 Hi, I'm Stu Miniman and this is a special on the ground of the Cube here at the VTUG SummerSlam 2019 we've had the pleasure of knowing the VTUG team for quite a while back actually when it was the new England V mug was when I started attending when it switched to the VTUG at Gillette stadiums when we started doing the Cube there and Happy to bring back to the program first Chris Harney Who is the one that created this as a true user event and joining him is his wife Don Harney Who we know is behind the scenes organizing all the all of this event. So Don and Chris Thank you so much for joining us and thank you for you know sharing this community and Educational process with all of us. Thanks Stu. It's been a pleasure. All right, so you know Chris, you know, we really want this It's a celebration 16 years, you know back in 2003 the number one move of the year was actually finding Nemo Of course, we waited a long time for there. It goes without saying that all of us were a little bit younger And you know boy in those days, you know, I you know, I started working with VM more in 2002 So that journey of virtualization was really early You know, there was no cloud, you know talking We had kind of the excess fees and some of the early things But so much has changed and what I've loved is you know this journey that the users are attending here We're actually here in the expo hall And if you look why are there nobody people in here right now because they are all in the breakout sessions understanding What are the skill sets that they need today and tomorrow to help them in their journey? virtualization cloud devops all of these changes there So, you know Chris you started this as a user to help share with your peers So we've had you on the program many times bring us back. Yeah, I mean so think back to 2003 You know, there was no way to share information. No, there's no Google no YouTube no Facebook groups meetups No Game of Thrones. We had to like go to like books and stuff like that Right so white papers those are a big deal. You had the Microsoft books. They were two inches thick and glossy Yeah, I wonder how many of our younger audience would know the acronym RT FM You know, it is read the fine manual, please Is what we're doing um dawn, you know, this event, you know As I said, we've been at the winter event at Gillette Stadium. You brought in some of the Patriot players We've had the pleasure of interviewing this summer event is is epic It is, you know, I know people that come from very long distances to swim in the community get the information There's a little bit of lobster at the end of the day. So a lot of lobster at the end of the day So so give us, you know, really the community that you look to help, you know Build and foster and you know what this event has been meant to you over the years for me it's it's really a place for everybody in the community to come together and Share their knowledge with their peers. I mean something may have worked for me. Maybe it will work for you Let's get together and talk about it It's the best way to learn something is from somebody that may have done it or done it Messed it up learn something like to share it with you. So it really is about Working with your peers learning something from your sponsors and all these companies that you work with every day, you know What's new what's going on? So this is the place to go to get all that wait wait dawn I thought you weren't a tech person you're organizing that that that answer was spot-on because you know what I one of the things I loved about the virtualization community is we were all learning in the early days and it required a little bit of work There's this this theory known as the Ikea effect is sometimes if you actually help build it a little bit You actually like it a little bit more and this community really Anomizes that that in the virtualization community and cloud, you know We've been talking about cloud now for a decade But it's still relatively early days on how this, you know multi-hybrid cloud fits together how operations are changing So, you know Chris, you know bring us through kind of a little bit of that arc Well, I'll think about it back in 2003. There was only VMware. There was only one virtualization platform You know you if you didn't do VMware you were doing bare metal windows install or unix install on physical servers Well back when we changed there was there was hyper V that was coming out AWS was just coming out So that's when we kind of made the jump from just being a VMware user group to a virtual technology So we could talk about the cloud we could share those experiences and have that same journey together and hopefully You know learn and lead get smarter together as a group You know if you can learn faster as a group than you can by yourself Yeah, and as we know Chris and we've talked about this the IT industry is never Well, hey, give me a clean sheet of paper and we'll start everything We know it is additive and all of these things go together So cloud did not obviate the need for virtualization So all of these things go to let gather and how do I make sure as you know? My job doesn't get completely eliminated or I was talking to somebody said if I've been doing the same thing for 10 years Well, I'd be out of the job. They said well Hopefully you really really like what you're doing because if you think you can keep doing what you're doing That is all you will ever be able to do and I thought that was a very you know pointed comment Yeah, Matt Broberg's comment this I'll talk this morning about what's your next job going to be? What skills us do you need to be relevant in 10 years and it's the same thing? I mean we said the same thing 10 15 years ago, you know, you can't be a Windows admin anymore You can't be a BMW admin you can't be a cloud admin anymore in five years Yeah, so don't give our audience a little bit of the scope of this event As I said, I know people that have flown in from the Carolinas from Colorado from all over from California and the like You know 16 years of this event, you know, this community is not just New England You know really has had a broad impact right and it it's huge. I mean people plan their vacations around this I've had people come from Europe. They fly over here Stay in the state of Maine. They go to L. O. Bean. They do all those things Because they plan their vacation. They they know they need to be here for the VTech event So it's it's met a lot because you do get so many different variety of people You have the sponsors you have the end users you have media you have bloggers You have pretty much just everybody comes together to really be that community. So it's it's met a lot to me It's it's been a long 16 years, but it's been it's been a lot. All right So the question people are asking this is the final v-tug. So no more winter, you know event at Gillette This is the final event tonight at night at gritties. So, you know to explain to us, you know How that happened it is the final event 16 years we're all getting older It's bittersweet, but we've just realized that It takes a lot of time to put these together it takes a lot of sponsors It takes a lot of users the users continue to come but unfortunately the sponsors pay for it and We really don't have that following with the sponsors that we used to have You know, unfortunately, there are a lot more events. There are a lot more ways to to find customers So they're going to the meetups and they're doing their own events Yeah, I think to your opening point chris, you know 16 years ago. It was much tougher To find sources. Now, you know, the challenge we have is there's too many options out there. There are too many events Trust me. I go to too many events And but this one has always been one that we've always looked for So, you know, please from the community want to say thank you so much It has always been one of our favorite things to kick off the year with when we do the winter one And the summer one I've made this trip a couple of times. It is a little warm in here I think brings back to the the roots of this event Remember it was four or five years ago. It's like 110 degrees out And you switched to this facility So, of course the air conditioning decides to go out because we know in it sometimes things break Starting to heat Chris want to give you the final word for the final vtug, you know, I just I'm I'm very proud and happy with this community It it truly is a community. It wasn't us. It wasn't the cube wasn't the vendors It was everyone working together to make a community that that helped each other out. So I'm I'm thanks to everyone Chris and Don, thank you so much. We're happy to be able to be a small piece Of this community and look forward to staying in touch with you in your future endeavors. Thanks so much I'm Stu Miniman. We have a full day of coverage here Keynote speakers some of the users that have traveled around really focusing on the community here At the vtug summer slam as always. Thank you for watching the cube