Are you attending VMworld 2017 in Las Vegas, NV?  If so, I invite you to add Druva to your MUST SEE list of vendors.

With so many vendors exhibiting at VMworld, how do you know which booths to visit and who to get on your busy schedule?  One of the companies on VMblog's list this year is Druva.  You will want to see why they bill themselves as "The Next Generation of Cloud Data Protection."  Here's more about the company:

Druva provides cloud data protection and information management, leveraging the public cloud to offer a single pane of glass to protect, preserve and discover information - dramatically increasing the availability and visibility of business critical information, while reducing the risk, cost and complexity of managing and protecting it. Druva's award-winning solutions intelligently collect data, and unify backup, disaster recovery, archival and governance capabilities onto a single, optimized data set.

Read this exclusive pre-show interview with Druva to learn what they have planned for the upcoming VMworld 2017 event.

VMblog:  As a VMworld 2017 sponsor, how can people find you this year?  Can you give us the details?

Druva:  Druva is a VMworld Gold Sponsor, Booth #209, 20x30 Booth, sending 14 people

VMblog:  Is there anything unique about this year's booth setup?  Do you have a theme?

Druva:   We have 2 demo pods, a theatre area for regular presentations from Druva, partners and customers throughout the day, and a hands on area to play with the new Oculous Rift bundle- our giveaway.

VMblog:  Can you give readers a few reasons why your product or service is considered unique? 

Druva:  Druva is the global leader in Cloud Data Protection and Management, delivering the industry's first data management-as-a-service solution that aggregates data from endpoints, servers and cloud applications and leverages the public cloud to offer a single pane of glass to enable data protection, governance and intelligence--dramatically increasing the availability and visibility of business critical information, while reducing the risk, cost and complexity of managing and protecting it.

Druva's award-winning solutions intelligently collect data, and unify backup, disaster recovery, archival and governance capabilities onto a single, optimized data set. As the industry's fastest growing data protection provider, Druva is trusted by over 4,000 global organizations, and protects over 35 PB of data.

VMblog:  Why should a VMworld attendee add you to their MUST SEE list?

Druva:  In addition to being the only cloud solution delivered as a service for data protection, Druva is saving companies 60-80% on their data protection spend.  We can show VMware users how that's possible. We are partnering very closely with VMware to offer commonalities on AWS and we're the only vendor to bring you the vTrail guide, a quick summary of the VMware community who's who and how-to guide built by the VMware community leaders and Druva.

VMblog:  What do you like most about sponsoring VMworld?  Why was this a must sponsor event for your company this year? 

Druva:  The people.  The VMware audience is one of a kind.  They are visionaries in seeing what the next big trends are in the datacenter.  So many of the VMware users are passionate and want to help other users, through user groups, forums, blogs, etc.  It's a community that really cares about the future of the datacenter. We feel Druva is part of that future by delivering data protection and management as a service, we know the VMware community will get this trend and be the first to adopt these types of market shift moves; they are visionaries, not laggards.

VMblog:  Can you give VMblog readers a sneak peek as to what you will be showing off at your booth this year?

Druva:  We will be unveiling a new solution that will change the way you think about data protection forever.  In addition, you can see a demo of our server data protection solution.  Additionally, we'll be hosting partners and customers in our booth theatre to talk about their experiences. And we'll be raffling off 2 "summer of Oculous Rift" bundles a day.

VMblog:  How does your company and product fit within the VMware ecosystem?

Druva:  We offer VMware users data protection in a simple, cost effective, as-a-service form.  By bringing in data from remote sites and various sources, like servers, end points and cloud apps, VMware users have visibility to all of their data from one console, making DR, backup, archival, workload mobility and management simpler.

VMblog:  What are you looking forward to most at VMworld this year?

Druva:  Engaging with the audience, seeing the new technologies, meeting with the community members.

VMblog:  What keeps you coming back to VMworld?

Druva:  We have sponsored many years, and we continue to come back because of the audience.  As I mentioned above, this audience is visionary and always looking for the next thing to optimize their datacenter.

VMblog:  How has exhibiting at VMworld helped your company's bottom line? 

Druva:  These contacts are certainly more qualified than most, as they are ready to think about better ways to optimize their datacenter.

VMblog:  Do you remember your first VMworld event? 

Druva:  Druva's first VMworld was memorable, as we engaged with hundreds of audience members, as well as with the community leaders and were able to understand how to engage with both better. We also brought the Druva "data in the wild" monster Grum and had people taking selfies.

VMblog:  What would you say to prospective attendees who are thinking about attending VMworld but aren't sure if it's worth it or not?

Druva:  If you're a visionary or someone that values their job, then VMworld is a must. It's the place where datacenter leaders learn how to move forward with the changing times. You don't want to be left in the dust on how things are moving or your company and your skill sets will be dead. Great content, great networking, and great ROI for your company.

VMblog:  What do you think we need to do collectively as an ecosystem to strengthen the industry?

Druva:  I think the community is the influence to where the industry will go.  It's about events like this and VMUGs, as well as VMworld that allow the people closest to the challenges to help influence the technology and the direction of the industry.  Take Cloud as an example.  VMware was a leader in driving that initiative and they continue to make inroads to enabling workload mobility in and out of the cloud for their customers.

VMblog:  What do you hope to come away with from exhibiting at VMworld?

Druva:  We want this audience to know Druva.  We are the future of cloud data protection. We want the community to cover our story and help drive the vision for the shift to cloud for data protection. The market is moving and it's being led by VMware users.

VMblog:  Do you have any tips for first time attendees of VMworld that you'd like to share?

Druva:  Don't drink too much, it makes mornings painful, drink just enough to network with all the fun people.

VMblog:  Attendees always enjoy a good trade show tchotchke.  Are you guys giving away anything special or interesting this year?

Druva:  We have lots of fun stuff, we will have the dummies guide to data protection books, bags, we're sponsoring the pub crawl, so we'll have fun cups (perfect for beer pong), and of course we'll be raffling 6 Oculous rift systems. (2 per day).

VMblog:  Does your company have any speaking sessions during the show?  If so, can you give us the who, what, when and where?

Druva:  Wednesday, Aug 30, 8:00 a.m. - 9:00 a.m

Speaker: Dave Packer, VP Product Marketing

Title: Workload Mobility & Resiliency for the New VMware Cloud on AWS (VMC)

Abstract: Do you have a backup, DR or archiving strategy for the new VMware cloud on AWS (VMC)? With the recent partnership between AWS and VMware, embracing cloud for workloads has never been simpler.  Cloud addresses some key manageability benefits, but organizations do need to plan their route to ensure availability, workload mobility, recoverability and long term archiving of their data.   In this session, we will explore three customer case studies of organizations preparing for this change within their business and the steps they're taking today.

VMblog:  Are you guys throwing or involved with any type of party during the week of the event?  Can you share the details? 

Druva:  We will be sponsoring the VMunderground activities.

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For those attending the show, make sure you check out Druva at Booth 209.  Grab one of their cool giveaways and get ready to learn more about their next generation cloud data protection and management solutions!