Toronto VMUG Half-Day Session – Rocking the Community with PernixData

We had a big day planned for the Toronto VMUG community for the half-day session and it was above and beyond my expectations. Community was the theme in every way as we

Kicking it off with Angelo Luciani

Angelo Luciani led us out with a preview of some VMware content including the public beta for vSphere. Remember, vSphere betas are like fight club: the first rule of vSphere betas is that nobody talks about the vSphere beta. While it may seem daunting to be under NDA (Non-Disclosure Agreement), it is a lot of fun to participate in beta programs, and you can help shape the next iteration of VMware’s flagship products. To sign up for the vSphere beta program you can click here.

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He also chatted about the exciting work that is happening at the Virtual Design Master event this year. Make sure to check out the Virtual Design Master because we are ramping up in a big way now as Challenge 3 is about to be announced on Thursday July 24th at 9:00 PM Eastern live at http://virtualdesignmaster.com/live.

Community Presentation – Joel Gibson

Joel is one of our community members, and also a competitor in this year’s Virtual Design Master competition. What is also great about Joel is that he was one of the folks who made use of the mentoring program to put the User in User Group that was run last year by a number of VMUG members and bloggers. A very cool idea that lead to the Feed Forward program in VMUG this year.

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Joel did a very interactive troubleshooting session with the audience as he highlighted some issues that he has run into both in his lab and at the office. What made it great was the very interactive nature. Joel has a great relaxed presentation style and encouraged questions and tips from the audience.

Feedback was great on the session and we are proud to have Joel among our membership.

PernixData – Re-think Storage Performance

For this event we were very excited host PernixData with a presentation by Andy Daniel (@vNephologist) on the flagship PernixData FVP offering. Now in their second year since launch, the product is at version 1.5 and I predict some great things coming from the PernixData team.

The presentation was also very interactive, and triggered lots of questions and comments that lead to a great conversation between Andy and the audience. This is precisely the kind of presentation that makes our VMUG attendees happy to be here, and to come back for.

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Andy was also in town with Kirk Arrowood and it is always great to chat with them on what’s happening at PernixData, and in the industry at large.

We also were proud to be able to finalize the addition of PernixData as a supporter of the Virtual Design Master competition. Andy and Kirk were excited about the event, and once again they showed how community oriented the are both personally and professionally.

Community Presentation – Mike Preston

If you don’t already follow Mike online (@mwpreston on Twitter, www.mwpreston.net) then I encourage you to do so now. Mike is a great presenter, and has been a great help in the leadership at the Toronto VMUG. I’m pleased to count Mike among my friends, and I know I can always lean on him for some great tips on vCenter Orchestrator among many other VMware and virtualization technologies.

vmug-mike

Mike gave a great presentation on the value of community, and how he has used community and online social media resources and blogs to help him in his career. Again, the theme of community was strong and was greatly appreciated by the audience.

Community Presentation – Eric Wright…hey, that’s me!

This was a fun chance to be able to reprise my presentation which I gave at the Cloud Expo in New York recently on behalf of Pluralsight to go along with my Introduction to OpenStack course.

I really love giving this presentation and it was fun to share with the Toronto VMUG group about OpenStack, open source technologies, and the opportunities to work with VMware and OpenStack.

vmug-eric

And yes, I was wearing socks with clouds on them.

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All of the presentations are available at Angelo Luciani’s site www.VirtuWise.com here.

Thanks to all the great members, community presenters, and to the VMUG organization for continuing to create an environment for us to deliver great content to our members with a distinct community focus which is unmatched by other events.

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