Data storage is changing, with solid-state technologies presenting a unique challenge to spinning disks. But not all solid-state storage is equivalent, and new architectures will be needed to apply solid-state enterprise use cases.

On April 25, 2012 the industry will come together at the Solid State Storage Symposium! This all-day in-person event features panelists from key enterprise storage companies and will be moderated by independent experts, including Stephen Foskett, Robin Harris, Chris Evans, Howard Marks, and Nigel Poulton.

The Solid State Storage Symposium will be held in San Jose immediately preceding Storage Field Day. It will be streamed live from the Tech Field Day site and will include many of the Field Day delegates.

Note: We have multiple ticket types. Please select "General Attendee" unless you were specifically invited by one of our sponsors.

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The Solid State Storage Symposium will be held in San Jose immediately preceding Storage Field Day. It will be streamed live from the Tech Field Day site and will include many of the Field Day delegates.

Free tickets are available now if you would like to attend in person! When: Wednesday, April 25, 2012, from 9 AM to 4 PM Where: DoubleTree Hotel, San Jose, CA Who: Anyone with an interest in solid-state storage (end users, press/analysts, and vendor employees welcome!) How: Claim your free ticket at our EventBrite page!

Order of the Day

09:00-12:15 - Morning Session

09:00 - Welcome: Stephen Foskett
	Stephen Foskett Pack Rat
09:15 - Vision Presentations
	Dave Wright SolidFire
	Suresh Vasudevan Nimble Storage
	Tom Isakovich Nimbus Data
	Jonathan Goldick Violin Memory
	Virident
	Velobit
	Permabit
	Scott Stetzer STEC
	EMC
11:45 - Keynote: Robin Harris
	Robin Harris StorageMojo
A look ahead 10 years: reinventing storage architectures using new technologies.
Solid-state storage is here to stay, but flash isn't. Nor is RAID. Will commoditization win in the enterprise or will a dozen niches bloom? The current architectures are broken, but what will take their place?

• 12:15 - Morning session close

12:15-13:30 - Break/Lunch - Provided

13:30-16:00 - Technology Deep-Dive Sessions

13:30 - Panel 1: Tier vs. Cache
Chris M Evans The Storage Architect	EMC	Dan Leary Nimble Storage	Dave Wright SolidFire	Keith Brown STEC	Velobit	Virident
Solid State – Simply a big cache or a real storage tier?
Solid state disks blur the boundary between cache and storage, with a foot in both camps. Can solid state drives really be treated as a new tier of storage or simply as a way to add more performance enhancing cache to existing arrays? This panel will discuss whether data should permanently reside on solid state media or whether the optimum and most cost effective solution is to simply use SSD to hold the working set of data in the array.
14:15 - Panel 2: Array Architecture
Nigel Poulton InfoSmack Podcast NigelPoulton.com	Umesh Maheshwari Nimble Storage	Tom Isakovich Nimbus Data	Dave Wright SolidFire	Narayan Venkat Violin Memory
What's the best solid-state storage array architecture?
The 20+ year old array architectures that are served up, day-in day-out, by the traditional vendors are struggling to cope with todays I/O demands. How they will cope with tomorrow's is anyone's guess. Looking to plug the hole and steal their business is an increasing crop of solid-state array vendors. Yet they're all going about it entirely differently. This panel will get to the bottom of how to design great SSD arrays and why they're architected like that.
15:00 - Panel 3: Future Architecture
Howard Marks DeepStorage Network Computing	Tom Isakovich Nimbus Data	Dave Wright SolidFire	Narayan Venkat Violin Memory	Virident
The Future of Solid State Storage
Today we use flash and SSDs everywhere from notebooks to PCIe cards in servers and enterprise arrays. In this session our panel will consider the future of solid state storage systems and answer some interesting questions. Will SSDs kill spinning disk? Do 2.5” SAS or SATA disks have a place in the data center of the future? What does the next generation of flash bring to the market? What about PCM, Memristors and other new SSD technologies?