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Posts Tagged ‘event’

Start your Cinco de Mayo 2011 celebration with one of the largest VMUGs in the Southeast US! The 2011 Carolina Summit is at the Charlotte Convention Center (in Charlotte, NC) on Thursday May 5 from 7:30 am until 4:30 pm. If you are a VMware admin or architect within driving distance be sure to plan to attend. You can register here. I’m particularly excited about the 2:30 pm Panel Discussion on the state of cloud computing, but more on that session later in this post.

Everyone will be there!

Why should you attend? Check out the following samples of featured speakers, sessions, and labs:

Panel Discussion on Cloud Computing
(Rich Brambley, Mike Laverick, Jason Nash, Scott Lowe, Mike Dipetrillo)

Pros & Cons of Stretched Cluster Designs
(Scott Lowe, Industry Speaker)

Cloud in the Real World
(Mike Dipetrillo, VMware)

vCloud Director and VMware View
(Varrow Lab)

Automating vSphere with PowerCLI a Primer
(Aaron Miller, VMware)

VMware View Reference Architecture
(Mac Binesh, VMware)

Of course there will be various VMware and sponsor keynotes and presentations mixed throughout the day. Be sure to catch our Veeam Software session at 10:00 am. The event’s full agenda can be reviewed here.

Panel Discussion – The Sequel

I’m once again honored to get the invite to moderate the Carolina Summit’s featured Panel Discussion at 2:30 pm. I’ll be participating in an open and unscripted “state of the union” conversation about real world cloud computing with Mike Dipetrillo, Scott Lowe, Jason Nash, and Mike Laverick. Like last year, I view my role in this session to be like a co host of a live podcast. The entire VMUG audience, however, is real discussion driver. So, bring your questions for this expert panel!

Can’t make it in person?

Train Signal has partnered with the VMUG organizers and will be interviewing speakers and videoing sessions for those that can’t make it. They will also be live streaming the Keynotes at 8:45 am and 12:45 pm (EST). Find out more be checking out this post:  2011 Charlotte VMUG: Coming to You May 5th. Hopefully Train Signal will decide to live stream the Panel Discussion at 2:00pm as well! I assume vExpert David Davis will be in attendance? Help me reach out to him to include the Panel in Train Signal’s coverage!

Other Coverage

For more great coverage of the 2011 Carolina Summit VMUG also check out:

2011 Carolina VMware User Summit Coming Up – Scott Lowe

On the Road Again: Charlotte, North Carolina Summit – Mike Laverick

VMUG Carolina Summit: Be There or Don’t…See if I Care. No Really. Do Be There – Dustin Pike

VMware Regional Summit in Charlotte, NC! – Jason Nash

Let me know if you can make it!

I’m late posting about this so I’ll be short. Tuesday 08/10/2010 is the deadline to enter and win a free conference pass, airfare, and hotel accommodations for VMWorld 2010 in San Francisco, CA. Go to GestaltIT.com and register NOW!

Here’s some various contest info as pasted directly from the post Announcing the Gestalt IT “Get Away to VMworld” Contest!:

“Here’s the deal: Thanks to our generous sponsors (Xsigo and Symantec), we’ll pay airfare, hotel, and registration for one lucky and deserving person out there to attend VMworld San Francisco 2010! That’s right – you get to go to VMworld for free!”

“Entrants must explain how they plan to “pay it forward” if they get to go to VMworld. Will you start a blog? Write some tutorials? Contribute to a forum or online community? Present to your local VMUG? Get creative and spread the wealth of knowledge you get from the event!”

“HOW TO ENTER

Ok, so how can you enter this contest? Here are the simple steps:

1. Consider how attending VMworld would help you and the broader community
2. Fill out the contest entry form
3. Plan on stopping by the Symantec and Xsigo booths at the show and thanking them for their support
4. Consider publicizing the contest by sharing this article with friends and associates
5. Consider subscribing to Gestalt IT with RSS, by email, on Twitter, or in iTunes
6. Consider supporting DonorsChoose.org and donating your swag to school kids in need”

“You have through Tuesday, August 10 to enter. The winner will be announced on the VMware Community Roundtable Podcast, Wednesday August 11 at noon Pacific time!”

Check out the whole GestaltIT post for more details and some fine print. Good Luck and I hope to see you there!

Tomorrow I leave for Texas to attend HP’s Infrastructure Software & Blades Tech Day at the HP campus in Houston, TX. HPBladesDay is taking place on February 25^th & 26th. This exclusive blogger event was outlined in the invitation email I received as follows:

“This day and a half deep dive about the blade server market, key data center trends and client virtualization will be with HP technology leaders and business executives who will discuss the company’s business advantages and technical advances.  It will also include customers’ and their own key insights and experiences and provide demos of the products.  You’ll get an insider’s tour of HP’s Lab facilities as well.”

So, for the rest of this week I’ll be tweeting, snapping photos, taking movies, and sooner or later blogging about my experiences and HP’s blades servers.

This will be my second HP blogger event. Regular readers will recall I was also lucky enough to get invited to the HP Storage Day event at the Colorado Springs HP campus last Fall.

Podcast Coverage

Greg Knieriemen, also a HPBladesday attendee and the infamous Infosmack podcast host, has asked me to record another Infosmack episode from Houston with him. GestaltIT’s fearless leader and blogger extraordinaire Stephen Foskett will also be joining us on the show as well as in Houston at HP’s event. I’m willing to bet that several other of the bloggers in attendance could end up on the podcast, so look for another great Infosmack talk next Monday when it is released.

HP’s own blogger (Around the Storage Block blog) Calvin Zito (@HPStorageGuy) will also be there. Since Zito has also recently started his own podcast, look for great coverage in all social media formats from him as well.

Twitter and Blogs

Knieriemen has already created a Twitter list.

Twitter / @Knieriemen/HP Blades Day

You can also follow HP Blade team (BladeNews) on Twitter

The official event Twitter hashtag is #HPBladesDay

Here’s a list of other bloggers attending, (but not a complete list): Read the rest of this entry »

Microsoft is throwing a free virtualization event next Monday. The September 8th Launch Event at the Meydenbauser Center in Bellevue, WA is obviously strategically timed to grab the world’s attention before VMware holds it’s annual VMworld conference the week after in Las Vegas. So, what does Microsoft have planned while they have the spotlight to themselves? The Microsoft Virtualization launch web page explains they are doing a lot!

“Find out how Windows Server 2008® with Hyper-V™, Microsoft System Center – including Virtual Machine Manager 2008 – and Microsoft Desktop and Application Virtualization allow you to deploy, manage and get VIRTUAL now like never before.

• Learn about Microsoft’s virtualization strategy and roadmap from senior Microsoft executives and industry analysts from Burton Group, Forrester Research and Greenmonk
• Hear from customers who have deployed Microsoft Virtualization products
• Get a free Microsoft Virtualization evaluation software kit*
• Visit the exhibit hall and test-drive the latest hardware and software solutions for a virtual environment from Microsoft and its partners.
• Take a technical deep dive by attending one of the conference sessions or hands-on labs.
• Join us at the closing launch party featuring the band Live.

This is a FREE event!”

With Keynotes from top Microsoft Executives mixed between Breakout Sessions covering Read the rest of this entry »

Earlier this week I was able to attend one of the free Heroes Happen Here events Microsoft is hosting. Although I only attended the morning IT Pro – Infrastructure sessions, the event also had sessions on SQL 2008 , Visual Studio 2008, and a Small Business Server and Essential Business Server session. All things considered it is an event worth attending if you have the time. The format was a a surprisingly minimum number of presentation slides and a lot of live demonstrations.

Here are the primary reasons I was glad I went: Read the rest of this entry »