Nutanix Frame Partner Community Summit in Belgrade

One method of amplifying our story and refining our solution is by collaborating with our key technology partners and industry influencers. More specifically, we believe that by cultivating a community of end-user computing professionals, we have the ability to push Nutanix, help our customers/partners, and drive the entire End User Computing (EUC) domain forward. With that said, we kicked off this initiative last week in Belgrade, the capital of Serbia where Frame was born. Over 20 solution architects and technology leaders from our European channel partner community met with our Frame team over three days. Attendees obviously got to learn more about Frame, but more importantly, they taught us a great deal on improving the platform.

Attendees had varying degrees of Frame experience coming into the event. Some had implemented Frame already. Others had only done evaluations of Frame so far, but their conclusions were positive for Frame compared to other DaaS solutions they’d tried. Overall, after three days of interactions, we all felt it was mutually beneficial and essentially served as a really effective advisory board discussion.

What was the experience like?​

On the day of arrival, providing comfort was our main focus for our guests. We allowed everyone to get settled in and hosted an optional networking dinner for attendees to get acquainted with each other.

Though an already tight-knit community, there were many attendees who hadn’t met before - so the dinner and a nice rakija provided the perfect opportunity to break the ice before we dug into the technology.

During the second day, the agenda included an executive keynote covering the past, present and future of Nutanix Frame, introductions to the core Frame team and what is on the Frame roadmap moving forward.

We taught the attendees how to design and integrate Frame into on-premises infrastructures and leverage public clouds like AWS, Azure and GCP. The Frame team also showcased various customer use-cases on how Frame is used in specific vertical markets, how it can integrate well with Google services, how it works with NVIDIA vGPUs, and how others have used various Frame APIs to unlock use-cases many haven’t seen before. This allowed everyone to understand how Frame is different, and to learn what the typical and atypical use-cases are.

Keep in mind that the conversation on day two definitely wasn’t one directional. During the latter part of day two, attendees were able to share their honest feedback about the platform. We covered the top missing features and functions which should be included in the Frame product roadmap and why. We also had an open conversation to share and learn where Frame is a great fit and where it isn’t. But the day didn’t end there. In true Nutanix fashion, we made sure to schedule some fun during our trip.We spent time together and learned about Serbian culture and history and enjoyed typical food and drink (read: meat, beer, rakija).

Though day three was scheduled short to accommodate travel in the afternoon, we were able to accomplish quite a bit. The conversation initially focused on the EUC landscape and how Frame is different from other VDI and DaaS solutions. But we also discussed how to identify which use cases are best for Frame and which are best for traditional VDI approaches like Citrix. This provided a wealth of context for our attendees and also allowed the Frame team to gain new insights from the attendees. By late morning, we expanded the focus from the technology to the engineering colleagues behind the Frame solution. This gave attendees the opportunity to meet the developers and understand what is happening behind the scenes, learn who they are, what they do, and how they work. We then wrapped up with closing remarks and thanks to our, now closer, friends.

Interested in getting involved?​

The Nutanix EUC Community really was a team effort by: Martijn Bosschaart, Paul Murray, Gaby Grau, Sven Huisman, Dominik Conrad, Aleksandar Micovic, Carsten Puls, Aleksandar Andjelkovic and his developer colleagues, and myself (Ruben Spruijt). We all really appreciate all the participation and feedback from the group of partners that joined. If the Nutanix EUC community sounds like something you would like to be a part of, we’re definitely interested in hearing from you. Though there isn’t an official onboarding process for community members just yet, please reach out to me at ruben.spruijt@nutanix.com, and we can begin updating you on upcoming events and activities. In the meantime, I would encourage you to get familiar with Frame. The Frame Test Drive is free and will give you two hours to experience the platform in a cloud environment. If you want more, signup at my.nutanix.com for a free 30-day trial. And if you are already a Nutanix Technology Champion (NTC) please let me know because NTCs are eligible for longer term access at no cost. If you want to become a NTC please spend time with Nutanix technology, enjoy and above all share your passion and insights with others. Want to learn more about NTC? Please read this article.