. I dined with my colleague Ian Sagan at the Golden Dragon (21 Castle St. Edinburgh, Scotland).  On Sunday April 6th I had the opportunity to walk around Brussels and take in some of the beautiful sights, such as St. Michael’s cathedral in the photo.

 St Michaels Cathedral Brussels Belgium

While I was walking around through the Brussles crowds I started thinking about how all the people milling around, walking orderly down the crowded streets reminded me of the concept of a FICON open exchange. Particularly when we had large crowds of people queued up in line at crosswalks trying to cross the streets.

Quite frankly I am perplexed, but not by the concept itself. I am perplexed as to why IBM has created little to no documentation on this subject. Open exchange saturation seems to be occurring more frequently, and I suspect that with the z10, we may see more of these situations in the near future.

The 6 large financial clients did have one thing in common: a desire for better such documentation, or at least some documentation on this subject.  What say you???

Dr. Steve

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1. April 2008 by Dr. Steve.

Just got back from a very enjoyable family vacation in Orlando last week. My kids were on spring break from their respective school. Mrs. Guendert, the kids and I went to Disney World in Orlando, FL. While there we went to the Magic Kingdom, EPCOT, and the Animal Kingdom. We had a lot of fun!

And to prove that it truly is a Small World After All. we had the good fortune of being there the same week a good friend of mine was there with his family. Chris Hardy is one of the best sales executives we have at Brocade and he happened to be vacationing in Orlando with his family last week. The Hardy’s had a lot farther to travel: Chris is from Manchester in the U.K. I’ve been to the U.K. several times in the past few years, often to visit with some of Chris’ customers. It was great for my family to get to meet a good friend of mine, and likewise, it was great getting to meet Chris’ wonderful family.

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17. March 2008 by Dr. Steve.

On March 6th Brett Favre retired. Those of you who know me well know I grew up in the Milwaukee, WI area and that I have been a lifelong Green Bay Packer fan. March 6th, 2008 was a sad day in the Guendert household. Sunday football will never be the same in our house. For every single Green Pay Packer game since 1992, there was only one quarterback. Brett Favre. My 15 year old son has never seen a Green Bay Packer game where #4 was not the QB. Nor has any other Green Bay Packer fan his age.

Brett Favre was a throwback to a different era, and he brought the Packers out of the NFL wasteland and helped lead our team back to the top of the NFL. Fans my age who grew up in the 1970s and 1980s never got to experience what our parents did when the Packers dominated the NFL in the 1960s. Brett Favre let us experience that, and he let our parents and grandparents relive their past experiences as fans. I’ve worn the same old #4 Brett Favre jersey when watching Packer games since 1992. When we moved to Ohio after I left the Navy, we got Direc TV so we could watch every Packer game.

Brett Favre epitomized the unselfish team player. He was the type of athlete that seemed like an “everyman”. He was one of us normal people. He did not think of hismelf as better than his fans. It was not about money or fame or records. He loved what he did. He put everything he could into it. When it got to the point that he could no longer do that, he decided to hang up the cleats.

I knew this day would come at some point. I think all Packer fans hoped he’d come back again. Maybe Troy Aikman is right and maybe Brett will decide to change his mind. I hope so.

I know that if not, I will be in Canton, Ohio to see his induction ceremony in 2013.

There are three famous people I have always wanted to meet, and two of them I never will get to: Ronald Reagan, and William F. Buckley Jr.

Brett Favre is the third. Maybe someday.

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12. March 2008 by Dr. Steve.

As many of you know, SHARE held its winter 2008 conference in Orlando Feb 24-29th.  It was a very successful conference with approximately 2100 attendees.  Being on the SHARE Board of Directors has given me a much different perspective on SHARE.  SHARE is really much more than conferences.  True, the conferences are a big part of SHARE, but there’s a lot more.  SHARE has been extremely active in partnering with IBM on trying to renew the interest in the mainframe as a career option.  SHARE is very active in the IBM Academic Initiative, and zNext Generation (zNextGen).  zNextGen has grown tremendously in size the past three years since it started at SHARE Boston in summer 2005.  I believe the number of zNextGenners is now over 350.  Kristine Harper, Iris Rivera, Mike Todd,  Reg Harbeck and all the other zNextGenners have really worked hard to create a successful SHARE Project in zNextGen.

One of the highlights the past several SHARE conferences has been the zNextGen project kickoff.  Past keynote speakers have been Dr. Pat Artis, Cheryl Watson, and Michael Stack.  Of the sessions I attended at SHARE Orlando, Tom Harper’s zNextGen project kickoff presentation was one of the best sessions I attended this time.  I have never seen Mr. Harper speak before, but I know I will in the future.  Besides, I need to expand my horizons beyond the FICON and EWCP sessions.

The other big highlight at this SHARE was the unveiling of the new mainframe: the Z10.  It was a great deal of fun to be part of history in the making as IBM did their simultaenous announcements at several cities, and had the z10 actually on the tradeshow floor at SHARE.  Watching IBM move the z9 out Monday night and put the new z10 in was a logistical wonder.

I hope IBM and other vendors will consider similar “unveilings” for other major new products at SHARE in the future.  It was the icing on the cake for a wonderful conference.

Dr. Steve

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11. March 2008 by Dr. Steve.

Welcome to my new blog! It took awhile to get this up and running and integrated into my new website after I changed web hosting providers, but here we go. I hope you will come back to visit frequently. I hail from Gahanna, Ohio (a suburb of Columbus) and just finished digging out from our blizzard. We received 20.4 inches of snow this past weekend.

Things you can expect to see on this blog are a discussion/viewpoint on things happening in the mainframe/mainframe stroage industry, links to articles I have published, recaps of travel, and what I will call “other miscellaneous ramblings”.

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