A little more than three years ago, Dell created the Enterprise Technology Center, informally known as Dell TechCenter. It has grown from it’s very meager beginnings to a site boasting regular members from more than 140 countries — large enterprise customers, small and medium-sized business and even public institutions. I recently sat down with the team behind the TechCenter to get a sense of what they do and how they are a big resource for our data center customers.
The team is made up of Scott Hanson (@dellservergeek), Kong Yang (@kongy_dell) and Jeff Sullivan (@SANpenguin) a team whose sole focus is helping customers figure out the "what if" scenarios for their PowerEdge servers, Dell|EMC, PowerVault and EqualLogic storage systems, and the myriad applications of those systems including systems management, virtualization, operating systems, de-duplication, among many other topics.
Dell TechCenter is a community that discusses data center issues from a technical perspective. You will not find any PR/marketing types in their lab (aside from when I was there to interview them :)) — these guys have pocket protectors and propellers on their heads. You won’t find glossy brochures on their site. You won’t find them linking to news releases. What you’ll find is great technical content to help you get more out of your data center.
These guys were recently out at vmworld 2009 and were geeking out with all their virtualization colleagues. In fact, just before they left, @dellservergeek had a group of us over to his house to hang out with the whole TechCenter team along with @virtualtodd, @gabvirtualworld and @B_renda, @dennismsmith (who is the guy behind our break-fix oriented data center community forums) and @lionelatdell, among others.
Let’s hear them describe what they do.
If you haven’t been to the TechCenter, give it a try. Here are the various coordinates at which you can find these guys and their work:
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Dell Enterprise Technology Center, aka Dell TechCenter, community site
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Dell TechCenter Blog
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Dell TechCenter group on LinkedIn
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And soon, we’ll have a fan page on Facebook
I invite you to come on to the Dell TechCenter site, look around and let us know what you think.