VMblog:  With your sponsorship of VMworld 2017, what can you tell us about your booth setup?  Do you have a theme? 

Pivot3:  This year's theme is "The Power of 3" and the tagline is "Activate the Next Generation of Hyperconverged Infrastructure with Pivot3". Based on Acuity, our latest HCI platform, we derived the concept because Acuity is performance-architected, priority-aware, and policy-based, which are the three pillars of differentiation that set Acuity apart as the only hyperconverged solution to feature NVMe acceleration, policy-based QoS management and intelligent automation. Each demo station in our booth highlights an important use case of the Power of 3 for end-user computing, datacenter modernization, and cloud automation, all which touch on how Acuity performs better than any other HCI solution available in the market today.

VMblog:  Can you give readers a few reasons why your product or service is considered unique?  Why should a VMworld attendee add you to their MUST SEE list?

Pivot3:  Acuity addresses the rise in customer demand for the ability to deploy HCI for a broader range of workloads, including performance- and latency-sensitive ones. Customers also want to consolidate multiple mixed application workloads on HCI. First-generation HCI solutions were deployed for targeted workloads, such as VDI and ROBO environments. While enterprise IT leaders wanted to run additional workloads on their HCI systems, the increased workload density led to increased resource contention, which delivered inconsistent performance results.

Acuity leverages the accelerated performance of ultra-low latency NVMe PCIe flash, and an advanced Quality of Service engine that is both policy-based and priority-aware. This combination lets administrators prioritize their most important applications and ensure performance with predictable results to guarantee service delivery. Acuity overcomes conventional HCI limitations, that include unpredictable performance, lack of automation and inefficient scale and capacity utilization that prevent true consolidation.

With Acuity, Pivot3 addresses key concerns of IT professionals: predictable performance for all their applications and use cases; comprehensive data services and workload management tools to meet business needs; confidence to support multiple, mixed application workloads; efficient and predictable scale; and simplified management for all consolidated applications, at any scale.

VMblog:  What do you like most about sponsoring VMworld?  Why was this a must sponsor event for your company this year?

Pivot3:  See above. But additionally, we are excited to demo Pivot3 Acuity. Acuity is the first platform to implement a fully integrated NVMe datapath for advanced performance controlled by an advanced, policy-based QoS engine. NVMe PCIe flash dramatically accelerates performance, improves response times, increases density and reduces cost. Enterprises can now consolidate latency-sensitive applications on HCI. Pivot3's distributed scale-out architecture aggregates each node's capacity, IOPS, bandwidth and cache into highly available resource pools that deliver storage performance to applications. As validated by our first customers, Acuity is the fastest HCI platform in the industry:

• Acuity delivers up to 6X overall performance for storage/process-intensive workloads over the closest HCI vendor, and 600% performance gains over traditional infrastructure.
• Pivot3's VMware DirectPath I/O framework allows the Acuity to communicate directly with the underlying storage controllers, NVMe flash devices and disks (HDD/SSD) which results in up to 40% performance improvement.
• Performance increases and patented erasure coding allow systems to run 2-4X VMs per node for at least a 30% reduction in CAPEX.
• An Acuity system processes 9Xthe data of a similarly configured HCI system of the closest HCI vendor and at much faster response times.

VMblog:  Can you give VMblog readers a sneak peek as to what you will be showing off at your booth this year?

Pivot3:  Attendees will be invited to experience The Power of 3 via three demo stations and technical deep dives into the industry's only HCI solution that combines NVMe SSD acceleration and a priority-aware, policy-based quality of service engine that guarantees performance to critical application workloads.

• Demo 1: End-User Computing - Attendees will learn how they can activate high performance Virtual Desktop Infrastructure with the Power of 3. In this demo, Pivot3 EUC specialists will show attendees how Pivot3 runs 3x more desktops per node, delivers 4x better response times and enables granular user performance management to guarantee deliver of SLAs.

• Demo 2: Cloud Automation - Attendees will learn how they can activate cloud computing with the Power of 3. In this demo, Pivot3 cloud automation specialists will show attendees the details of automated policy-based management with QoS, Acuity's extensive integration with VMware automation tools, and the ease of use and simplicity of deployment and scalability.

• Demo 3: Datacenter Modernization - Attendees will learn how they can activate datacenter modernization initiatives with breakthrough NVMe performance, advanced QoS, and efficient storage capacity utilization.

Additionally there will be exciting gadget giveaways, cocktail hours and more.

VMblog:  How does your company and product fit within the VMware ecosystem?

Pivot3:  Along with providing a new hyperconverged infrastructure, Acuity integrates with customers' existing storage and servers, improving ROI from existing IT investments and improving performance, efficiency and scale as they move toward the software-defined datacenter. Acuity is managed through a vSphere Web Client Plugin to integrate seamlessly into customer auditing, reporting, and customer security environments. Acuity provides complete SNMP monitoring for integration into monitoring and management frameworks.  Acuity also integrates with vRealize Suite cloud management platform and with the AWS connector for vSphere. The Acuity software platform runs on VMware ESXi so customers have access to the full VMware software suite.

VMblog:  How many times have you sponsored VMworld before?  And what keeps you coming back?

Pivot3:  This is Pivot3's sixth year sponsoring the event. We gain an incredible amount of awareness within the IT, Partner and Analyst community by attending. In addition, with the evolution of the software defined data center and the proliferation of hyperconverged infrastructure solutions, we find ourselves at the forefront of the technology market.

VMblog:  How has exhibiting at VMworld helped your company's bottom line?

Pivot3:  We consistently engage a high volume of organizations looking to increase performance within IT operations / data center initiatives while reducing costs. VMworld has produced a multiple of pipeline opportunities and new customers. 

VMblog:  What do you hope to come away with from exhibiting at VMworld?

Pivot3:  Pivot3 looks to stay at the forefront of technology. We look to engage with a wide variety of attendees including prospects, customers, partners, and analysts. This provides more exposure in the market, stronger partnerships and additional revenue opportunities.         

VMblog:  Do you have any tips for first time attendees of VMworld that you'd like to share?

Pivot3:  Review the agenda and sessions closely and map which ones make sense based on your role, responsibility, or education needs. The vendor showcase is also a valuable piece to the agenda as the education garnered from vendors can be just as valuable as conference sessions. To get the most value, go with a day-to-day plan.  

VMblog:  Attendees always enjoy a good trade show tchotchke.  Are you guys giving away anything special or interesting this year?

Pivot3:  We are going full "geek squad." We have some great swag (poker chip USBs, hats, etc.). But, we're giving away six, Star Wars high performance drones during expo hours. Additionally, we are giving away $25 Amazon and Starbucks cards based on social media mentions.    

VMblog:  Are you guys throwing or involved with any type of party during the week of the event?  Can you share the details? 

Pivot3:  We are a Hall Crawl sponsor on Tuesday, August 29th (4:30PM-6:00PM). We'll have craft cocktails, giveaways, demos and more at our booth (#1601).

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I highly recommend you check out Pivot3 and their Acuity HCI platform at VMworld in booth 1601.  And make sure to stop by and have a drink at their booth during the Hall Crawl.  Me?  I'm going after that Star Wars drone.