On January 16, 2014 theCUBE traveled to Gillette Stadium in Foxborough, MA for the eighth annual Virtualization Technology Users Group (VTUG) Winter Warmer. The mission of VTUG is to provide education and information to IT Professionals in order to make better decisions in virtual environments.

Over 1,500 IT practitioners, vendors and VARS from across New England gathered at Gillette Stadium, home of the New England Patriots, to share the latest trends in IT at the VTUG Winter Warmer. At the heart of VTUG events is the exchange of knowledge within the IT community. This is not a sales focused event, rather an opportunity for IT practitioners to increase their knowledge base of the IT market and discover emerging trends.

An OpenStack Leader?

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The 2014 flavor of VTUG consisted of a variety of topics including; cloud, converged infrastructure, and data center transformation. theCUBE, SiliconANGLE’s mobile studio, was live at the event with co-hosts Dave Vellante and Stu Miniman. In total, 11 guests, ranging from end-users to business executives, visited the studio to provide their insight on VTUG and discuss the latest trends in IT. The major trending topic at VTUG, OpenStack.

OpenStack is obtaining major momentum in the developer community and with support from the likes of Dell, HP, IBM and Rackspace it now has staying power. However, one question remains, who will become the leader of OpenStack?

“Having HP & IBM backing OpenStack to the degree that they are is excellent, however, these players can’t be the leaders. If one of them chooses to do so the rest will back off. The leader must emerge from the community, similar to end result of its development, will this take a little longer than if one company decided to be the leader, yes. However, the foundation will be stronger,” Vellante said during the final segment of theCUBE’s show at VTUG.

In total, The goal of IT practitioners continues to be doing more with less, getting value out of all assets, and entertaining flash, cloud and shadow IT. However, the main focus according to many practitioners continues to be driving efficiency and serving clients.

The Interviews

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Chris Haney, Founder & President, VTUG

Chris Haney joined theCUBE hosts, Dave and Stu, to discuss the evolution of VTUG and why it is an important event for IT practitioners. Stu provides his insight to the latest trends in the cloud space and the trio debate who the visionary for IT practitioners is. Want to know what is next in virtualization?

Watch The Highlights Here

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Tony Asaro, CEO, INI Group

Shortly after Tony Asaro delivered the keynote at the eighth annual VTUG event he visited theCUBE to discuss the current state of IT. One topic that emerged in Asaro’s conversation with theCUBE hosts, Dave and Stu, was cloud and whether or not it would have a detrimental effect on the job security of IT practitioners. Asaro also discusses the strategies within the Enterprise Flash market, including NetApp and EMC. Did VMware get the Nicira acquisition right?

Watch The Highlights Here

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Jeremy Wheeler, Innovation Architect, Dairylea

Jeremy Wheeler visited theCUBE to talk about their use case with Simplivity, a company established in 2009 with the mission of simplifying IT. Wheeler talks about the IT structure at Dairylea, a farmer-owned marketing and service organization, prior to Simplivity and the positive effects the change has had on their organization. Is the cloud a threat to IT roles?

Watch The Highlights Here

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Marc Catlin II, Team Leader, Desktop Application, UMass Memorial Healthcare

Marc Catlin II joined theCUBE hosts, Dave and Stu, to talk about IT within the medical industry. One topic that created a lot of discussion was BYOD (bring your own device). In this interview Catlin explains the effects that the evolving mobile industry has had on hospitals. What tech trends are top of mind for hospitals?

Watch The Highlights Here

Mike McDermott, VP, Nexsan

Mike McDermott visited theCUBE at VTUG to talk about Nexsan and how they utilize their advantage of having a stack. McDermott also talks about selling through the channel and how the big data meme is effecting Nexsan. Where should flash go in the stack?

Watch The Highlights Here

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Ken Hui, Open Cloud Architect, Rackspace Cody Bunch, Principal Architect, Rackspace Private Cloud

Ken Hui and Cody Bunch, both from Rackspace, joined theCUBE host, Dave, at the VTUG Winter Warmer to talk about OpenStack. In this interview Hui talks about the state of the practitioners and whether or not they are ready for constant advancements in IT. In addition to Hui’s insight, Bunch discusses his book, The OpenStack Cookbook. Finally the two shine light onto the ongoing competition between AWS and OpenStack. Does OpenStack need a leader to emerge?

Watch The Highlights Here

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Brad Anderson, Corporate VP of Windows Server & System Center, Microsoft

Brad Anderson of Microsoft joined theCUBE hosts, Dave and Stu, to discuss Microsoft’s Cloud, Azure. In this conversation Anderson talks about the evolution of Azzure and the competitive advantage that Microsoft believes they have in security and lock-in. What is Anderson’s advice for organizations heading to the cloud?

Watch The Highlights Here

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Poojan Kumar, CEO, PernixData

Poojan Kumar visited theCUBE at VTUG Winter Warmer to talk about his company, PernixData. In his conversation with theCUBE hosts, Dave and Stu, Kumar provides insight on PernixData’s customer base and why software-defined is so important. What will happen to the traditional storage base?

Watch The Highlights Here

Todd Ficarra, Director of IT Services, Pine Manor College

Todd Ficarra visited theCUBE to discuss one of the hottest topics in IT, BYOD. At most educational institutions students are using mobile devices and personal computers to do their work. Ficarra talks about the importance of BYOD in the classroom and discusses, in-depth, building a network from the ground up. Want to know why BYOD is so important?

Watch The Highlights Here

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Brad Maltz, Office of the CEO, Lumenate

Brad Maltz joined theCUBE hosts, Dave and Stu, to talk about Lumenate and predict the next trends in both networking and storage. In this interview Maltz entertains the idea of a partnership with Microsoft and recaps Amazon’s day at the VTUG Winter Warmer. What is hyper-converged?

Watch The Highlights Here