A month and a half has gone by since the BriForum and I am talking about it as if I was there yesterday. Jason Davidson and I, from time to time, reference many events that went on there. One day I was on BrianMadden.com and there was a post about a webinar that would be taking place on Wednesday July 30, 2008 about a summary on BriForum 2008. I promptly agreed to attend and shot an email to Jason. Jason, of course, signed up in a heartbeat.

It was fun to sit there and conjure up all sorts of thoughts while Brian Madden reviewed different topics that was presented at BriForum over the speaker. One of the interesting headliners that I am always interested in was on virtualization. There were many other topics but this one stuck with me. I remember that I read a blog that Brian did and he believes that if companies did things a certain way then they can become completely virtual by 2010.

You cannot help but reap the benefits from virtualization. There is more opportunity for memory banks, being able to help, fix, or get information remotely so you wouldn't have to be physically there, in addition, it would help on the green cause that much of society has picked up on. Less travel for people to work on the products, streaming applications instead of using products to produce them, and it also allows the IT department to keep the computers up to date almost instantaneously instead of days of work on computers.

While I was sitting there, I started to ponder; with as many positive, there are with virtualization (well with any great product) there is always going to be some sort of negative that goes along with it. I love learning everything I can about it; yet, I can't help but be a little skeptical about it. What if a company becomes so dependant on it and suddenly there is this "problem" that one can't fix. There is no perfect product.

Say the bandwidth is being over used within the company and it slows the internet connection. Could there be a problem large facilities like hospitals who would use and rely on the internet and if they had virtualization in their company and its connection doesn't work anymore? I am sure there would be a back up plan, but in a place where every second counts, would this really be a good situation for virtualization to be? Too much overhead or is this really the solution of our future?

BriForum by Sophia "the intern" Stalliviere

I recently started with Intel as a summer intern, coming from Washington State University (go cougars), and had the privilege of doing something very unique for an Intern - going on a business trip! Last week I went to the BriForum, I didn't have any idea what I got myself into when I went, however, I found it to be a great experience. I think of myself as technically savvy person, but at a show where they have a multi-part series on the "excruciating details" of the logon process challenged my level of tech savvy! To be immersed in the detailed language of computers at this event was both very scary and very exciting at the same time. At this forum there were many people, representing different parts of the world - connected by one thing: the future of computers. Now when I say future, we aren't talking about just computers doing the same things faster, smaller, and cheaper; but we are talking about the changes that will come from the virtual execution world. A world where the application you run may be running on the device your using right now to view this blog, or it may be executing in a number of other places, but viewed just like you are doing right now, with manageability, security, and flexibility at the heart of the solution.

My Intel manager, Jason Davidson hosted one of the sessions, as well as sponsored the food for the BriForum party (details about the party will be on my personal page J). He decided to have a discussion on . In his session he did something a little bit different than the other sessions. Instead of telling everyone his thoughts about his subject, he had questions up on the projection screen and the panel discussed the questions. The panel consisted of Jason Davidson, Brian Madden, Brian Duckering, and Ron Oglesby. All of them had different views on the topic which made it very energizing and intriguing. The audience got into it by asking questions and also waited till after the sessions to approach the speakers on the topic.

Another session that I attended was the "VDI Product Smackdown and Discussion," which was hosted by Brian Madden. He talked about the different VDI components and his thoughts about each of them. He went into detail about Citrix Xendesktop, Qumranent, Quest, Ericom, and VMware. Other sessions were "Optimizing and Understanding Citrix over WAN connections", "Streaming Smackdown", "Provisioning Servers in the Real World", "The Future of Client Computing", and "Customizing Citrix XenApp Web5.0."

The sessions were really great, and I learned a bunch. I also found the networking with people at the event to be one of my strong points and was able to learn about many end-user experiences and products. Jason and I went to each of the demos and I observed him talking to each of the companies about their roles in this forum. Then, in turn, we talked about our roles with Intel. We put the word out about the Emerging Compute Model Forum. Many of the people are interested in looking around the site.

All in all the trip was great...and a great start of my internship!

Intel partnered with ArsTechnica to create an ongoing web based conference / symposium with Intel as the presenting sponsor - and this week the topic is all about emerging compute models!

Please take a few minutes and go check out the conversations on their site and join in the discussion.

-Jason

The application & desktop virtualization forums for Atlanta (March 20) and Washington DC (April 3) went off well. Here is my recap.

Atlanta:

When we arrived in Atlanta, the town had just survived a tornado on March 14^th^ and was in repair mode (the hotel that many of us were staying at had extensive damage and was doing everything it could to get back in working order). We had a few interesting times as passage to & from the hotel was often stopped due to the amount of falling glass (we passed the time in the nearby malls and downtown businesses). One person checked into their room to find that moments later a crack in the window gave way to a breezy view. The round the clock crews that were repairing the hotel made for some less than desired sleep patterns (3 am hammering in the room next to you is bound to wake the heaviest of sleeper). The people in Atlanta were as hospitable as ever, confirming that Atlanta is big city with small-town hospitality - even in the aftermath of a tornado!

We held the event at the 755 club at Turner Field (the Atlanta Braves stadium); the venue was awesome! The day of the event, started at 8:30 for attendees with a very enjoyable southern breakfast. At 9 am, Ketan Sampat of Intel gave the opening address, followed by presentations from Citrix, Application Desktop Virtualization Forum APPStream-Symantec.pdf, and Microsoft. During the lunch time, there were demos and deep dives with experts from Intel, AppStream, Citrix, Dell, Microsoft, and Symantec. As the attendees left the event, they received a USB thumb drive with all the presentations and collateral here:

• Principled Technology Report
• Intel Opening remarks
• Microsoft Softgrid Flash Tour
• Alternative Computer Models Brief
• Citrix Presentation
• Application Desktop Virtualization Forum APPStream-Symantec.pdf
• Microsoft Presentation
• http://communities.intel.com/servlet/JiveServlet/previewBody/1487-102-1-1702/IT@Intel%20Benchmarking%20Study%20Results%20%20Summary.pdfIT@Intel

Washington DC:

We arrived in Washington DC during cherry blossom season, a fantastic time of year. The venue for the event was the Marriott Hotel in Bethesda Maryland. The hotel staff was very helpful, the hotel was enjoyable, and the event went off without any major issues. The agenda was very similar to Atlanta with breakfast/registration time at 8:30 am, and at 9 am Chuck Brown of Intel giving the opening address. This was followed by presentations from Citrix, Application Desktop Virtualization Forum APPStream-Symantec.pdf, and Microsoft. During the lunch time, there were demos and deep dives with experts from Intel, AppStream, Citrix, Dell, Microsoft, and Symantec. As the attendees left the event, they received a USB thumb drive with all the presentations and collateral here:

• Principled Technology Report
• Intel Opening remarks
• Microsoft Softgrid Flash Tour
• Alternative Computer Models Brief
• Citrix Presentation
• Application Desktop Virtualization Forum APPStream-Symantec.pdf
• Microsoft Presentation
• IT@Intel%20Benchmarking%20StudyIT@Intel

Many great talks with the attendees in DC as well, confirming a similar message that was received in Atlanta. We are definitely on the edge of something big in this space - as can be seen by the various acquisitions that have occurred in the past year. A fantastic first two events for 2008, if you have not been able to attend either of these, see if one of these matches your location.

-Jason Davidson

I just got back from teaching a class on Emerging Compute Models at the Intel sales conference. A few things really struck me in the messages from the Intel executives, and the reactions and questions from the Intel sales force. None of them really shocked me, but rather re-affirmed some opinions I already held.

1. With only one or two exceptions, every sales rep has accounts that are actively evaluating or deploying some kind of alternate compute model to better manage and secure their clients. I met two that had not encountered it yet, and they covered the Emerging Markets accounts.

2. This sales conference was "university style", where the attendees were free to pick and choose among over 100 sessions on different topics. The sessions we taught were packed - standing room only - indicating that interest in these new compute models is very high. If the sales reps are interested, that means their customers are.

3. I'd estimate that more than 90% of those that selected our session were either from Western Europe or North America. Attendance from Japan, Asia-Pacific and China, the bulk of our sales force, was really low. If you judged from the people in the room, Emerging Compute Models are mostly a mature market, advanced IT trend right now.

4. Just about every executive from Intel CEO Paul Otellini on down talked about changes in the compute model, and Intel products to address the needs of every model - Intel Xeon processor-based servers, PC clients with Intel vPro technology and low-cost components for thin client terminals. I'd say Intel is treating this like an opportunity rather than a threat, and is setting up for success regardless of the model that fits the customers' needs.

From these indicators, my conclusion is that we are in the middle of a permanent change in the application delivery landscape, at least in the mature markets. The technology has caught up with need for better management, lower cost and stronger security, and I expect you'll hear a lot more from Intel about products tuned to these delivery models.