One Week with an iPad

A week ago today Apple released the 3G iPad and I was lucky enough to pickup the last 64GB 3G model not reserved for a pre-order at the Apple Store. A few questioned why I picked up the ‘over-sized iPod Touch’. While this maybe be a fairly accurate description of the device, trust me it’s way off the mark. It’s so far off the mark, I’d like to share with how the iPad has impacted me this week.

A bit of background

I have what I consider to be one of the best roles anyone could have. I work on a team responsible for product integration testing and validation with platforms, hypervisors, operating systems, applications, and systems management and orchestration tools.

In this role I interface with a wide range of individuals ranging from teammates, product managers, technical directors, etc to partner engineers and PMs, customer decision makers and administrators. Suffice to say, a wide range of individuals each of whom look at business challenges a bit differently.

When it comes to discussing storage concepts relevant to virtual machines, like LUNs, volumes, data reduplication, compression, embedded objects, virtual disks, etc… It’s fair to say it’s easy to get lost in the conversation. Presentations and whiteboards commonly aide in communication, but these devices aren’t portable.

The epiphany

I picked up the iPad Friday evening and boarded my flight for the VMware TechSummit on Saturday morning. During the flight I installed a few apps (thanks to some suggestions from Wade Oharrow). With my new set of work tools I am able to remotely connect to desktop sessions (Windows, Linux, and OS X), connect to file servers (internal and cloud-based), scribble out ideas on electronic whiteboards, and display presentations.

It was after installing these apps when it hit me. I have un-tethered myself from my laptop for the majority of my meetings and interactions!

As each day of the TechSummit passed my MacBook Pro remained in the backpack, back in the hotel room.

A new means of personal interaction

With each conversation, I found I was reaching for the iPad as a means to inject rich media into the dialog. Providing me the ability to discuss more abstract and forward thinking concepts in greater detail and with more clarity. I began calling this the media rich personal conversation.

The world will never be the same

Imagine what VMworld will be like this fall. Gone is the need to crowd around a monitor in vendors booth in order to learn about their next generation technology. This fall I envision attendees engaging with individuals armed with an iPad who will share the vision of the company, answer technical questions, present canned and live demos, and summarize the interaction via an email compete with URLs to documents and demos, screenshots from live demos and whiteboard drawings.

In other words, I can’t wait for VMworld!


Thank you Apple for the great device, now if I can get Blogo for the iPad I’ll be in business…


Vaughn is a VP of Systems Engineering at VAST Data. He helps organizations capitalize on what’s possible from VAST’s Universal Storage in a multitude of environments including A.I. & deep learning, data analytics, animation & VFX, media & broadcast, health & life sciences, data protection, etc. He spent 23 years in various leadership roles at Pure Storage and NetApp, and has been awarded a U.S. patent. Vaughn strives to simplify the technically complex and advocates thinking outside the box. You can find his perspective online at vaughnstewart.com and in print; he’s coauthored multiple books including “Virtualization Changes Everything: Storage Strategies for VMware vSphere & Cloud Computing“.

12 thoughts on “One Week with an iPad

  1. @Vijay – thats exactly the reason, the form factor / size, plus its always on. Its ubiquitous computing!
    Finger-punched on my iPad, excuse any typos
    Vaughn

  2. I’m with you bro. Typing you on this on the new Nexus iPad for our VDI showcase. In fact I’m really thinking about the evolving app for that market and how platforms and client apps could really get ported into this new access device. It also makes me wonder how long before google has a droid tablet…
    So when will netapp haves apps for that?

  3. I’d agree you have a pretty good role. But in my book one of the “best” role is being filling a beachside chair in a topical local while drinking mojitos.
    As for the iPad, i’ll wait until you can get virtual iPads 🙂

  4. The essentials for my business include:
    Idea Boards – whiteboard app
    Keynote – presentations
    FileBrowser – CIFS/SMB client
    Desktop connect – RDP & VNC client (pocketcloud probably better but lacks VNC)
    TweetDeck

  5. FileBrowser as CIFS/SMB client. I got a problem with the connection to my filer. I also use the 64GB 3G model an a FAS 2020 with Ontap 7.3.2. Did you have any problems

  6. @dgoertz: same here. Cant connect with an Operation cannot be performed error. Did you get that fixed?

  7. Hi, I also just got my IPAD and are trying to set VPN to netapp on it and have not been able to. do you have asolution?

Leave a Reply

Back To Top