Tag Archives: Hands-on Labs

EMC World 2013 – What you should see and where I will be

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EMC World 2In just one weeks time, 15,000+ people will descend on Las Vegas and the Sands Convention Center for EMC World 2013.  While I can’t wait for the show to start, I wanted to highlight a few things that you may not know about, but will definitely make your show experience so much better.

EMC Square

Front and center during this year’s show is the EMC Square.  This mecca to all things social (and it may or may not be a perfect square) will house EMC TV, Silicon Angle, the EMC Backstage (more on this later) and the all new Blogger’s Space.  The Blogger’s Space (formally the Blogger’s Lounge) will be where bloggers such as myself can meet to talk, share ideas on the white boards, relay screens to watch keynotes, and of course  internet access to blog.  Inside the Blogger’s Space is a special area for EMC Elect members.  Elect members will have their own area to converse and I’m also told there will be special Elect ONLY blogger briefings during the show.  If you are a blogger and you are attending EMC World, make sure you register here.  I will be spending most of my time here and at the ECN booth, so be sure to stop by and say hello.

 

This year the social media team will unveil an all new Buzz Board.  This new interactive display will pull in tweets, Facebook posts, pictures, videos, and more about EMC World.  Simply tag things with #EMCWorld and watch them populate in near real time.

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Last year we had Buzz Sessions, Quick 10 – 15 minutes sessions highlighting a multitude of topics (including one staring yours truly).  This year we decided to slow things down a bit and introduce EMC Backstage.  After every keynote, we’ve invited the speakers to come sit and answer questions.  If there was something you wanted to know more about during the keynote, now is your chance.  Simply tweet your question with the #EMCBackStage hashtag and the moderator may ask it during the session.

Hands-on Labs

The Hands-on Labs are always a highlight of the show.  It’s the best place to try out all sorts of product demos and get a real feel for things without having to play with your production system.  It’s also rumored that this year you will get a chance to try out some unreleased products through the hands on labs

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I know my friend Craig “Chappy” Chapman was looking for good music this year, so I can’t wait to hear the final playlist.  The Hands-on Labs tend to fill up fast, so your best time to participate is first thing in the morning.  There should be little to no wait then.

Nightlife

With everything that goes on during the day at EMC World, what are you going to do at night?  Well on Wednesday is the customer appreciation event.  Just like last year, there will be another big name performer.  Guest passes are already sold out, so I hope you got one if you were going to bring a friend.

 

But what are you going to do the other few nights?  That is where we have you covered.  On ECN you can find a list of all the official and unofficial meetups going on during the week.  There will be a party on Tuesday night in the Zebra Lounge for ECN Members.  This party requires a wrist band, so be sure to see me to get one.  I haven’t figure out how I’m going to award them, but I’m always wanting to meet readers of my blog.

 

Where you’ll find me

My time at EMC world will be split between taking photos (be sure to follow me on twitter as well as @EMCCorp to see them) and booth duty.  On Monday you’ll find me at the ECN Station for most of the evening.  Tuesday and Wednesday mornings will be spent at the Elect Lounge.  I will be taking photos of all the keynotes (I believe another team mate will be taking photos of the general sessions).  Outside of that I’ll be at various meetups and events.  If you want to meet up, just tweet me and I’ll tell you where I’m at!

EMC World in Review … with Pictures!

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Another great EMC World has come and gone.  I’m sorry I didn’t do a daily post like last year, but I was a lot more involved this year and had less time in Las Vegas.  When I landed, I immediately hit the ground running.  I picked up my badge, put out a tweet to my followers, and headed off for the pool party.

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After informing a couple of customers in bathing suites that it wasn’t that kind of pool party, I met up with a lot of my friends who I hadn’t seen in ages.  The opening mixer is a great place to introduce yourself, enjoy some good food and music, and network with colleagues and customers alike.

Day 1

The first day I woke up early (in part because I was still on east coast time).  I grabbed my iPad, my camera bag, and my conference badge as I made my way right to the bloggers lounge.  There I was greeted by EMC’s best in social media.

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After a quick tour around the main areas that were open (the solutions pavilion didn’t open until that evening), it was time for the first keynote by CEO Joe Tucci.  I’m not one to take a seat away from a customer, and luckily EMC TV had me covered.  With a massive TV screen in the main area, I pulled up a private cloud and took in the speech.EMC World 2012 - Day 1 018EMC World 2012 - Day 1 020

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

After the keynote, it was a great time to take in a hands-on lab.  If you remember from my most recent podcast, my two guests were heavily involved with the creation of the hands-on labs this year.  And let me tell you they did not disappoint this year.  With over 200 stations available, the hands-on labs this year were packed and I’m told customers performed over 3000 labs this year.

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With a couple of labs under my belt, it was just about time to check out the solutions pavilion.  Apparently, a lot of other people had the same idea as the entrance was PACKED!  The food was great, and the booths were even better.  There was a lot of creative themes this year which you can see in my full list of photos.

 

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Day 2

 

The next started with Matt Brender and Tyler Altrup having a Buzz Session about Project R.A.M.P.  Matt spoke to us about Project R.A.M.P in the most recent podcast we did.  The buzz session was great (except when Tyler butchered my last name).  You can watch it below (and yes you’ll see me in the video too).

I had completed the special mission for EMC world and received my extra ramp badges, so I was in good standing.  Actually, I may have cheated a little and got my badge scanned at a required booth that wasn’t open the night before Winking smile

 

The afternoon was spent going to sessions.  One of the better sessions I attended was hosted by J Metz of Cisco.  He presented on the Evolution of Data Center Architecture.  One of the key takeaways for me was when he talked about Cisco’s Unified Ports technology.  What’s great about this is it doesn’t matter what you use the ports for.  You can use it for FCoE, CIFS, NFS, iSCSI and you can still use the same switch.  This speaks to me because of my work with the VNX.  We have all these network protocols on the VNX, and we can just use this one type of switch to handle it all.

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With the day over, it was time for a customer appreciation party for all the members of the EMC Community Network.  We had a great turn out and lots of laughs.  There was even a female magician doing card tricks that even I couldn’t figure out.

 

Day 3

The third and final day started with my Buzz Session.  I joined Mark Browne and the other Legends of ECN (I got to meet dynamox!!!!).  The session was great and we got both the customer and the employee perspective of the support forum.  You can watch the full session bellow:

 

With my session over it was time for me to study for my upcoming proven exam.  Followers of my twitter account will know that I spent weeks studying for my Virtualized Infrastructure Specialist exam (E20-018).  I’m glad to say I passed and once I get a few things cleared up, I can call myself a Cloud Architect!

 

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After it was all said and done, it was time for the closing events.  Chad’s World Live 2 rocked!  The customer demos were great as well as those who were on stage.  Chad had no idea that the Gorilla was going to goose him.  Speaking of Chad and his army, the vSpecialists released a new video called “Cloud Freaky”.  You can watch it below (and make sure you watch the ending!):

 

With the evening fast approaching it was time for the final event.  The customer appreciation party with Maroon 5.  Adam Levine did not disappoint and the best quote I’ve heard from him was “I’ve never played a show where there were more men than women, but we’ll make it work”.

 

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All in all it was an amazing show.  There were so many great things to do and great people to meet.  My only regret was that there wasn’t enough time in the day to do it all!  I can’t wait for EMC World 2013.  Be sure to check out my album on Picasa to see all the photos i took (150+ photos)