The best program for typing on the iPad that i have found is iA Writer. It creates clean text that imports into anything (or can send via e-mail), syncs to iCould, and has handy items on the virtual keyboard to move back/forward by character or word.

Yes, he had an amazing impact. The biggest change that I think he brought was to really focus on the user experience. And with the iPod/iPhone/iPad, the focus has been on making technology simple for non-geeks. I believe he will long be remembered for showing IT companies how to really build products for the mass market.

Chad, I thank you for taking the time to drill into the detail on these options. You are right that a lot of the customers I talk to get these options confused, and start thinking they can mix vMotion and SRM for the same VMs between the same sites. I look forward to the 2 follow-on posts on this subject. (Disclosure - I work for EMC)

I share your sense of having an abundance of good fortune/blessing in my life. I came to EMC 15 years ago just looking for another Systems Engineer job, and thinking that the Symmetrix had some interesting qualities. I found a great set of products and a group of people with a maniacal focus on customer success, and I have been caught up in it ever since. I also share your desire to extend the circle of those who are sharing in this good fortune. We find good folks and get them to join the team. We find new team members and help them learn/do more. The virtuous circle. I look forward to the ways we will extend it further over the coming year. I am truly blessed.

** Disclaimer: I work for EMC ** Welcome to the fold. I hope that you find the right balance on the rules. Having been with EMC for 15 years, I have seen plenty of competitive challenges. And I have seen bad data used by others as well as some from EMC. I believe that most of our folks are trying to be accurate, or I would have trouble working here. I believe that the same is true of most of the competitors I meet as well. It is impossible for any of us to be up to date on everyone's technology all the time. With the rate of change it is sometimes difficult just to keep up with changes in the EMC product lines (especially as we keep adding them). And there are times when we do want to make a comparison to make a point. For example, when talking about thin devices and space reclamation, not all implementations are equal. Some allocate in chunks under 1 MB, some over 40 MBs, and others over 500 GB. Are they all thin? Yes. Do they use close to the same amount of space for a given set of data? Probably not. We tested SQL Server building out an 'empty' data file. DBAs do that all the time, and the data fills in later. But SQL Server puts some markers out there in the file - a dribble of data. With chunk sizes under 1 MB, these files may allocate ~2% of the requested capacity. But even a move up to 40 MBs can cause the allocation for this (still basically empty) file to be over 60%. Is this real? Yes. Does it apply to every customer file? Absolutely not! But it does seem useful as en example of why a customer might care about the granularity of the architecture. So I try to start any competitive items like this that I discuss with customers with a disclaimer: this was true the last time I tested it, but you, as a customer, should ask the other vendor(s) about this. And if a customer is going to make a purchase decision based on vendor claims, I would hope that they would both get the claims in writing and have a way to validate those claims. If customers do not hold their vendors accountable (if there is no penalty for lying), then the vendors are less motivated to be accurate.

Thank you for sharing, Chris. My ix-2 only has two drives, so I mirrored them. Unless I go crazy on video, 1 TB is plenty of space.

My lab has changed since my focus has changed. It was a set of systems in the basement, complete with: - 3 Dell servers (2 ESX, one LINUX) - 2x Brocade 32-port switches - CX3-20 - Dedicated power circuits! In fact, I had to keep this all in mind when building out the HVAC to keep the place cool in the Hotlanta summers. My new lab is in my closet. The closet shares a wall with my office. With a few wires through the wall I have access to everything I need without any of the noise. So the new, simplified lab is: - Mac Mini (iPhone/iPad development) - Dell tower for MS tools I may need (powered off right now) - Iomega ix-2 1 TB sharing device (http://applyit.typepad.com/applyit/2010/10/sharing-info.html) - Gigabit switch - Cisco Wireless Router I have Bluetooth keyboard/mouse control to keep wires to a minimum. And a 90" projection screen to work on. I have moved from being focused on building out infrastructure to a focus on systems architecture and the presentation layer. And I actually run my laptop wirelessly, since the bandwidth is higher than the 6 Mpbs WAN link anyway, and even big files move fast with 802.3n. The pain of setting up additional cables is not worth it. Of course, the iPad is even easier, since I don't always have to make sure I have it plugged in.

I got an e-mail question about the snaps and the full restore testing on the SRDF target array. It seems I could have been more clear in the explanation. When doing a restore test, the restore is done against the SRDF target volumes. SRDF would be suspended for this operation, as the target devices need to be made writable. Since the restore does not check to see what is already on disk and only restore the changes, essentially all of the target space will be updated by the restore. Since the updates are so large, the snaps on the target do not have the space to hold all of the changes, and they will be lost. Once this restore operation is completed, testing can be done against the restored database to ensure that the recovered image is correct. And once that is done, SRDF can be used to push this image back to production if that is needed. Or SRDF can be restarted and all of that data will be replaced with the current production data. I hope that clarifies how this is operating.