Check out vBrownBag's many "Focus on the expert – VMworld US 2016" video interviews, featuring Xeon D cluster demonstration

Posted by Paul Braren on Sep 10 2016 (updated on Sep 14 2016) in

I'm honored to know Ariel Sanchez (@arielsanchezmor) for some years now, and even captured a bit of his signature happiness on camera at last year's VMworld here.

Well this year, with the help of friend Jonathan Frappier (@jfrappier) and new friend Matt Crape (@MattThatITGuy), Ariel made this chance happen. On camera, I was able to cover the gear I was showing to hundreds of people that had visited my display earlier that day, including various sizes and speeds of Xeon D-1500 Supermicro SuperServers, as well as power measurement, control, and networking. It's all in the 15 minute video below.

Before the camera rolled, there was considerable encouragement from Ariel to not hold back. After this interview concluded, both Ariel and Matt offered to watch over my stuff, including that one-of-a-kind engineering sample of a Xeon D-1567 system. They even fielded some questions while I was down in the exhibitor area, rushing to get some some video interviews, just before closing time. Getting all my demo stuff stuff packed up and moved to my hotel a mile away would have meant I wouldn't get any footage that day, at all. Their gift of their time is greatly appreciated.

The (growing) list of videos #vBrownBag is publishing is Ariel's way to reach out to those not able to join us at this mega-conference, giving you a sense of being there. I actually met many other folks who had funded most or all of their own way to VMworld. This was brought up by 6 other people I spoke with, which is far more often than I can recall from any other year I've attended (2007/2008/2012/2015/2016).

I know all too well that rushed and remorseful feeling you get, flying home from VMworld, and realizing you didn't have much quality time with people. One such person that I really regret not getting to talk to more was Iwan Hoogendoorn, pronunciation here:

Iwan has recently been instrumental with helping inform the home lab community of an ongoing Xeon issue, which I wrote about earlier today.

Well guess what? Ariel captured Iwan on camera too! So we can all get a glimpse at what makes him tick (video below), and learn a little aobut how he earned that vast set of industry certifications. By the way, to give you an ever deeper sense of Iwan's commitment to the community, he also funded his own way to VMworld. From The Netherlands. Did I mention he works for VMware?

There are apparently many more #vBrownBag videos coming soon, visit Ariel's source article for the very latest updates:

Focus on the expert – VMworld US 2016

If you’ve attended VMworld you know it’s massive (20,000+ vPeeps every year) and, even though it’s several days and there’s lots of extra-curricular activities, you have to make the effort to spend some quality time with others. The phrase I tell my friends is “You get 5 quality minutes with someone – spend them well – because you may not see them again!”. It’s a shame we can’t get to meet everyone; getting a face-to-face moment with all the people we frequently tweet with or all the vBrownBag presenters is quite complicated because everyone is trying to make the best of VMworld they can.
Sep 10 2016 by Ariel Sanchez at #vBrownBag