Dell Technologies World 2018

Early on Sunday April 29th I’ll be making the trek to Vegas, this time for Dell Technologies World 2018 which runs from April 30 – May 3 at The Venetian. This is my first time attending Dell Tech World or any of its predecessor events – previously Dell EMC World, Dell World or EMC World. In preparation for the show I’ve been checking out the session agenda and there’s a few chats which sound very interesting.

First checking out the keynote sessions, Michael Dell, Chairman & CEO (obviously) will be kicking things off the show on Monday morning with his keynote which will be all about AI, Machine Learning and IoT. Very relevant in today’s world, no doubt. I sure hope there’s some cool demos of how they’re using their ecosystem of products and partners to leverate IoT sensor data and applying Machine Learning.

The second keynote session which stands out most to me is also on Monday from 4:30PM – 5:30PM and will shine the light on VMware, Pat Gelsinger. The title of the keynote is “Innovate in everything & any thing: any device, any app, any cloud.” For me this is most exciting to hear from Pat, he always gives great talks and will be curious to see if there’s any announcements that come from the keynote. Looking forward to hearing more about the VMware vision of the on-premises datacenter and their VMware Cloud on AWS (VMC) which was announced last year at VMworld USA. Again, I’m a big fan of not just keynote sessions but real demonstrations of how products and capabilities turn into solutions which are consumed.

Now lets check out some of the breakout sessions. The Breakout Tracks are broken up in 3 categories – Technology Track (239 sessions), IT Leadership (47 sessions) & Code and Modern Apps (36). Personally the Technology Track most interests me with some slight interest in the Code and Modern Apps but not too much since I’m not an aspiring developer, this seems consistent with the amount of sessions within each track. The core demographic which attends Dell Technologies World is more focused on the Technology rather than IT Leadership or Development.

I’ll add that in the sesion builder it is very nice that each session clearly denotes if it’s just a lecture, a lecture with demonstration or a hands-on-lab. This way you know what you’re getting into before attending. Personally, if there’s no demo and it’s just death by PowePoint the chances of attending are significantly decreased – but one below sounds so interesting (no demo) I’m intrigued enough to want to attend.

1. VMware Cloud on AWS: A Seamlessly Integrated Hybrid Cloud Service with Kyle Ruddy and Emad Younis – Both of these guys work for VMware in Tech Marketing and are awesome guys. Emad is a friend of mine and Kyle is a rockstar when it comes to PowerShell and automation. This session is being run twice so you’ll have no reason to miss out!
2. Deep-Dive Into Accelerating & Oracle, SAP HANA & Microsoft Databases – While this session highlights Ready Solutions I’m certain that many of the best practices and optimization recommendations they’ll make will be applicable to pretty much any platform.
3. Is Blockchain The New Cyber Dark Art? A Security Leader’s Perspective – This sounds very interesting. Many technologies out there today are building their frameworks upon many of the core competencies which make up BlockChain (Datrium for one) – It’s being lead by RSA so I’m hopeful that this one won’t be any type of a marketing spiel.

These are just a few of the sessions in the Advanced and Intermediate track that stood out to me when I scrolled through. There is quite a few sessions on many of the products within the Dell portfolio which other than from a competitive standpoint I don’t have much interest in attending. I’d prefer to network and meet with friends that I don’t get to see very often.

Datrium is a sponsor of Dell Tech World 2018 and we’re very excited. We’ll have 2 sessions featuring customers telling their Datrium story – Siemens & Grow Financial Federal Credit Union. These are Theater style sessions – “World Chat” – and unfortunately they don’t show up in the session builder.

If you’re around the Solutions Expo floor, stop by the booth #215 – say hey, who knows you might win 1 of 2 URB-E Sport GT electric scooters. Pretty neat.

Until then…cheers!