For years now, I’ve been attending Tech Field Day events, starting with the #TFDx at VMworld 2015. This particular one will be my 12^th official attendance. I am particularly looking forward to this event, No, it’s not to escape the Polar Vortex that has enveloped the Midwest in favor of the far more moderate temperatures of the Silicon Valley, and while important, not entirely because I am excited about seeing so many of my friends, though that is important. It’s not exclusively because I find these events so educational, or because I am looking for subjects for blog posts, and it’s not specifically because the Field Day crew organizes such powerful vendors with such ground-breaking technologies. The truth is, it’s really all of the above.

I cannot tell you what a surrogate family I’ve enjoyed by being a part of these events. True friends who I only see at these blogger’s events, or at trade shows from around the globe. For example, at this show, we’ve got representation from the UK, Australia, Kuala Lampur, Italy, France, The Netherlands, Prague, and as well, a few of us boring North Americans! To me, that’s quite an exotic list.

In addition, the presentations promise to be so very interesting. Such stalwart key vendors as NetApp and Western Digital, along with newer veterans, like Datera and Cohesity, as well as the most interesting new (to me at least) Weka.IO and StorPool… There promises to be a surprise vendor presenting as well…

Let’s face it. I’m a geek about storage. Through my experiences in the industry, I’ve had the opportunity to see so many wonderful organizations present their product sets to Field Day events, but I get particularly jazzed when it comes to companies like Weka.IO that are truly addressing esoteric storage issues that have presented challenges since the dawn of network storage. While this is their second presentation to a Field Day event, I didn’t get to see them at Storage Field Day 15, and I could not be more pleased to attend this one.

All in all, my curiosity is piqued, my intrigue and camaraderie at the club we’ve all joined, and my hopes for personal education couldn’t be at a more significant level. I’ve long enjoyed these events, but for some reason, I feel this one will be even more significant than usual. I can’t express how pleased I am to be included amongst this austere group of wonderful industry experts.

I hope that my readers will choose to attend with mu, either via twitter feed following hashtag #SFD18 or on the live feeds presented so well by Prime Media and the GestaltIT crew. Thanks to Ben Gage, Stephen Foskett, Mel Zura, Claire Chaplais, Rich Stroffolino and Tom Hollingsworth for all you do.