.NEXT 2018 London & NPX

by | Jan 10, 2019 | Nutanix

So this year Nutanix’s conference ended up being in London so I had no excuse not to go. This also for me provided the opportunity to sit the NPX Bootcamp of which I can not thank the team enough for allowing me on it and providing some awesome mentorship.

I know many who may be reading this would question why I am doing it but many of the people providing the course were VCDX and the one key takeaway they wanted was the course provided transferrable skills. Be this for a NPX defence or even VCDX and day to day defences in the work place. The biggest thing for me was it helped me start to formulate some documentation of getting key requirements out of the business and a framework of which I could then use to come up with a design and document any risks and constraints to me and the team. I could then use this to create a simple board or management report and have this if required for any justification.

I have another blog post in the making about 2019 but I do certainly hope if the stars align I will being getting ready for my NPX defence if not well on the way by Q4 in 2019. I would hope to do it sooner but I am trying to set a realistic goal with some other things occurring for me personally next year this came up after I took the course. I also want to try and get some practise in with a few projects so I can stand up to the nerves of the deference.

Another major thing for me is at present I could afford to defend the NPX myself out my own pocket (I hope) depending on where they are. With the VCDX so matter how much I would want to do it I would need some serious training hours and budget. I have also been told by a VCDX or two that if I can pass the NPX due to its dual hypervisor design the VCDX should be a walk in the park… only time will tell.

Either way back to the conference as I am sure I will have many posts about planning and the journey ahead of me.

Unsurprisingly after finishing my NPX course I nipped over to the venue to register so that I could get some down time. I was even fortunate enough to be the 1st registration and test the system out

After a very early 4am start to get back to London the next morning I had a quick walk round and I have to say it was buzzing and the community booth looked great. Here is a little VR tour of the community area

I then decided to get a drink and head down to the key note early to get a good seat and I am glad I did

There was also a great moment where some of my fellow NTCs made it on stage

For me there were some great product announcements of which some people may well do but it is nice to see how well these are tied into the main product just making management simple

For me the next product is something I defiantly want to get my teeth into next year. I have always been a Citrix and Horzion/View fan for years depending on what you want to achieve. Then there is Frame…. this is NextGen stuff and only needing a browser and no plugins! With the way the world is becoming connected, DR Centric (or work from home) having the ability to rapidly spin up instance across cloud is interesting

Here is a little video of it working

After that I went to mingle with the vendors and of course I had to find the selfie king himself!

I am sure he had a cameo here too! Along seeing some great people I knew

It was now time for lunch and which was great, I couldn’t find the group photo but a wild Angelo did burst into song and provide a stunning lunch

After another walk around of which you can see here it was time for the big event for me

After stocking up with plenty of drink and food I settled in for what was a very eye opening talk with the one and only Bear Grylls. It was so eye opening and also amazing to know that despite what how I thought how different we would be being an outdoors person and a technologist I could not be more wrong. How humble he was on the stage and also what he teaches his kids were the same principles as myself. I know I will certainly be getting his next book and reading that when I can

And no conference would not be complete without a party. Here are a few clips from the party and a VR tour! Again I got there really early hence being able to walk freely as I knew I had to leave much earlier than others. Some of my later clips show how busy it was!

Thats all for this post and I am sure I will find a few bits from it to blog about specifically as I can get my hands on the products

Ding-dong Pernix Pro is dead

Ding-dong Pernix Pro is dead

by | Oct 12, 2016 | Nutanix, Pernix, Storage

So before I start this I want a little disclaimer as I know I will split the audience with this post and please do fully read this and I am open to constructive comments 🙂 I am much like you and wanted to throw out negative thoughts with argh my lab needs serious investment… where are my keys etc but on reflection I think there could be a way everyone could be happy!

Secondly before I even get into the post fully I too must thank Jane and Frank for all their efforts in getting the PernixPro program to where it was and allowing me to be part of it!

Before the WebEx even started I had my thoughts on what would happen after articles on the register but I tried to keep an open mind

I also felt for Angelo as before he could even kick off I could tell there may be angry hoards on the call as we were all a little nervous expecting the worst. To top this off the poor guy had a technical hiccup and all I can say is fair play he kept it all in control. I would have been a nervous wreck coming back onto that WebEx. I also think it was great Poojan took the time to make the call as I know this must have a been a difficult decision for him too as he sold his product and could be signing away a massive community.

In summary the call confirmed the PernixPro program ends in December 2016 and we are all being provided a chance to register for the Nutanix NTC program.

Many asked about the future of Pernix products and if we could even get lifetime keys for being supporters. Neither of the questions were fully answered on this call which was a shame but I also don’t think its the place. I think the dust should settle and this gets me onto my main points and reason for this post.

Firstly we were all part of a community and I love the fact I was part of this unique community. But how does this really differ from the NTC program… thats just another community. Yes it may not fully offer what Pernix Pro offers now but it may do, no one said they wouldn’t offer their product set in the future. We were only told of what it offers now which to be fair if I was doing my NPX or VCDX I would love to be part of this community.

I know there is a lot of fear about the Nutanix buy out and lets be fair as techies none of us like change or rather major change. Even if it sometimes benefits us! Major software updates put the fear of god into many of us, management saying lets rip out software X and go with Y as its fresh and cool just as we got it perfect… there was even a day when I would laugh and go SSDs in a datacenter…. are you mad!?!? But thing is we need to change to grow. I know shortly after the call Angelo reached out to me as he knew I had major concerns. The biggest being I felt isolated as I don’t sell the product let alone champion it is so does that mean I am of the running for NTC?

We exchanged a few messages and I get why he was trying to focus it on the community side… well isn’t that the reason we entered the program in the first place…

I will sound like such a sell out with this but I did reply with the following as I believe it to be true but hey… my 2 pence worth

I completely agree it’s about the product and the community! The freebies just help you sell that message and drive more people the the product! But that’s no good without the community and the networking/connections

I don’t think this would be complete without a meme!

1c8io0

I also do get why everyone else is upset! I for one run the Freedom product in my VDI environment and it has massively helped… What does this mean for me as of December? I feel even more sorry for the people that have the paid for version as they have no answers at all! Yes I know why am I not using my NFR… simple thats not what its for! Secondly it just means that SSD shelf and/or Fusion IO cards may need to go on a budget somewhere after all 😀

How do I think Pernix/Nutanix should resolve this… in my eyes release one more LT(S) version minus the support a bit and release perpetual keys for PernixPros and customers stating they can continue to run the software on this version and vSphere 6 etc until the dust settles.  Any support tickets after this would be best endeavours for customers who paid previously.

From here we can keep happy labs and customers and allow the guys to innovate the product. Growth can’t come without change and sometimes its just not always they way we want it to happen.

I sincerely hope within the next 6/12/18 months we will know what is then happening with the features from Pernix and we can all reassess then. You never know maybe all us NTC’s at that point would get a licensed copy of the acropolis hypervisor to run on our kit with the bits we love from Pernix today included. I know this takes it away from vSphere but if its running on the hardware or hypervisor somewhere and you get the benefits does it really matter?

So with that I best stop typing and get on with my NTC application and see what this is all about! Hopefully see some of you on the other side! This doesn’t stop my love for VMware as I may even run it on top and I am learning to embrace change… not push it away! It helps me and things around me grow!

Lets not get started on NSX… that is just voodoo and still scares me! Lets hope I can sort that next week