>> From Gillette Stadium in Foxboro, Massachusetts, if the queue covering Vita Winter warmer, twenty nineteen brought to you by Silicon Angle media. >> I'm stupid. And this is the cubes coverage of the V tug Winter warmer twenty nineteen here at Gillette Stadium, home of the New England Patriots, and is my distinct pleasure to welcome to the program. Two time Super Bowl champion number fifty Patriots alumnae Rob Ninkovich. Rob may think you are doing great. Thanks for having awesome. You know, the team's a little bit of flutter. We brought, you know, one of the people here that help support the Patriots. The last two rings the Patriots had and you were on those teams, So yeah, >> it was, uh, you know, privileged and blessed to be on a couple Super Bowl winning teams. So >> did I hear right? Was the last one actually on your birthday to know that was the first >> one? That was really, really, really, really nice. >> Capable ring on your palm. My birthday. So your birthday's coming up here on February first, so >> I'll be the Big thirty five. Yeah, we'll have to sell me. I can't believe it. I'm almost seventy after seventy. >> Congratulations. Looking good and thank you. Feel good. Probably look out >> running climbing mountains. I'm gonna climb Mount Kilimanjaro with Chris Long here pretty soon in a month off. So I'll be in Africa raising money for water boys. So we'll be drilling for clean water, so it'll be cool. >> That's great. Yeah. I mean, let's hit on that. You know, you were you were drafted by the same. Believe you met your wife. Yeah. They're Southern Southern girls. Both of you are, you know, giving back to the community. Do a lot of charitable work. Would love to hear a little bit about that. >> Yeah. I mean, I think that the platform that athletes have is is tremendous. So if you can give back to your community, you know, that's that's one of the best things that I think an athlete can give back. And that's, you know, people that are in need and people that aren't as fortunate. So you know, for me, I work with Matt Light and the Light Foundation. So him on his board of directors and that basically brings kids in from troubled areas and backgrounds and they go into a camp and it's a four year program. So they start. And then they graduate, so to speak. When they get through high school and they're going into their college years, but it's a great program for trying to develop your skills. And you know, a lot of kids that don't have, you know, maybe a great family background that you know is a healthy background to where it's trying to bring kids together and show them some different things that could help them moving forward. And, you know, life skills that everyone needs. >> Yeah, this conference actually talk a lot about skills in career because and the technology field things were changing a lot. Now I've watched football. Most of my career were actually my season tickets. I can see across the field here and, you know, in your career, your eleven year career in the NFL changed a lot. I think you came into the NFL as an outside linebacker. And when you're here in the Patriots who switched the defensive end? No, you know what kind of things do you learn? And you know, how do you kind of have the mindset to say, like, Okay, well, this is the job and the skills and the things I'm looking to do. And now, like a weight, I need toe, you know, have a hand down and be facing off against some really big guys. >> Yes. So, I mean, I think the Toby the chameleon, so to speak and be able to change and adapt to your environment. I mean, that's what makes not just an athlete, but, you know, every every business person that can change with time and in with the trends of technology and how things were adapting over overtime, that's what's gonna continue your success. So if you stay, if you just one thing and you never want to change and you never adapt, you're goingto be overtaken by somebody else. So you have to have that mindset. When I arrived here with the Patriots, I knew that you had to be multiple. He had to continue toe, do different things with your career in position or else, you know, really, you don't stick around as long. So you know, for me, I was a defensive lineman, linebacker, special teams. You do it all, and it helps Not only your team, but it helps your career and, you know, have a long career that, >> yeah, not only do your job, but when you're called to do multiple jobs, you you're going to step in and do that. It kind of seems to be the Patriot. >> You have to. You have to. If you can't do the multiple job thing, it's This might not be the place. >> Yeah, So, you know, we just had, you know, one of the most amazing games and Patriot history that I think I've seen. I'm curious us now, an observer rather than player. You know what your thought looking at a game like that? You know, I know heart rates were a little bit high for those of us in New England, but, you know, it's really amazing win like that. >> Yeah. I mean, it goes to show you that the mental toughness and the that just never quit mentality is one of the main characteristics of this team this year in their story, you can't look at previous years or just you can't look att history. When it comes to football, it comes down. Who's going to play the best football in that particular day? And, you know, you look at what the defense has done so far. It's been tremendous going against the Chargers, who are a great team and you know, everyone was making the excuse of, you know, they travelled a lot in the time change was tough, but then them going on >> the road, >> which hadn't been a strong point form this year and getting a win and shutting out a team in the first half. The Chiefs that were really powerful and really explosive in one of the best in the NFL. It just goes to show you that, you know, in the playoffs, it's a completely different season. It's a new season. You've gotto just forget about what happened in the regular season. You know, moving on to this next game. I think that they just need to continue that high momentum and playing the way that they are playing, which is running the football, being tough and playing physical for four quarters. Being physical. That's that's what's going to win in this next one >> sixty minutes. And if it goes in over time, a little bit longer, >> you got it. Whatever it takes. >> Rob Ninkovich really appreciate you spending some time with that. Well, best of luck on Kilimanjaro this year. Exciting. Yeah, I know you do some social media. They're so sure people can follow along >> Yeah, I'll be on there. I got Instagram Nick five o. So And then I'm Niko. Five o for Twitter. So I'm out there. All right, all right. >> Thank you so much. And we, of course, are out there all the time. Go to the cube dot net to catch all the videos. Find me on Twitter. I'm just stew s to you and, uh, super pleasure to be able to have Rob Ninkovich. And thanks so much for the veto >> booth.

>> From Gillette Stadium in Foxboro, Massachusetts, it's the CUBE. Covering VTUG Winter Warmer 2019. Brought to you by SiliconANGLE Media. >> I'm Stu Miniman, and this is theCUBE's coverage of the VTUG Winter Warmer 2019. Just had Rob Ninkovich from the New England Patriots on the program. And, happy to bring on the program, one of the co-leaders of this VTUG event, Chris Williams. Whose day job is as a cloud architect with GreenPages, but is co-leader here at VTUG, does some user groups, and many other things, and actually a CUBE alum, even. Back four years ago, the first year-- >> That's right. >> -that we did this, we had you on the program, but a few things have changed, you know... You have a little less hair. >> This got a little longer. A little less here. >> More gray hair. Things like that. We were talking, >> Funny how that works out. you know, Rob was, you know, talking about how he's 35, and we were, like, yeah, yeah, 35, I remember 35. >> A child. (laughing) >> Things like that. Just wait til you hit your 40's and stuff starts breaking. >> Oh, so much to look forward to. >> So, Chris, first of all, thank you. We love coming to an event like this. I got to talk to a few users on-air, and I talked to, you know, get a, just, great pulse of what's going on in the industry. Virtualization, cloud computing, and beyond. So, you know, we know these, you know, local events are done, you know, a lot of it is the passion of the people that do it, and therefore we know a lot goes into it. >> I appreciate it, thanks for having me on. >> Alright, so bring people up to speed. What's your life like today? What do you do for work? What do you do for, you know, the passion projects? >> Ah, so the passion projects recently have been a lot of, we're doing a Python for DevOp series on vBrownBag. For the AWS Portsmouth User Group, we're also doing a machine learning and robotics autonomous car driving project, using Python as well. And for VTUG, we're looking at a couple of different tracks, also with the autonomous driving, and some more of the traditional, like, VMware to CAS Cloud Hybrid training kind of things. >> Excellent, so in the near future, the robots will be replacing the users here, and we'll have those running around. >> I have my Skynet t-shirt on underneath here. >> Ah, yes, Skynet. (laughing) You know if you Tweet that out, anything about Skynet, there's bots that respond to you with, like, things from The Terminator movies. >> I built one of them. >> Did you? (laughter) Well, thank you. They always make me laugh, and if there's not a place for snark on Twitter, then, you know, all we have left is kind of horrible politics, so. >> That's true, that's true. >> Great, so, yeah, I mean, Cloud AI, robotics, you know, what's the pulse? When you talk to users here, you know, they started out, you know, virtualization. There's lots of people that are, "I'm rolling out my virtualization, "I'm expanding what use-cases I can use it on, "I might be thinking about how cloud fits into that, "I'm looking at, you know, VmMare and Amazon especially, "or Microsoft, how all those fit together." You know, what are you hearing, what drives some of those passion projects other than, you know, you're interested in 'em? >> So, a lot of what my passion projects are driven, it's kind of a confluence of a couple of different events. I'm passionate about the things that I work on, and when I get into a room with customers, or whatever like that, or with the end users, getting together and talking about, you know, what's the next step? So, we as users, as a user group and as a community, we're here to learn about not just what today is... what's happening today, but, what's going to keep us relevant in the future, what are the new things coming down the pipe. And, a lot of that is bending towards the things that I'm interested in, fortuitously. Learning how to take my infrastructure knowledge and parlay that into a DevOps framework. Learning how to take Python and some of the stuff that I'm learning from the devs on the AWS side, and teaching them the infrastructure stuff. So, it's a bi-directional learning thing, where we all come together to that magical DevOps unicorn in the middle, that doesn't really exist, but... >> Yeah, I tell you, we've had this conversation a few times here, and many times over the last few years especially, is that, there's lots of opportunities to learn. And, you know, >> Too many. >> is your job threatened? And, the only reason your job should be threatened, is if you think you can keep doing, year after year, what you were doing before, because chances are either you will be disrupted in the job, or if not, the people you're working for might be disrupted, because if they're not pushing you along those tracks, and the tools and the communities to be able to learn stuff is, I can learn stuff at a fraction of the cost in faster times. >> Yep. >> Might not learn as much, but I'm saying I can pick up new skills, I can start getting into cloud. You know, it's not $1000 and six months to get the first piece of it. >> Exactly. >> It might be 40 to 60 hours online. >> Yep. >> And, you know, cost you 30 to 100 bucks, so, it's... >> Yeah, the lift in training, is a lot easier because, you're basically swiping your credit card, and with AWS, you have a free tier for 12 months, that you can play with and just, you know, doodle around, and then... And figure things out. You don't have to buy a home lab, you don't have to buy NFR license, or get NFR licenses from Vmware. But, the catch to that is, you do have to do it. There's a... remember Charlie and the Chocolate Factory? >> Of course. >> Remember the dad was doing the toothpaste tubes, he was the guys screwing the toothpaste tubes onto the machines. At the end of the story, he got, you know, automated out of a job, because they had a machine screwing the toothpaste tubes on. And then, at the end, he was the guy fixing the machine that was screwing the toothpaste tubes on. >> Right. >> So, in our world, that infrastructure guy, who's been deploying manually virtual machines, there's a piece of code, there's an infrastructure code, that will do that for them now. They've got to know how to modify and refactor that piece of code, and get good. And, get good at that. >> Yeah, you know, I've talked to a couple of people, we talk about, you know, there's big, you know, vendor shows, and then there's, you know, regional user groups and meet-up's, and the like. Give us a little insight into, you know, let's start with VTUG specifically, and, you know, what you're doin' up in the Portland area. Would love to hear some of the dynamics now, you know, it feels like there's just been a ground swell for many years now, to drive those, you know, local, and many times, more specialized events, as opposed to bigger, broader events. >> Yeah, it's interesting, because we like the bigger, broader events, because it gets everybody together to talk about, things across a broad spectrum. So, here we have the infrastructure guys, and we have the DevOps guys, and we have a couple of Developers, and stuff like that. And so, getting that group think, that mind share, into one room together, gets everybody's creative juices flowing. So, people are starting to learn from each other, that the Dev's, are getting some ideas about how infrastructure works, the infrastructure guys are getting some ideas about, you know, how to, how to automate a certain piece of their job. To make that, you know, minimize and maximize a thousand times, you know, go away. So, I love... I love the larger groups because of that. The smaller groups are more specialized, more niche. So, like, when you get into a smaller version, then, it's mostly infrastructure guys, or mostly Dev's, or some mixture thereof. So, they both definitely have their place, and that's why I love doing both of them. >> Yeah, and, you know, what can you share, kind of, speeds and feeds of this show here. I know, it's usually over a thousand people >> Yep. >> You know, had, you know, bunch of keynotes going on. You know, we talked about The Patriots, in, you know, quite a number of, you know, technology companies, people that are the, kind of, SI's or VAR's in the mix. >> Yeah, so, we had, I think, 35 sponsers. We had, six different keynotes, or six general sessions. We talked about everything from Azure to AWS, to Vmware. We covered the gamate of the things that the users are interested in. >> You had... don't undersell the general sessions there. (laughing) There was one that was on, like, you know, Blockchain and Quantum computing, I heard. >> Yep, yep. >> There was, an Amazon session, that was just, geekin' out on the database stuff, I think, there. >> Yes, yeah, Graph tier, yep. >> So, I mean, you know, it's not just marketing slideware up there, I saw a bunch of code in many of the sessions. >> Oh yeah, yeah. >> You know, this definitely is, you know, I was talkin' with the Amazon... Randell earlier, here on the program, and said that-- >> The Amazon Randall. (laughing) >> Yeah, yeah, sorry, Randall from Amazon, here. >> He's a very large weber. >> Gettin' at the end of the day, I've done a few of these, but, you know, remember like, four years ago, the first, like, cloud 101 session here? >> Yeah, yep. >> And, I was like, you know, I probably could have given that session, but, everybody here was like, "Oh, my gosh", you know, I just found out about that electricity. >> Right. >> You know, that, this is amazing. And, today, most people, understand a little bit more of... We've gotten the 101, so, you know, I'm getting into more of the pieces of it, but. >> Yeah, it was really gratifiying because, the one that he gave was, all of the service, all of the new services, of which, there were like, more than 100, in 50 minutes or less. And, he talks really, really fast. And, everybody was riveted, we... I mean, people were coming in, even up until the last minute. And, they all got it. It wasn't like, what am I do... what am I going to do with this? It's, this is what I need to know, and this is valuable information. >> Yeah, we were having a lunch conversation, about, like, when you listen to a Podcast, what speed do you listen on? So, I tend to listen at about one and a half speed, normally. >> Me too, yep. >> You know, Frappe was sayin', he listens at 2x, normally. >> Does he really? >> Somebody like, Randall, I think I would, put the video up, and you can actually go into YouTube, and things like that, and adjust the speed settings, I might hit, put him down to 0.75, or something like that, >> Yeah, absolutely. >> Because absolutely, you know, otherwise, you can listen to it at full speed, and just like, pause and rewind, and then things like that. But, definitely, someone... I respect that, I'm from New Jersey, originally, I tend to talk a little faster, on camera I try to keep a steady pace, so that, people can keep up with my excitement. >> I do, I speed up too. He actually, does this everyday. He flies to a new city, does it once a day. So, he's, he's gotten... This is like rapid fire now. >> Alright, want to give you the final word, you know, VTUG, you know, I think, people that don't know it, you go to VTUG.com, A Big Winter Warmer, here. There's The Big Summer one, >> The Summer Slam. >> With the world famous, you know, Lobster Bake Fest, there, I've been to that one a few times. I know people that fly from other countries, to come to that one. What else should we know about? >> So, we're about to revamp the website, we've got some new and interesting stuff coming up on there. Now that, we also have our slack channel, everybody communicates on the backhand through that. We're going to start having some user content, for the website. So, people can start posting blog articles, and things of that nature, there. I'm going to start doing, like a little, AW... like learn AWS, on the VTUG blog, so, people can start, you know, ramping up on some of the basics and everything. And, and if, that gains traction, then, we'll maybe get into some more advanced topics, from Azure, and AwS, and Vmware of course, Vmware is always going to be there, that's... Some of the stuff that Cody is doing, Cody Jarklin is doing, over at Vmware, like the CAS stuff, where it's the shim layer, and the management of all the different clouds. That's some really, really cool stuff. So, I'm excited to showcase some of that on the website. >> Alright, wow. Chris Williams, really appreciate you coming. And, as always, appreaciate the partnership with the VTUG, to have us here. >> Thanks for havin' me. >> Alright, and thank you as always for watching. We always love to bring you the best community content, we go out to all the shows, help extract the signal for the noise. I'm Stu Miniman, thanks for watchin' The CUBE. (energetic music) (energetic music) (energetic music)

>> From Gillette Stadium in Foxboro, Massachusetts, if the queue covering Vita Winter warmer, twenty nineteen brought to you by Silicon Angle media. Hi. >> I'm Jackie Sampson here with stew Minutemen wrapping up the show today. Ah, we're here. Gillette. >> So to this's the fifty year Vito, what's changed? >> Yeah, Jackie, so much has changed. So I've actually been coming to show for about >> eight years, and it was known as the >> New England V Mug back then. So when it switched for the tug, number one is a little bit more independent than a V M, where users group >> itself so broader on virtual >> station. But they actually made a conscious effort to expand beyond >> virtualization and talk about cloud computing. And four years ago, cloud computing while it had been gone, gone for about five years, most people coming to this show really didn't understand much beyond. I'd heard a cloud computing. I might have seen it on, like commercials from Microsoft, you know, to the cloud or some stuff like that. But they really didn't understand it. So I loved an event like this that brought in. They brought an >> Amazon. Microsoft had them give presentations, and they were breaking out from the ecosystem. This ecosystems >> gone through a maturation. Most of the vendors, I believe there's about >> five vendors here have a basic organization but have grown in decline. So we see in the users the ecosystem of the show. Make sure it's still over a thousand people here every year, and it's one that I was loved. >> That's awesome. So I was wondering. >> There are a lot of interesting guests that were on the Cube today. So what were the calm >> Dan's in virtualization >> space that you think company should >> start paying closer attention to twenty nineteen? >> Eso a common thing when I look back to twenty eighteen and continue here in twenty nineteen share >> really defines our industry today. So when we talk about going from virtual ization to cloud, we understand that that's gonna have to some disruption. We're at a user conference here, love talking to these users, and I talkto one user talked about the their hyper converge roll out, and they're going to be extending that for d R to the >> clouds I had a guest >> on today. Actually, the first one I've done it, Vito. He used to do virtualization, but in his day job today, all he does is a ws, and he does coding with PHP and he helps build out. Actually, Jackie, you gotta listen to this one because they're company does hair in massage, but for senior citizens on Lee. So it's really interesting based out of Cleveland. He's based locally. But you know, it's a nice niche and understanding the technology underneath that helps them at all of their location to do that. So you know, the common theme is, you know, it's a great time to be in technology. There's a lot of change going on, and there's great opportunities at events like this and training material for people tto learn and grow and keep themselves relevant and keep their business moving. >> That's pretty cool. So, >> speaking of relevance, who are some >> of the key players in >> space over some of the key players and talk? Teo? >> Yeah, so, >> you know, look, my first two guests were probably >> the two that have >> the biggest market share in the most relevant. So that >> is somewhere, you know, dominant in the virtual ization place and Amazon. Think clear Leader came for stuffed services going beyond actually supposed to have a guest on from microphone >> soft. Unfortunately, she was sick today. And look, it is not a winner. Take all. There is broad ecosystem and a lot of diversity out there in the ecosystem. So look, there's lots of virtual ization that isn't VM, where there's lots of cloud activity that's happening, both of them. What they've done really well in our balancing is their ecosystem. So a lot of change going on there. Neither of those companies is nearly as >> don't say the New England Patriots were going to their third Super Bowl in a row on DH talking. Did you know I'm a little excited about being here? A. Gillette? I wore my season ticket pin here. They just turned the lights on for us. Behind here, I >> can see my season ticket here. I was here. >> Wade. Rob Ninkovich on the program so way didn't talk to rob about too much. But, you know, even he was talking about the charitable works it does on new technologies. >> The underpinning he was actually telling me off camera, he's like, you know, Helen, I'm not doing football is like I should be in tech. You know, text. There's a lot going on. It's really interesting. And you know, that's the analogy we always have with the Cube is you know, one of the earliest clients said, where the pen attack. Let's give independent coverage, you know, help understand. Watch those waves and change justice in sports. If you want them long enough, things do change. You know, the NFL today. There's a very past happy league, and I think backto, when I was much younger, it was like, you know, defense running wins game today, you know, I mean, cloud computing is all the rage and rightly so, and there's still a lot of growth there. But, you know, virtual ization >> important. And there's >> so many different areas for people to be able to dig in. And that keeps >> us hopping from show to show on Keeps me excited. Teo. Find ofthe community people on technologists, users that >> will share their experiences. >> That's pretty cool. So did you have any favorite interview today? Or interviews? Plural. >> Yeah, you know, Jackie, >> it's always tough for me to, you know, choose a choose a favorite. >> So no right way has taught leadership pieces. You know where you talked about it? We talked about >> career with some computer people we talked to use, or so >> I hate to say it always liked to be like, Yeah, yeah, thiss one. But you know, overall, it was really good. I'm really happy to be able, Teo, participate. Even It's tough when I look back. In the years >> that I've been doing this, >> it's just the diversity of the new things that we get to learn your aunt and that keep >> me excited. You know, from year to year, >> it's awesome. So, Stew, thank you so much for wrapping up the show today. >> And, Jackie, I really appreciate you helping me. You know, wrap this up. You know, you're No, >> you know that. Love to say that. Thank you, everyone. I'm Jackie with student. Thanks >> for watching.