Last week I was lucky enough to be invited to attend the Nutanix .Next conference in Barcelona as part of the vExpert program. This was my first time at a conference and was a great experience for me. Having used Nutanix briefly a long time ago I was able to go into this with an open mindset. Here’s my run down of the conference.

Day 1

I flew out of London Heathrow on the Monday and travelled to the hotel in Barcelona a day early to get settled. Having not been to Barcelona, I took a walk around admiring the sights and sounds of Barcelona. I walked to the Sagrada Familia and spent time there taking in the exquisite details of the this church. 

 

Day 2

I was shuttled from the hotel in the early morning to the conference centre. I then attended a paid for NCA Exam prep course that lasted most of the day. There was a short break to allow us to have lunch and to attend the keynote session. There were some interesting talks from Nutanix customers and how they used Nutanix:

• Wells Fargo Bank

• Moving 80% of the US payroll, around $1 trillion in transactions.

• Wanted to modernise .They use 75% champion and 25% contender infrastructure.

• Tested with a 40 TB DB data destruction. Restore with current provider had to stop the restore test at 60 hrs. Nutanix cloud platform took 18 minutes to restore.

 

• Department of Health and Pensions

• Similar IT challenges.

• Nutanix helps those challenges with open source software and platform, cost effectiveness and sustainability, providing a partnership.

• Use of A.I. & native apps.

 

• Yahsat (UAE Satellite Operator)

• Using Nutanix GPT in a box as A.I. questions for their internal users. 

• Unified solution with ease of use and management.

 

 

There was also a session with 4 times F1 world champion Sebastian Vettel, who spoke about his childhood and how he worked hard to become a F1 driver. He also spoke about his journey to achieving his world titles and how he constantly optimises every little detail filtering down information to get the best that he can from himself and the car. Finally he described his thoughts on sustainability and biodiversity and his views on supporting women and the LGBTQ+ community.

 

 

The NCA exam prep course was very good and gave you almost everything you needed for the NCA 6.5 exam, but was a bit rushed due to time constraints. However once the course was complete I then took the NCA 6.5 exam and achieved a pass. In the evening I went to the Nutanix vExpert evening and had some lovely tapas and beers by the side of Barcelona beach. A good chance to network and speak to fellow vExperts and Nutanix staff.

 

Day 3

This day was a chance to take in some of the webinars and check out some of the stands at the solutions expo.

 

 

You could take  one free exam per day, so I tried taking the NCSE-Core exam but failed. I also attended the keynote sessions that outlined the future for Nutanix and what they are working towards in the future. At the end of this days session there was a interesting talk from Dr Anne-Marie Imafidion regarding inclusion and mindset within the technology industry.

 

 

Once the keynote finished the party started with drummers playing to guide people out of the keynote sessions and into a second massive hall filled with entertainers, food stalls, games, live DJ, dancers, laser lights, robots, and lots of other bits (too many to mention) to party the night away.

 

 

Day 4

The final day was spent with some more webinars including migrating to AHV (Nutanix’s Hypervisor) using Nutanix Move. I had another go at the NCSE exam through their certification section and although I got a better score I didn’t pass it. It is a good way though to get a good feel for the exams even if you fail. I then attended the last keynotes session before the conference finished. I left for home the next day.

 

Final Thoughts

This was my first conference and it was an amazing experience. I learnt lots about Nutanix and will definitely be taking a further look at their offerings. The Exam Prep course was good but very rushed. The webinars were very good with lots of interesting subjects. I meet some of the London VMUG guys who very kindly let me tag along with them and showed me the ropes. I would like to thank Nutanix for their phenomenal hospitality and for the chance to experience the conference.