Tech Field Day

Platform9 is something that, in my opinion, is very needed today. Will it be needed in 3 years…well we’ll see. But there is a gap right now that they can absolutely take advantage of! The problem their solution aims to solve is this: people want the agility and elasticity of AWS from within the confines of their own data center. This sort of thing is made possible today by (most popularly) OpenStack. The only problem with that is that OpenStack is ridiculously complex for an engineer or organization that doesn’t dedicate a lot of time to focus on it. So what if someone could offer OpenStack capability without all the on-ramp and depth of knowledge required? Enter Platform9. They’re a very new company, and the product is still coming to maturity, but this is absolutely needed, and I’m really excited about this one. One thing that seems to be of concern is that they move the control plane to their external SaaS portal. I’m not saying this is necessarily bad, but there are definitely those organizations who would prefer to keep the whole thing internal. Otherwise they might just head to AWS in the first place!

More about Platform9 & VFD4:

• VFD4 Prep: Platform9

• Virtualisation Field Day 4 Preview: Platform9

• A glimpse into the #VFD4 sponsors – CommVault, Dell, Platform9 and Scale Computing

Dell is obviously massive and has its tentacles in many, many different parts of the IT market. From a virtualization space, they obviously sell servers and storage that are used to create virtualized infrastructures the world over. They also own big brands such as Wyse (could be VDI endpoints) and and Quest (vRanger, Foglight). Because of their breadth, they’re able to play in a large portion of the market. As mentioned about CommVault, this breadth can also be problematic in terms of agility and innovation. We will be meeting with Dell at their headquarters in Round Rock, TX, which is sure to be a fun experience. Looking forward to what they have to discuss, since given the variety of topics to choose from, I have no clue what it will be!

More about Dell & VFD4:

• Virtualisation Field Day 4 Preview: Dell

• A glimpse into the #VFD4 sponsors – CommVault, Dell, Platform9 and Scale Computing

CommVault has been around a long time, and has also been a part of Tech Field Day before. It will be exciting to have them back and see what’s new. It seems that they’ve been experiencing a bit of a dip recently when it comes to stability, but lets hope that just means they’re poised to launch something huge. Something I wonder about (this being VFD and all) is how a fully featured product like Simpana will compete in a world that is continually becoming more virtualized. Competitors like Veeam are purpose-built for virtualized infrastructures, and are stupid simple and cheap. I’m not saying Veeam B&R and Simpana are remotely apples->to->apples; I’m just wondering how CommVault plans to compete with someone agile and focused like Veeam. Or maybe they don’t? Either way, I’m looking forward to hearing how CommVault plans to innovate in the market in the near future. I’m afraid that they’ve been kept alive by some massive legacy customers, and will be in trouble if they don’t innovate soon.

More about CommVault & VFD4:

• VFD Prep: CommVault

• Virtualisation Field Day 4 Preview: CommVault

• A glimpse into the #VFD4 sponsors – CommVault, Dell, Platform9 and Scale Computing