 I'm Stu Miniman and this is a special on the ground here at the VTUG SummerSlam. Of course the VTUG is the virtualization and technology user group and the VTUG has always been great at getting us some of these users on the program. So happy to welcome back Dan Valentine who's in IT operations for Danone, the parent company of Danone. Spoke to you in 2017 at the Winter Warmer at Gillette Stadium. Since last we spoke, you no longer live in New England but you have a long history with this event. So let's start there. What this event meant to you and what brought you back for the ultimate final VTUG event here? Well, I have a long professional relationship with Chris Williams. He's one of the organizers of the events. And since he introduced me to it and I started coming, my career has really taken off. The contacts that you can generate and the networking that you can do in an event like this is just unparalleled. And you can also learn a lot from the events too but it's almost a footnote because of everything else that you can gain from attending something like this on a regular basis. Yeah, it's a great always look at this show and when they do the breakout sessions, the Expo Hall gets pretty empty because people are wanting to learn. But it is the networking. People sitting before the events, people sitting at lunch and of course this evening at the lobster event, there's definitely some good networking going on there. So yeah, explain from your standpoint, this event started very heavily in virtualization but it's gone through what's changing in our industries. Cloud and DevOps and those environments, has that kind of followed similar to what you've been seeing in your career? Oh yes, absolutely. I started off as a CIS admin, very heavy in VMware like a lot of us in that field. And of course, everything's evolving. The only constant is change. And what I like most about this event is that they've changed the vendors that come in, they've changed the keynotes, they've changed the different breakout sessions to keep the information that you're obtaining relevant. It's not redundant and it allows you to just keep a good bead on what's out there and what to expect in the coming years. Alright Dan, what's interesting to you these days? I don't know if you've gotten a chance to go to any of the breakouts or what you were looking at coming at the event but other than coming back and seeing some of the people you know, even though you're no longer in the area, what was catching your interest? Well something that's very different since the last time I spoke to you is cloud, specifically for the company that I work for. At that time it was just a research, it was a nice idea. It was something that of course tech was talking about but the business wasn't interested. And now we are actually in the middle of a cloud implementation for all of our data centers. We're moving off-prem, we're taking things to the cloud and we're in the infancy stage of actually the implementation of that project so it's been very beneficial to come here and gain that knowledge. I heard that one of the themes that was over and over in the keynotes at this event as well as when I hear many shows and it's not just change but how can I become more agile and how can I adopt new things? The enterprise is not known for change or speed. What are you seeing in your world and when you talk to your peers, the openness to be able to embrace new technology and make changes in the way things are done? Well from my personal experience I would say that most companies intentionally stay a little bit behind. When there's a lot of money involved, when your return on your investment is high, you're not going to jump right into the brand new thing. So there's an intentional deliberate lag there behind what's brand new, behind what your options are at that moment. So I think that businesses do want to move along, they are interested in it but the validity has to be proven first. Alright Dan, I want to give you your final thoughts, the final VTUG. Any memories from the event or last words that you have for the VTUG community? Well there's definitely some memories that I wouldn't feel comfortable sharing but this will be missed. I can say that this has been a huge part of my career up to this point and I have every intention of keeping contact with many of the people that I've met here and continuing to build on those relationships throughout my career. And I'm pretty confident that it wouldn't be exactly where I am now if it wasn't for my relationship with Chris and the other people that he's introduced me to at this event. Waves of technology definitely come and go in the different tools and environment but those relationships are so important to our careers and the communities that we're part of. So thanks for coming back from Colorado and really appreciate you sharing your story with our community on theCUBE. Alright, I'm Stu Miniman and as always thank you so much for watching theCUBE.