VMUG - Pivoting to Avoid Becoming Legacy - CTO Advisor 094

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Hey, you're listening to the CTO Advisor. I don't know, Mark, we're not going to put a number on this because I don't know when we're going to publish it. It depends on when we publish this. It could be 91 to 105. It could be 91 to 105. So we know it's at least 91. Yeah, it's not 100. It's not 100, but it's also not 90. We did 90. Yep. Actually, 90 was a crossover post with Ian Lewis.

It was the first CTO Advisor slash Virtualized Geek, which Virtualized Geek, the spear, is career-focused. And we had a little debate. We have the VMUG president. And for disclosure, I do consulting work and content work for VMUG, Brad Thompson. Thanks for joining the podcast. Well, thank you, Keith, Mark. I'm delighted to be here. Appreciate you having me back and looking forward to the conversation. For disclosure, I've been to VMUG. You have been to VMUG. I'm at VMUG right now.

We're at the end of VMUG. You know, the end of VMUG, I love coming out to it. It's one of the biggest VMUGs. I think we did the math. People from five or six different states, let's exclude the vendors, the sponsors. They travel all the time. We're talking about people from Kentucky, Ohio, Kansas City, St. Louis, Illinois, coming all to this centralized spot to talk education, careers, just regular members. I love this. It's probably my favorite VMUG just from the diversity.

I'm going to call it my second favorite VMUG because, you know, being a VMUG leader, I have to. Yeah, you have to. Cincinnati has to be the best. I think I'm contractually obligated to say the Cincinnati VMUG is the best. And we're not going to put Brad in the position where he has to choose between all his kids. I can say that this is my favorite VMUG. People in Chicago might be raising that eyebrow. I've only been to one Chicago VMUG.

So, you know, this is like my third or fourth Indy VMUG. I think my wife's favorite would be Harrisburg because it's near Hershey, and that's one of her favorite spots to go to the spa. And, you know, after today, this might be your wife's favorite. It might be Harrisburg, too. Oh, my goodness. Uh-oh, is the wife at the spa, Keith? No, my wife is hanging out with Mark twice. She made me tell her about the Harrisburg VMUG. And then Poumela Smith also has told her about the Harrisburg in the spa.

So we'll see how that goes. So, Brad, we wanted to have you on the CTO Advisor because VMUG is dealing with a challenge that CTOs are dealing with in managing their technical staff. Mark, what was the name of the New York Times CTO we had on? Nick Rockwell. Nick Rockwell. We interviewed Nick Rockwell, CTO of the New York Times, and he talked through not just the technical challenge of moving his team from building applications and VMs to building applications using serverless, but the cultural shift as well.

Yeah, and that's what he said the hardest part, which is technology was easy, but getting people to think about this, you know, VMs that they've been thinking about forever in this way and thinking about them differently. So I think cultural changes, I think we'd all agree, are always the hardest changes. Yep. And so as we look at VMUG, VMUG is built on vSphere. Like, even today, people— It's the ground that VMware was built upon. Yeah, that's right. 7. What's new?

Like, Jason and Chris' session, what's new in vSphere? But the reality is, you look at VMware as a company, and we're at a VMware user group, the company is now a portfolio company. You were mentioning, what was the— vCloud Services, we now have some offering on VMUG Advantages for vCloud Services, and that's kind of VMware's as-a-service. They have a lot of offerings there that they're going to continue to build out. They're not going to forsake the core of buying software and putting that software either on-premises or on hardware that you either own or manage or however you're going to do that, but the as-a-service is a big up-and-comer.

I was at a VMware event last week, and the analogy, and I think this was Joe Bagley said, you know, think of exchange and email. Ten years ago, we would just go throw up a virtual exchange server and everything's great, and then O365 comes around, and it's like, well, I don't know about that. Now, nobody would go build an exchange. It's like, it's a no-brainer. You go to O365, whatever vendor you choose, and then I can go focus on what I need to focus on, which is bringing value back to the business unit.

Email's not going to bring you value. You need to have email, but there's many things out there that you need to have your IT focus on, and that's part of the shift that you're talking about, and we see that at Veeamone. We see that our members are asking for that, and our members and our leaders are the ones who get to pick the content for user cons. They're very involved in that. We do that for many reasons. One of them is because they live this every day.

They're in the local area, kind of know where the local area is at, and so it's great because we see that shift to things like, for instance, the keynote this afternoon is Chris McCain. It's talking about the NSX mindset, and that's not about the NSX bits and bytes. It's about changing the way you think about how you do things and how culturally and how IT departments are getting shifted around to take advantage of the new software and the new SDDC model that's out there because the old way is not going to work as efficiently as it can or as it should or as the new way can, and so it's interesting.

This is also the first year that our members are telling us the number one thing on their mind is professional development, and in the past, that's always been, you know, two, maybe three, maybe five. This year, number one. That's interesting. I think we've all experienced this shift from, you know, bare metal to virtual machine, and now I think we hear a lot about shift from virtual machine to container or cloud or whatever it is. I think we hear about that a lot, but I don't think most of us have made that transition outside of our community sphere.

You know, we're in this little bubble, I think, of perfection where we think things are further along than they are, but I think it's always been a challenge in the real world to adopt those new technologies, which I think gives something like a VMUG a real opportunity to pivot and try to provide that business value, right? Shifting away from talking about the vSpheres of the world and the NSXs of the world, which are great and needed, but to how we drive business value with those things.

So, Pratt, let's peel behind the curtain a little bit and the conversations that, I know we've had conversations one-on-one in my role, but, you know, you have the responsibility of looking at, like, the whole organization, the relationship with VMware, the relationship with sponsors, and then the relationship with your primary relationship, the relationship with the VMUG members. Talk about the goal or the efforts to go beyond. Like, VMware is starting to go beyond the traditional vSphere admin as the point of first contact. A simple example is VMware NSX.

It's primarily a networking solution, completely different audience than what has been typical in the past. Matter of fact, our good friend Yvonne Sharp just started as a NSX SE in healthcare, and she's, like, she's never even been, I don't think, a VMUG member before today, and her comment was, oh, my God, I'm overwhelmed by the number of products that VMware has. So talk to us about, like, the shift in those, beginning with the VMUG membership. Like, what have you guys done to start to reach out to these new communities?

Yeah, so that is definitely something that we have our eye on, and we're trying to figure out the best way to navigate that. Obviously, we do have a large amount of vSphere admins and users. That is our core, and I would say that's probably always going to be the case because a lot of these solutions are building on top of that. Right. vSAN is a perfect example. You have to have vSphere for vSAN and those kind of things. NSX, you know, works well with it, but it can work standalone, and I would imagine that that's going to continue to happen with products that can work more standalone.

But what we're trying to do is, you know, we do have members that are just kind of heads down. This is the world I'm in. Right. And we try to tell them, hey, you need to lift your head up because this is what's coming, and it's not up to VMUG to tell you how to deal with this. You just need to be aware of it. Exactly. One of the things that I, kind of my biggest fear, so to speak, is I don't want any of my VMUG members to get asked by their CXO, what's our plan for, fill in the blank, for containers, network virtualization, whatever, and them have a deer in the headlight look.

If they get that, then that means VMUG has failed them. And so I want them to say, okay, this is what the plan is. This is what I'm doing, whether it's adopt, not adopt. This is the model that we're doing, that sort of thing. You might not have the answer right then, but at least you know about it, and you can speak intelligently about it, and what's the best for your business? Again, it's not up to VMUG, it's not up to VMware, sponsor, vendor, whatever.

It's up to the business to determine what's best for them. So we want to make sure that they have that information. What I want people to get out of anything that they do with VMUG, whether it's an online communication or chat, virtual event, user con, VMUG Advantage subscription, et cetera, one, I want you to get something that you can use tomorrow. So that might be, and more likely, some kind of tweak or something that vSphere, that you can do to vSphere to make your life easier.

But two, I want you to learn something about what's coming down the road that you need to be prepared for, because it's going to be up to that individual to understand and determine how they need to prepare for it. If it's network virtualization that's coming down the road, that might mean, you know what, I need to go learn more about this, or maybe it's I need to learn how to interact more with those individuals. So that's going to be a different answer depending on how comfortable you are, where you are in your career, how big your company is, those kind of things.

But I think VMUG and VMUG members, like you mentioned, Mark, have a great opportunity to take the lead on that and kind of spearhead that initiative inside their IT department. Folks, we need to do things differently. We can't have infrastructure here, storage here, networking here, et cetera, et cetera. We need to all work together on how we bring value to the business, because the business units are looking for IT to deliver a service. It's not about managing anymore, it's about delivering a service.

So how do you balance the V in VMUG, you know, the VMware against new technologies that may not be VMware related? At some point, you know, containers is a great example. It started out not being anything to do with VMware. VMware has pivoted. But in those early days, how do you keep your members informed without stepping on the toes of VMware, or do you? Right, to me, one thing that I've seen is community right here, and I think we see that here a lot.

Like I'm giving a talk on future storage has absolutely nothing to do with VMware. So that's one thing that I've seen. Well, it has nothing to do with VMware from a product perspective, I saw a tweet yesterday from the VMUG account that said, integrating VMware identity management with Citrix something. The reality of what we do, the reality is that people have mixed environment. When it's publishers, I'll be a VMware employee. But the reality is, you know, today as an analyst, I deal with people who have Nutanix.

They have Nutanix AHV, and they have VMware vSphere next door, and they just need it to work. They don't care about the political and the competitive relationship. They just need it to work, and you obviously deal with those types of issues. To echo, to repeat Mark's question, how do you deal with that? It is challenging. It's definitely something that you constantly have to look at. We are the VMware user group. I mean, VMUG, the VM is VMware, so we will maintain that.

We enjoy a great relationship with VMware. They are very supportive. In fact, I've worked in many user groups throughout my career, and this by far is the most support that we've gotten. And this is, you know, Pat Gelsinger on down support. So that's tremendous. So that is something that allows us to really deliver and give our members a deeper insight and deeper look into VMware. An example of that is, you know, at this event here, we've got Chris McCain and Frank Deniman speaking.

I mean, those two people are responsible for three BCDX certifications, and they're VMware employees. Frank is from Amsterdam, so that's the kind of support that we get. So we want to make sure that we continue to get that kind of support and work well with VMware. VMware is also realizing, like you said, they pivoted, and they have now, you know, their ecosystem has always been very big. And where, say, three, four years ago, having AWS come to this event, you know, it might not be something that would scream, oh, this is a VMUG event.

Now, VMC on AWS is the main keynote topic. So that's something that you just, you've got to be prepared for changes and be ready for what vendors can bring to the table. The other thing that's challenging is a lot of vendors now, because VMware has expanded, and VMware and their partners have expanded. In one area, they are friendly. In one area, they complement each other, which is what we're looking for. In other areas, they compete. So we ask vendors to come and talk about how they complement a VMware environment.

And that doesn't mean that it has to be, you know, oh, VMware is great, and this is how this product works. It's more of whatever they're talking about needs to work in a VMware environment. They don't necessarily have to say VMware, but it needs to work in an environment. And if that's the case, you know, then it's appropriate. And that's the kind of people that, vendors that we look for. Also, this IT community is huge, and VMUG is not the entire IT community.

There's other groups out there that do things similar to us. There's some that do things different than us. And I think it takes, you know, it takes the village, and we're just one part of the village. We're a big part, and we're the VMware part. But I think it's important to, you know, keep in mind there's other sources out there to get information from. But if you're looking for VMware and VMware-related information, this is a good place to be. And, you know, the reason I like this conversation is I think this echoes challenges that most of the enterprise has.

You know, as a business goes through digital transformation or whatever the buzzword of the year is, it mirrors the organizational changes and the problems that people have in the user group, right? So I think these types of groups are more important than ever so that you can learn about that and refocus and get there, you know? Yeah, the enterprise isn't immune to these competitive challenges. Not at all. You know, you might be a Dell EMC store shop or NetApp store shop.

And now these companies, NetApp, Dell EMC, Pure, they're expanding beyond their core mission of storage. NetApp is pushing wholesale into cloud and container orchestration. Our good friend Josh Atwell is a DevOps advocate. A DevOps advocate at a storage company. Well, NetApp would tell you they're a data-driven company now, but for what most people consider a storage company. So when you're, you know, if you're a Dell EMC shop and you look at some of the good work that NetApp is doing and you want to bring that in-house, you're going to ruffle some feathers.

So this is some stuff that enterprises, I've watched, not just because I've done consulting with you guys, I've watched the VMware community for the past few years because I really care about it and it's been critical to my own career. And it's representative to the change that's happening in the enterprise. I said I'm going to VMware because I've said that I don't think there's a better organization, better position to help the enterprise into hybrid IT and hybrid cloud and next phase of IT.

Just because of the breadth of what VMware, how critical VMware technology is. I think VMUG is similar. There's probably not a user group better positioned to help IT professionals move into that next phase of what IT is going to become. Yep. I think it goes back to, I think it was two years ago at a user con when we ran a career panel with the Cincinnati VMUG. And I think one of the questions I ask is what new technologies people should learn to stay ahead of themselves and your answer was, you know, what you should really learn is to focus on the business.

Right? I think that that is becoming key. If it's not, if it hasn't always been key, it should be. Right? If you're listening to this and you're an IT person and you're focusing on IT, that's great because that's one way you provide value. But really you have to think about what business value, what you do in IT brings to an organization, not what technology value it brings. And now it's VMware's 20th anniversary, 20-year anniversary. So you think about that journey that some of our members have been on.

They've been a part of that for two decades. You know, they were early adopters and, you know, maybe they spent a decade of that being a vSphere admin and it's been a great, great career for them. But now it's about how can those people that have moved up and they're now in director, maybe VP, C-level type, you know, they need to know more about what, how can I help the business unit? And that's what it is. But we also have a new group that's coming in that is just new to vSphere, just new to VMware.

And I do hear comments, they're like, wow, this content's great, or I never knew this existed, or I want to get involved more. So it's an interesting position to be at when you can talk to people that you've known for years and years and you've seen their career, you know, explode because they've taken advantage of VMUG and the community and what it's offered. And they've done a lot of hard work to improve themselves as well. And now they're, you know, they're at a partner or they're at VMware or they're excelling at their own career and those kind of things.

But it's still exciting for me to see that person that, you know, they're still kind of new at this, maybe out of college or maybe they just somehow got shifted over into IT and their minds are blown. They're like, what? You know, somebody told me you need to manage this virtual server and I had no idea about all this stuff. So it's really neat to see that. But that's another aspect of it. How do we cater to both sides? We need the business needs of it, but we still have those people that just need tips and tricks.

And one of the community sessions we have here is, you know, how do you present? How do you speak? Because you're always selling something. It might be selling your budget to your CIO boss or what have you. But, you know, people need to know how to manage those people skills in an environment where you're not only talking to potentially the storage folks and networking folks, but you're talking to the business unit heads that might not, you know, they don't know IT.

They don't know vSAN. They don't know NSX. They're just like, this is what I need and I can get it from company Y over here by dropping down a credit card. How are you going to deliver it? And VMware wanted to do that. I love that comment of consumer simple and enterprise secure. That's what our members are being asked to deliver. And I think, you know, VMware and the partner ecosystem can help deliver that, but that's only part of it.

It's how do you get your employees prepared and maybe that's yourself prepared for that journey so you can take advantage of that technology. Because in this sense, I feel like the technology is pushing the HR side of it. Well, Brad, I'm super excited. I really appreciate you coming on. I'm, you know, there's the new folks new to vSphere. There's the kind of hardened veteran where she's, you know, been here for the past 20 years. And then there's, I think, a community of folks that with that announcement of expanding services, are you going to be even a more unique VMware member that will never, ever touch a vSphere console?

That's right. And they're just consuming. They found out that they can run containers on a VMware service that's running in AWS and that's what they want to do and what that means to vMug and vMug content. I'm super excited to find out what that's going to be like. Yeah, me too. No, I'm definitely excited to see where things go from there. And I say keep up the good work. I mean, these community meetings and user groups are extremely valuable to me and my career and people that work for me.

All right. So, Brad, what can people find out more about you? And like, do you tweet? Do you? Oh, absolutely. We're a big Twitter bunch around here. So you can find me on Twitter at I'm at vMug underscore CEO. And I tell everybody, you know, you don't have to follow me to DM me. So if you have a question, my DM is open and I'll be happy to answer that way. com where you can find out about upcoming events, both in-person and virtual events.

We also have, and our membership is free, and our membership is for end users, obviously, but VMware employees and partners. So it takes all of us to be part of this ecosystem. And so I encourage you to check that out. And finally, vMug Advantage. vMug Advantage is our upgraded membership, but it gives you discounts off training, large discounts, 20% to 35% off training. It also gives you eval experience, which is the majority of the VMware software that you can use in a demo test lab, home lab type scenario.

So we can learn about all this technology, like NSX, and get prepared for the IT future that's coming. And I would want to add that if you're in the area where there's a VMware user con, whether it's a user con or meeting, these things are free. And they're surprisingly well appointed, as I say, as far as conferences. We're in the Indiana Convention Center. Great sponsors that have great breakfast, great lunch, all-day event. And it's amazing that that support allows us to attend an all-day conference with great content that's free.

Yep. Mark? Awesome. So I just think this has been great. So if you want to find me online, you can find me as at SensiStorage on Twitter. All right. com. You can find me at CTO Advisor on the Twitters. My DMs are open as well. Talk to you next, CTO Dose.