Ready to Rock Your Role? Join the EMC Guru Band on Our Worldwide Tour!

If there is one thing that I have learned working in IT, it’s that you can never be too well educated.  Our business is constantly changing with new technologies and use cases.  Where can an IT practitioner go to gain insights into the latest storage and data protection trends and technologies?  The answer is simple – the 2015 GURU U Tour.
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In 2014, EMC launched our Data Protection User Group (DPUG) program, which incorporated 66 events across the globe.  The feedback was unanimously positive, and customers responded by asking for more sessions, more topics and more speakers.  We listened.

The 2015 GURU U tour covers a broader range of topics.  This year, customers are really rocking their role as we’ve extended the program to encompass both data protection and storage.  Attendees will emerge with a better understanding of both, current technologies, future offerings, and best of all, they will also network and share best practices with a broader set of peers.  Some of this year’s more heavily attended sessions include:

Flash Optimized Data Protection
The addition of SSD to the datacenter can dramatically enhance storage performance, which is particularly valuable for transactional workloads. What about data protection you ask?  Just as flash often requires you to rethink your storage strategies, it also requires you to rethink data protection.  In this session we talk about the challenges and opportunities associated with protecting data stored on flash.

Leveraging VNX for cloud environments
Cloud technologies are being considered for a range of new workloads, but you still need storage to power your cloud.  In this session, we will discuss how you can leverage VNX technology to deliver optimal performance in a private cloud environment.

Unleash the power of service level objectives on VMAX3
Consistently delivering the right storage service levels to all apps is a major challenge.  This can be particularly difficult as environments become larger and more complex.  VMAX3 introduced the concept of Service Level Objectives (SLO) and in this session, we discuss how SLOs can be used to simplify planning, provisioning and monitoring of storage.

These are only a small list of the topics that will be covered and the full list of sessions. Registration information can be found on the EMC.COM GURU U page.  The tour is visiting 64 cities globally and the GURU U page has a complete list of cities and sessions.  We encourage you to review the cities and topics and register for events in your area.  Remember, a key part of the GURU U program is customers both presenting and networking.  Your insights and feedback make the program better for everyone!
GuruU-2If you missed the program, join us in social media with the hashtag #GURUU15.  You can see tons of event pictures and can start or

continue the dialogue with your peers and EMC experts.

As the program continues to expand, we will be looking to add more cities plus topics and would love your feedback.

  • Are there topics that we should be covering that we are not?
  • Are there cities that we should add?
  • Would you like to take a more active role in organizing future GURU U events or even run your own ?

If you answer yes to any of these questions, please chime in on the comment section or reach out to me on Twitter (@JLIVENS).

I look forward to seeing you at an upcoming GURU U event!

About the Author: Jay Livens