As part of VMblog's live VMworld 2016 coverage coming up next month, we're in the process of working up our schedules to make sure we can see and learn as much as possible when the show kicks off.  VMworld is the leading virtualization event, and there is no shortage of great information coming out of the keynotes, the breakout sessions, the networking and more.  But every year, one of the key places to learn a lot in a short amount of time is the Solutions Expo where valuable vendors from the VMware ecosystem and beyond setup shop to display their wares. 

Over the years, VMworld has always had a large turnout of vendors sponsoring the event.  And the expo floor always seems massive!  With so many vendors exhibiting, how do you know which booths to visit and who to get on your schedule?

Last year, VMblog had a great conversation with Zadara Storage and we're looking forward to a follow up discussion and a demo of their solution to see what's new.  Are you familiar with them?  If not, make sure you visit them at the show to learn more.

Zadara Storage offers enterprise Storage-as-a-Service (STaaS) through the award-winning Zadara Storage Cloud.  It can be deployed at any location (cloud, on-premise or hybrid), supporting any data type (block, file and object) and connecting to any protocol. The VPSA service provides enterprise SAN and NAS while the ZIOS service delivers private object storage. Zadara provides resource isolation, exceptional data security, and management control. Zadara is available via OPaaS (On-Premise-as-a-Service) and through a variety of partners including Amazon Web Services (AWS), Microsoft Azure and others.  

Read our exclusive pre-show interview with Zadara to learn what they have planned for the upcoming VMworld 2016 event.

DockerCon 2016 is fast approaching, kicking off from June 19-21, 2016 at the Washington State Convention Center in Seattle, WA. 

DockerCon is the community and industry event for makers and operators of next generation distributed apps built with containers.  The two-and-a-half-day conference provides talks by practitioners, hands-on labs, an expo of Docker ecosystem innovators and great opportunities to share experiences with your peers.

This will be VMblog's first DockerCon event, and we'll be covering it live and we can't wait!

To find out more about this upcoming event, we spoke with Docker executives ahead of the show.

[ Watch live coverage from VMblog during DockerCon 2016 on the Events page ] 

As part of VMblog's live Citrix Synergy 2016 coverage coming up later this month, we're getting our schedule ready to learn as much as we can, as quickly as we can.  Citrix Synergy is always packed with great information coming from various breakout sessions, networking sessions, keynotes and more!  But one of the places we always learn a lot is in the Solutions Expo where valuable vendors from the Citrix ecosystem setup shop to display their wares. 

But with so many vendors exhibiting at the show, how do you know who to get on your schedule? And which booths to visit?  

For years now, I've been visiting with the team at eG Innovations at Citrix Synergy, following up with them year after year to see how they have advanced their monitoring and management solutions.  And they always have something new and interesting to show me.  I've got them on my list this year, and you should as well.  In case you don't know, who are they?

eG Innovations is helping businesses across the globe transform IT service delivery into a competitive advantage and a center for productivity, growth and profit. Providing end-to-end visibility - from users to servers to networks and storage - our award-winning eG Enterprise Universal Insight technology provides organizations with a 360 degree view of their entire IT infrastructure. This single pane of glass view allows enterprise IT teams to collaborate easily and solve key user-visible problems. Unparalleled visibility also allows IT architects to determine how to right-size and optimize their IT infrastructures for maximum ROI.

Our patented automatic root-cause diagnosis technology is designed for dynamic, inter-dependent physical, virtual and cloud infrastructures where proactive monitoring and rapid diagnosis of problems is a challenge. Instead of spending hours of time analyzing the problem, with eG Enterprise, IT helpdesks and administrators can go from a user visible problem to an actionable event in just a few clicks. 

Are you going to Synergy?  If so, I invite you to get eG Innovations on your "must see" list.  Want to learn more?  Check out this interview to learn about what they have planned for the upcoming Citrix Synergy 2016 event.

As part of VMblog's live Citrix Synergy 2016 coverage coming up later this month, we're getting our schedule ready to learn as much as we can, as quickly as we can.  Citrix Synergy is always packed with great information coming from various breakout sessions, networking sessions, keynotes and more!  But one of the places we always learn a lot is in the Solutions Expo where valuable vendors from the Citrix ecosystem setup shop to display their wares. 

But with so many vendors exhibiting at the show, how do you know who to get on your schedule? And which booths to visit?  

One of my staples has always been Liquidware Labs.  I make sure to visit with these guys during Citrix Synergy and then follow up with them again at VMworld.  With only a few months in between the two events, they never seem to disappoint me as they always come prepared with something new.  Trust me when I say, they've got some really great technology that can make your Citrix environment that much better.

Founded in 2009, Liquidware Labs is an industry leader and pioneer in desktop virtualization solutions for next-generation physical and virtual desktops, including VMware View, Citrix XenDesktop, Red Hat and Microsoft Windows. The company's innovative and award-winning products include Stratusphere FIT and Stratusphere UX for desktop visibility; ProfileUnity with FlexApp and FlexDisk  for desktop portability; and Flex-IO which supports IOPS acceleration in non-persistent VDI environments.  Learn more about the Liquidware Labs Difference.

The company's executive team is comprised of veteran technologists who lead the discussion on VDI best-practices in the virtualization community.   

Are you going to Synergy?  If so, I invite you to get Liquidware Labs on your "must see" list.  Want to learn more?  Check out this interview to learn about what they have planned for the upcoming Citrix Synergy 2016 event.

It's hard to believe that in two weeks, 5,000+ fellow Citrix users will be descending upon the city of Las Vegas and taking over the Sands Expo thanks toCitrix Synergy 2016.

The fun of Synergy kicks off on May 22nd this year with the official kickoff happening May 24th and continuing through May 26th (although this is Las Vegas, so I have to think there will be quite a few people who extend their trip on either side, just don't tell their bosses).

Citrix has gone through its fair share of changes over the last 12 months.  So, what do they have planned for this year's event?  How do they top the previous event?  And what kind of new company and technology information should we expect to learn about at Synergy? 

To find out more ahead of the show, I spoke with Tim Minahan, Senior Vice President and Chief Marketing Officer at Citrix. 

[ Watch live coverage from VMblog during Citrix Synergy 2016 on the Events page | Before you leave, read VMblog's Citrix Synergy 2016 Survival Guide ] 

As part of VMblog's live Citrix Synergy 2016 coverage coming up later this month, we're getting our schedule ready to learn as much as we can, as quickly as we can.  Citrix Synergy is always packed with great information coming from various breakout sessions, networking sessions, keynotes and more!  But one of the places we always learn a lot is in the Solutions Expo where valuable vendors from the Citrix ecosystem setup shop to display their wares. 

But with so many vendors exhibiting at the show, how do you know who to get on your schedule? And which booths to visit?  

I recently met with a company called IGEL Technologies while at a VMware UserCon in Austin.  And I was very excited to hear about what they were offering, beyond their thin client devices which is what I think most people associate with the company.  So I was very glad to hear that they would be at Citrix Synergy once again, where I hope to dig in a little deeper and see more of their various technologies at play in a larger setting. 

IGEL Technology America is one of the world's leading thin client vendors, one of America's fastest-growing thin client brands and Europe’s No. 1 in Linux-based thin clients.

Beyond thin client devices, IGEL's Universal Desktop Converter 2 (UDC2) software provides a highly effective alternative to traditional thin client hardware. The software is installed as the operating system on PCs, notebooks and select thin clients, and turns the hardware into a powerful software-based and universally deployable thin client allowing secure access to almost all centralized IT infrastructures.

The IGEL Universal Management Suite (UMS) is a user-friendly and extremely efficient piece of software that allows IGEL thin and zero clients as well as PCs, notebooks and thin clients from other manufacturers to be remotely administered.  

Are you going to Synergy?  If so, I invite you to get IGEL Technology on your "must see" list.  Want to learn more?  Check out this interview to learn about what they have planned for the upcoming Citrix Synergy 2016 event.

As part of VMblog's live Citrix Synergy 2016 coverage coming up later this month, we're getting our schedule ready to learn as much as we can, as quickly as we can.  Citrix Synergy is always packed with great information coming from various breakout sessions, networking sessions, keynotes and more!  But one of the places we always learn a lot is in the Solutions Expo where valuable vendors from the Citrix ecosystem setup shop to display their wares. 

But with so many vendors exhibiting at the show, how do you know who to get on your schedule? And which booths to visit?  

I was glad to hear that Lakeside Software was going to be sponsoring the event again this year.  For many years now, I've had the great pleasure of being briefed by this company and being exposed to their flagship product, SysTrack.

Lakeside Software transforms the way that enterprises deploy, manage, secure, improve, and report on end user experience by coupling the world's most lightweight agent with a robust data analysis engine to instantly grant complete visibility and control to administrators without impacting end user experience.Lakeside empowers EUC teams with comprehensive end user analytics and endpoint telemetry, enabling them to optimize user experience, mitigate risk, minimize cost, automate operational tasks, and make better decisions.  

Are you going to Synergy?  If so, I invite you to get Lakeside Software on your "must see" list.  Want to learn more?  Check out this interview to learn about what they have planned for the upcoming Citrix Synergy 2016 event.

Let's face it, it's been a wild 12 months for Citrix since last year's Synergy event.  But things appear to be taking shape quite nicely for the company, and I expect we'll get quite the education as to the direction of the company for the remainder of the year and beyond during Synergy 2016.  Things should prove quite illuminating.  But on a personal note, the one thing I will definitely miss at this year's conference will be Mark Templeton.  Not seeing and hearing him on the big stage or catching up with him 1:1 will be difficult after all these years.

But that means that conference attendees will also get their first look at the new Citrix CEO, Kirill Tatarinov.  Tatarinov, a 13 year veteran of Microsoft, where he was most recently Executive Vice President of the Microsoft Business Solutions Division, is putting the finishing touches on the company’s new plan.  Expect to hear all about it during the keynote presentations.Citrix Synergy 2016 takes place May 24-26th and this year the venue moves to fabulous Las Vegas at the Venetian and Sands Expo. Whether this is your first Citrix pilgrimage made to Synergy, or, whether you are an old pro and card carrying alumni member, I'd like to share a few tips and tricks with you to help make your coming event as smooth and as successful as possible.  I'm sure I'll miss a number of key tips or tricks, so please feel free to chime in to help others.

Let's begin! 

VMworld 2015 has come to an end, and I'm just now starting to get re-acclimated to being back in Austin, TX and the Central Time Zone.  My room at the Intercontinental Hotel in San Francisco was fantastic as always; but waking up every morning at 3:30AM like clockwork was a bit much.  Thanks a lot Pacific Time Zone!

If you followed our VMworld 2015 coverage, you've already seen a number of great video interviews at various vendor booths during the show.  But stay tuned, we aren't finished yet -- more are on the way!

As part of VMblog's live VMworld 2015 coverage coming up at the end of this month, we're getting our schedule ready to learn as much as we can, as quickly as we can. But with so many vendors exhibiting at the show, how do you know who to get on your schedule and which booths to visit?

I was glad to hear that Zenoss, a company in my backyard of Austin, will again be showcasing their wares at VMworld. These guys are really fun and interesting! And they've got some really great technology in this space. Back in May of this year, I had a really good deep dive into their products since I attended the company's first ever Zenoss GalaxZ User Conference. One of the big takeaways from this user conference was how much Zenoss values its customers. And I was also exposed to the company's "Own IT" mantra.

Zenoss technology delivers a quick and precise insight into potentially affected services so you can fix the problem before your business and users are impacted. You’ll know what events are putting your critical services at risk, and you’ll have the right context and information to act faster to resolve the prioritized problems before your services are impacted. They also help you stay ahead of the curve by uncovering trends and patterns to help you optimize your IT resources and plan capacity more effectively, a critical capability required to keep your services running. And, you’ll be able to quickly scale horizontally and vertically to handle your hybrid IT environment.

Get Zenoss on your schedule, and make sure to ask them about their ZenPacks! Find out more ahead of the show by reading the below Q&A interview with the company: