The Interop ITX fun started last night with Eric Wright taking me out for a wonderful mothers day dinner. We got good and nerdy covering topics from automation to vendor competition.
Actual Day 1
The first day of Interop ITX started with a light run from the MGM to the “Welcome to Las Vegas” sign. Testing out the running route for Tuesday and Wednesday vFit runs.
On the way to the registration desk, I stumbled upen Chris Wahl heading in the same direction. So far it’;s been a great start to the day, a run and catching up with a mate.
After receiving my badge, I made my way to the lounges outside the conference rooms and met Homer Bartlett from Mail Chimp and discussed a range of tenchology topics. These conversations are why I love coming to conferences, getting new views and perspectives.
Container Crash Course
I spent most of the day in the “Container Crash Course” session learning about a variety of container topics including; deployment, security, challenges and orchestration. Taking notes throughout has provided some good takeaways to read later. To read more about the session and the presenters click here.
During the session, I met JJ Asghar and learnt about some things he’;s working on with Chef and vSphere. As someone with a vSphere background and dabbling in Chef this is something very interesting to me. JJ presented some interesting ideas, which I’;m keen to see how they pan out.
In the early afternoon, I ducked out to meet up with Scott Lowe to thank him for advice around automation that he gave me at the 2016 Melbourne VMUG UserCon. For those playing at home, the advice was “Start with the simple things”. Very small piece of advice that I constantly refer back to. We spoke at length about automation from the perspective of business challenges and encouragement of others to begin their journey. Despite only meeting once before, we were able to talk as mates over common interests.
After returning to the conference, I watched Greg Ferro provide a rant on the future of networking delivered as only he can. After the session finished up, I took the opportunity to meet Ethan Banks, Drew Conry-Murray and Greg. As they have been on my podcast for over two years, I was very happy to finally have the chance to say “G’;day”.
After the sessions
After the sessions, Howard Marks was doing what he does best. Providing deep technical information off the top of his head, such as flash media needs to be exercised and large scale tape storage systems. Eric and Howard discussed the old systems that they worked on in years gone by, making me feel a bit young.
Packet Pushers Party
Viptela sponsored the Packet Pushers party at the Centrifuge Bar in the MGM. With the social lubricant flowing, conversations deep and nerdy were in the air and it was good. There were conversations about networking, automation, containers and even the food.
The party itself was low key compared to other vendor-sponsored events and that worked really well. People were having real discussions about a range of technical topics.
Closing thoughts
Day 1 of Interop was a lot of fun. I met some old friends and made some new ones. The first day has shown me that this is a conference about community and conversation, not sales and marketing.
