I keep getting asked….why did you come back to Dell? People say – weren’t you at the cool new cloud startup? Why are you back at a boring old big technology company?

First of all, for lots of reasons I don’t think Dell is a boring old big technology company. Sure there are areas of the company that aren’t that exciting (to me anyways), but you will get that in every org.

Also, I guess you could say data protection is boring, but that’s just because people sort of just expect data to be there. Everyone figures someone else has thought about all the aspects of protecting that data so it is  always there to use. So data protection may not  seem to be all mysterious and “sexy” like some other technologies (*cough* cloud *cough*).

I think for most of us, backups were one of the first data center duties we were given. And if you really understand data protection, you know that you have to understand an organization’s entire IT environment as well as the business requirements that data protection products are designed to support.

What really lured me back is Dell is bringing all their data protection products into one portfolio. From Quest there is Net Vault, vRanger (one of the original backup solutions for virtualized environments), and Lite Speed (customized solution for databases). There is also AppAssure, which can back up virtual or physical datasets and restore to either virtual or physical targets.

Plus, according to an InfoTech evaluation (paper available here), Dell Data Protection products are innovative:

So I’m back at Dell to work with an innovative suite of products that make sure you’re able to protect everything and recover it every time. I’m also in the middle of using community theory to blend people from more than three companies into one big ole group of data protection fanatics. Now that sounds pretty fun to me.

Speaking of fun, I’ll be at Partner Exchange next week. If you’re going, drop me a note here in the comments, or tweet at me (@gminks), I’d love to grab a coffee or a beer and talk more about what I’m doing with ya!

Dell’s got lots of other non-Data Protection stuff going on at VMware PEX too! Make sure you join us for these events:

• Dell’s pre-conference Boot Camp is Monday from 8:45 – 5:50.
  • In the morning they are covering Dell’s Active Infrastructure (which is really pretty darn cool)
  • The first part of the afternoon is about Dell VDI solutions
  • From 2:15 – 4:15 it’s all about Data Protection! You’ll see demos of vRanger, AppAssure, NetVault, and Foglight.
  • Then there is a cocktail reception!  Details and registration page here.
• Dell’s partner appreciation party is from 6:30 – 8:30 Monday night at the miX Lounge in THE hotel! Go here to register!
• Dell’s breakout session is about VDI, its Tues from 12:30 – 1:30. The session ID is SPO2323, more info on the session is here.

If I don’t see you at PEX, I’m hoping to get out to lots of VMUGs and other places….looking forward to connecting with y’all!