prayforvegas

prayforvegas.jpg

This trip has been like no other, the other 5 times to Vegas this year have been pretty uneventful.

Currently sat in the General session at NetApp Insight, to begin with i thought continuing with the conference was a disrespectful act based on the tragedy that had happened on Sunday evening. But actually i now realise that this was the right thing to do. George Kurian the NetApp CEO opened things up saying about the fact that the show must go on.

I am going to try to be as active on here as possible and get some good information out there in regards to the event.

I wanted to share my run of events yesterday with you.

Thank you to the Mandalay Bay and Starbucks for providing free lunches and coffee today after the tragic events Sunday night.

Having had no sleep the night of the event, I just want to reflect on this briefly. I can safely say this was the scariest thing i have ever experienced, the gut wrenching feeling of being scared is horrible. The unknown was the worst part, friends were eating and drinking in Libertine when we were forced out and shouted to run and move out of the hotel floor! not knowing if the gunman was close or not. The law enforcement were incredibly brave and a huge thanks to them for keeping us safe!

How many more terrorist events need to happen before we actually act on them, either via gun laws being put in place or some actual retaliation rather than just words of wisdom!

Wherever you are in this f*cked up world, please be safe and vigilant.

An account and reflection from my friend Justin Parisi – here.

UPDATED – I was with Justin at the NetApp A Team dinner, and his walk through events are around the same as mine at least about being moved from the Mandalay Bay Libertines restaurant.

I did not head to the UNLV though we stayed around this car park probably a mile or so away from the Mandalay bay. We then got a shuttle to the Hilton Garden Inn which was a few more miles south of the strip. I was with a large group of the NetApp A Team people, but I decided against the hotel room simply because at this stage I was wired! Me and a few decided to stay up in the lobby and tune into the news all night and watch this terrifying attack unfold as the law enforcement entities started working through the investigation.

When we finally got the OK to head back to the Delano, from other members of the team that were trapped in their rooms during the ordeal. crossing the boulevard and entering the Mandalay Bay was a very strange experience. This place does not sleep! It was so quiet, possibly we were some of the first people getting back in after spending the night away! Let me tell you this… you never want to see that casino floor like that ever! Because that would most likely mean something really bad has happened.

Justin also mentions about the fact life has to go on. I fully agree, I didn’t though as the night unfolded. I thought to keep the conference on was disrespectful to those that lost their life! But what else would we be doing… waiting in lines at the airport to get home!

Today I have a few sessions, the inform and delight white board sessions where I will be discussing some of the advanced features that Veeam 9.5 specifically brought to our NetApp integrations.

My second session is the Veeam sponsored session where I will be running through the components required to easily bring up sandbox environments leveraging the NetApp FlexClone technologies and Veeam on-demand Sandbox from Storage Snapshots.

To finish off my session responsibilities I have a Birds of a feather session with my fellow A Team buddies.

Have a great day, and for those that are travelling home today, tonight, tomorrow or at some point. be safe, be vigilant.

stay-alert

 

 

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *