Encompass Canada - Montreal Seminar Event Recap

Montreal Technical Seminar - Feb. 22, 2007
Event Recap

Kicking off the New Year with it’s first set of events, Encompass Canada, in collaboration with HP (Canada) Co., presented one-day technical seminars in Toronto on Feb. 20 and Montreal on Feb. 22, 2007. These seminars are part of Encompass Canada’s ongoing ‘Technical Directions’ - a series of information exchange events for members, HP users and like-minded industry consultants to interact with presenters from HP technical and engineering staff, HP management, HP partners, and industry consultants on relevant topics. Building on the success from last year's event, the Montreal seminar was once again held at the convenient location of the International Institute of Telecommunications at Place Bonaventure in downtown Montreal. Attendees from the Montreal area represented major corporations and industry consultants. Presenters for the seminar included HP staff from HP (Canada) Co. and HP Company in the U.S. and HP partner consultants. In attendance were HP management and technical consultants, Steve Shaw and Martin Schneider, from Toronto, and Chet Jacobs from Boston. Also coming all the way from Colorado Springs is Bruce Ellis (living icon of the DECUS era), presidert of BRUDEN Corporation, an HP partner. Also reprsenting BRUDEN as well as Encompass Canada is Kevin FitzPatrick (an ex-OpenVMS Ambassador) who 'em-ceed' the agenda for the day. More information on all the presenters can be found on this archived seminar presenters page. The core topic of the seminar agenda centered around OpenVMS strategies and directions. Presentations included discussions on storage products and solutions, HP SAN management solutions, and transitioning to Itanium. Since Encompass Canada is an HP user group representing HP users, plans are to reintroduce a two-track agenda covering both OpenVMS and HP-UX topics similar to that of the 2006 Montreal seminar. Complete agenda for the Toronto seminar is available on the archived seminar agenda page. As with previous seminars, the sessions were well attended with productive information exchange and lively interaction between attendees and presenters. Prizes from HP and sponsors were raffled off throughout the day with the grand prize, an HP branded backpack provided by HP DSPP (Developer and Solution Partner Program), at the end of the day. Encompass Canada would like to thank HP (Canada) Co., Angelo D'Amore from HP (Kirkland office), Sue Skonetski and the HP offices in the U.S., Kevin FitzPatrick and the Encompass Canada board, Bruce Ellis, all the participating sponsors, and the staff at the International Institute of Telecommunications for making the Montreal seminar possible and contributing to another successful event. Discussions with Angelo and the HP organization in Quebec is already on the way to plan for the next annual event in 2008. Presentation notes from the Toronto and Montreal seminars can be downloaded from this page.
Attendees mix and mingle with presenters and sponsor representatives during lunch break at the spacious foyer of the International Institute of Telecommunications.		Lunch and coffee breaks present opportunities for attendees to interact face-to-face - a valued benefit that no on-line venue can substitute.
Attendeed transfixed to informative presentation by Bruce Ellis, president of BRUDEN Corporation.		Always a popular part of any Encompass Canada seminar, lunch at the I.I.T. office's spacious foyer. Sourcing the food for the self-catered lunch is a relatively easy feat in a city that's renown for its fine culinary offerings.
Coffee breaks are predominantly occupied with the continuation of the information exchange from the sessions. It is obvious that some conversations are livelier than othes as this image illustrates with the low shutter speeed shot.		Kevin FitzPartick, Director of Encompass Canada, assisted by Rich Williams of Nemonix Engineering in raffling off door prizes provided by HP and Weaver Consulting.

Updated: March 9, 2007