 Hi, this is Stu Miniman with wikibond.org, here with Silicon Angles live continuous coverage from Dell Storage Forum 2012, here in Boston, Massachusetts. We're on theCUBE. theCUBE's where we find the smartest people we can find in the industry, look to extract the signal from the noise and really talk about the trends, the real customer deployments and the proof points. And joining me for my next segment is Roger Lund. Roger, first time on theCUBE. Second, you've been at your Dell customer. Second time here at this show. So you've been to both Dell Storage Forum. So first of all, welcome to theCUBE. Thank you. Great. Second time on theCUBE. Oh, you've been on theCUBE. Second time on theCUBE. Second time Dell Storage Forum. I apologize. It's been lots of shows and you're one of the regulars I see at a lot of these shows. So while you are a Dell customer, you're also here as part of Dell's influencer program. So they bring in kind of the bloggers, they've got the press, the analysts, the bloggers and Dell does a nice job of kind of mashing them up to allow the people that use social media. So whether it's, you know, the Twitter, the blogging or other ways that they're reaching people that they do a nice job at that. So first of all, welcome back. Thank you. Then I guess it's your second time. And to tell us a little bit, what's your feel of the show been this week compared to like last year in general? Sure. You know, I think that they've really got the message, you know, out there fluid, you know, and you know, they've done a really good job of keeping the show flowing, you know. And you know, it's just, it's good to see them come back a year later with a lot of new news. And, you know, we'd now, both the customers and, you know, the industry has an idea of what Dell's been doing. Okay. Great. So can you, you're with the Ray Services Group. Can you paint a picture for us as to kind of your role there and what the IT environment looks like? Sure. Yep. Yep. I'll just, you know, Ray Services Group is a parent company for four different companies that do different call center type thing. We do collections. We do a medical billing, courtesy calling, things like that. So I'm a senior systems admin there, right? So I do everything from Windows servers, administration, backups, servers, physically, you know, racking, stacking, VMware storage, you know, so anything in that realm. Okay. Great. So and obviously, I mean, you're wearing the V mug user group, the V mug leader. And so you still have Windows physical machines, though, or you know, how much of your environment's virtualized? 75% roughly, you know, so we've still got some, you know, then there's always going to be some physical service, especially in the call center, you know, and you've got phone connection to activity, right? So, but yeah, so I'm V mug leader, co-leader of Minneapolis, Minnesota, V mug leader in St. Cloud, Minnesota. So if you guys are new to the V mug program, go to my V mug.org, check out the local event here, area register. There's definitely a good opportunity to do some networking and figure out, you know, what other users are doing in the industry. Yeah, absolutely. You know, when I when I look at the VMware environment, the ecosystem they built out, and really you've got, you know, volunteers like yourself that help run these user groups that they help you drive the content, you drive the discussion. A lot of that gets back to VMware and to the solutions that they're building. Can you speak, how how big is your chapter of the user group? Yeah, you know, in Minneapolis, we've got, you know, roughly 300 users that do that attend and then St. Cloud, it's closer to 50 ish, you know, and you know, it's just, you know, a lot of us are excited about it and really push virtualization as far as it can when we're implementing, you know, projects and applications and things like that. So it's just good to talk about that with other users. And that's what the program's all about. And, you know, we just pull vendors in to show off new technology and products that help us do our job better. Yeah, absolutely. Anybody that, you know, hasn't checked them out already, check out the local local VMware user groups. They're a good way to get information, not just about VMware, but their whole ecosystem. Because as we know, VMware, I think last number I heard was somewhere around for every dollar that people spend on VMware software, there's over $20 of ecosystems. So big piece pulling together. We'll be bringing theCUBE again to VMworld. I know Roger's going to be there at the end of August back in San Francisco. So when you talk about your environment, you've really got, you know, multiple companies together, you know, what are some of the challenges that you face from an IT staff to kind of pull all things together? No, you know, I mean, when you're working in an environment like mine, it's really kind of an ISP model, you know, so you've got multiple requirements for everything from compliance all the way to uptime, you know. So VMware is key, you know, to be able to provide, you know, the base, right? The high availability and all the things that come with it, you know, and then, you know, we use Compellent. I mean, it really lets us, you know, present that data, you know, and the tiering and all the features that Compellent brings to the table are great for us. So can you take us back? How long have you been involved with virtualization and what have been kind of the adoption steps along the way? Sure. You know, I started playing with VMware when it first released, you know, but I didn't have an active role in the data center, you know, until 12, 13 years ago. So you were early? Yeah, so I was early in, you know, virtualization. I mean, right away, you know, it was to me, it was like, wow, I mean, just look at this can do, you know, literally, the computer, you know, that you're loading into software on the software doesn't know that it's on a virtual platform. And that was amazing to me, you know, and my mind was already reeling for the possibilities at that point in time. But, you know, soon as I was in a role that was, you know, a decision maker in the technology side influencer, you know, I started implementing it and playing with it. And, you know, it's been a great journey, you know, from the early days of GSX and some of those platforms with, you know, ES6i, the rival of that product. And where we are today with the VCloud products, it's really, you know, quite the experience and, you know, I wouldn't wouldn't say that I'm fluid in every one of those sections anymore. There's just so much content out there. Yeah, absolutely. I remember those early days, you know, talk 10 years ago, remember talking about, you know, going underneath the operating system, bare metal, going to kind of the kernel zero. And I remember Duncan actually did a blog post last year about, you know, what you know, what was it like when you first saw the motion the first time. And we said it was it was magic. It was just one of those things that every engineer I knew was just an awe over the memory. It was huge. I mean, it was unheard of, you know, and just those technologies have really been paramount for us. So you know, one of the challenges with any technology as it's gotten broader adoption and becomes more mature, you know, VMware every year comes out with a new feature. And, you know, it almost you talk about the innovative dilemma, you always kind of move it up into the right adding more features, and it does become too expensive or, you know, too many features than when most people use. So, you know, what's your take on VMware these days? You know, what excites you still about, you know, working with virtualization and VMware? Well, I think, you know, just the ability to to get the the real feeling of what everything is doing, you know, it's a single plane of glass, that you get the manageability to, you know, DR plays such an importance in today's world. I mean, without being able to remove that hardware abstraction layer, and we don't have to move those VMs, you know, from one location to the other, it's very challenging. You know, so I think just the, you know, I like to say thinking virtual is, you know, that mindset change that you get into is great. So Roger, I wonder if I could poke at something you just said there, the single pane of glass. So you told me that, you know, your environment's not all virtual. So, you know, vCenter obviously can kind of manage, you know, my VMware environments, but if I've got physical servers on Windows, I can't do in there. We had Darren Thomas on yesterday and he said, the single pane of glass for my entire environment is really kind of a holy grail. We may never get there. Dell's vision is that API is an automation or what are going to allow, you know, folks like you to do your job. So what's your whole management story look like? Yeah, so I mean, you know, I spend most of my time in VMware and it's a challenge. I mean, you know, I've got a variety of aged equipment, you know, from early Dell equipment to the newer Dell equipment. And, you know, a few other things in there, you know, it's like every other data center and management's always a challenge, you know. So I think most of us envision that, you know, we want to see integration and all the way from the management side and all the way to the back end. And, you know, the more we can integrate things together, the easier it is for us to do our job, right? You know, so that's the, like you said, the holy grail work we want to get at some point. Great. So, you know, what's your week like been here? What's what's been kind of the best nugget that you've learned? What surprised you? What excited you here at the show? Right. You know, I, there's been some big things this week, you know, the Dell Blade chassis, you know, that has storage inside of it is very intriguing to me, especially when you start talking about DR and backup in some of those areas, or VDI, right? That's followed by the compelling announcements. I mean, to me, being a compelling customer, you know, new controllers, new disk drives, I mean, it was huge. You know, the, the FS series, the 600, you know, in front of that's huge. You know, not that we don't like Microsoft's file servers, but so there's some challenges there that can be alleviated with, you know, having SIFS type, you know, NAS access. Okay. Did you have any ecologic in your environment, or are you solely compelling? Just compelling right now, yes. Okay. And on the file system, so you consider the Exynet, you know, technology in there, is that something you're looking at? Definitely. I mean, you know, it goes back to the management and high availability, you know, I mean, windows, you know, every time you do windows updates, you have to take your server down and that's a disruption, you know, so it's the ability to scale and to have things like antivirus built in, you know, are huge for possibilities for us. Okay. One of the other big announcements on the compelling side was the integration into VSTART with the VSTART 1000. So what's your take on convergence, you know, as an IT practitioner, if you looked at it, what's your thoughts and, you know, I mean, I like to get my hands dirty in technology, you know, but I mean, there's definitely some interesting use cases there, especially in your remote office, branch office, you know, type of thing, or if you literally are, you know, expanding fast and just need to be able to drop something in this attractive offer. Okay. Great. You know, what about the activities this week, you know, they've got the fluid lounge here, they've got the blogger.