Last week I attended the Louisville VMUG and listened in on some talks by Dell and my good friends from Veeam. As I listened to the Dell SE, he was asking some questions that I was surprised to hear. My goal is to get a better understanding of where most people in the industry are and where we all want to be "someday".
He started asking the simple question of "does everyone run some sort of centralized storage?" and of course everyone answered yes. The he asked to see a show of hands of iSCSI vs FC vs FCoE. Nearly 80% of the room raised their hand for iSCSI storage connections while the other 20% were split for FC or FCoE. He seemed to really find his target audience. I believe most people were in the SMB space which makes perfect sense. Yet, the room seemed to be sort of bored. We've all been to VMUGs and heard the same pitches instead of talking about core technology or thinking beyond technology and the end result. I started thinking to myself, perhaps everyone here doesn't know the benefits or understand the process of running a converged fabric and leading up to a converged infrastructure.
When I go to VMUGs, I really want to learn about something new
or something upcoming that can benefit my business. Listening to another iSCSI storage offering isn't something that I find worthwhile... unless it can make pepperoni pizzas as well. I really want to be intrigued by new types of technology. Which lead me to send an email out to our marketing department to see what our stance is on sponsoring VMUGs to help get the VCE message out.
I would like to see VCE vArchitects speaking at local VMUGs across the WORLD to inform more technology advocates about Vblock. My VCE & VMUG goal is NOT going to try and sell you on the value prop, but to talk about some of the architecture and why Vblock is the premier choice for the technology. Face it, we can all understand the value, but VMUG audience members want to hear about the technology pieces.
My questions to you are:
- Are you interested in hearing about Vblock, even if you aren't in the market?
- Would you be more inclined to attend a VMUG if you knew VCE was presenting?
Share in the comments or email me at kendrickcoleman [@] gmail [d0t] com. Just let me know if you are a VMUG leader or a VMUG follower and the city(ies) you want VCE to present.