Q&A with Lewan’s Citrix Synergy Guest Speaker

Citrix Synergy 2014Congratulations to Lewan Technology Solutions Architect, Kenneth Fingerlos, who has been chosen for another very notable speaking engagement – Citrix Synergy 2014. It’s a highly competitive selection process and speaks to the credentials Kenneth has in this industry. If you are attending the conference in LA next month, be sure to check out his presentation on XenMobile best practices.

I took a couple minutes to sit down with Kenneth and learn a little more:

What is your industry experience?
“Something like 16 years ago I took my first IT job managing desktops for University of Idaho. In that instance we had some 800 physical PCs and some 300 unique applications we were delivering to a student body of more than 15,000. I moved to the systems admin team and went on to hold other positions around servers, storage, data center infrastructure, and IT management. It was 6 years ago I took a position as an IT consultant with Lewan Technology. My job is to find ways to help customers improve business productivity and agility through the use of technology. Citrix’s products have played a large role in those solutions.”

What makes Citrix solutions such a great choice for our customers?
“In a word flexibility. There are a lot of products on the market which seek to solve a given problem in a single way. It’s like the analogy when you only have a hammer, every problem looks like a nail. Citrix provides a suite of options allowing customers to choose the best solution for the problem at hand and to evolve the solution over time. Extending the analogy – it’s like adding a screwdriver, pliers, saw, wrench and glue to your toolbox in addition to the hammer.

What will you be talking about at Citrix Synergy this year?
“This year my session is SYN237 – Best Practices for Deploying and Integrating XenMobile. I’ll be talking about real-world impacts and choices on existing Citrix deployments when you add the XenMobile product suite. Essentially trying to answer the questions of ‘how do I add this to my environment?’ and ‘what do I need to know in order to do this successfully?’

What do you enjoy most about attending and participating in Citrix Synergy?
“It’s hard to pick just one thing. I love product announcements and hearing the Citrix solution story. I love networking and meeting with my peers to learn about the solutions they’ve deployed and how it’s changed the business landscape for their customers. And I love learning about new technology. I suppose if it had to be just one thing its probably spending a week (or nearly one) immersed in what is possible for our customers.”

What can customers look forward to on the horizon at Lewan Technology, as a Citrix platinum solutions provider?
Lewan strives to be the best source of IT related business consulting services for our customers. We want to be a strategic partner, helping to grow and optimize their business. We aren’t just a technology reseller, there’s a lot more to the core value we bring. Looking forward, Lewan will continue driving strategic conversations with customers about how we can jointly enable and optimize business value from their IT assets and adapt to the ever changing business and technology landscape.

Lewan Named to 2014 Tech Elite 250 List

Lewan has once again earned a prestigious spot on CRN’s 2014 list of Tech Elite 250 IT Solution Providers. This elite group of IT solution providers have invested in the training and education needed to earn the most advanced technical certifications from leading vendors.

Lewan Technology, CRN Tech Elite 250From CRN:

In compiling the list, CRN editors worked with The Channel Company’s research group to define the most customer-beneficial technical certifications in the IT channel. These technical certifications – from vendors including Cisco, Citrix, Dell, HP, NetApp, Microsoft, VMware, and Symantec – have enabled solution providers to deliver the most premium products, service and support to their North American customers.

“The solution providers highlighted on our annual Tech Elite 250 have demonstrated a commitment to excellence and gained industry credibility by investing in the IT certifications necessary to stay competitive and deliver the highest level of service to their customers,” said Robert Faletra, CEO, The Channel Company. “These featured solution providers have enhanced and strengthened their partnerships by earning some of the most difficult certifications from some of the biggest names in IT. We congratulate these organizations and look forward to their continued success.”

Thinking about a VDI initiative? Watch this.

Lewan Solutions Architect, Kenneth Fingerlos, wowed the crowd last month at the GPU Technology Conference (GTC) 2014 with his presentation on VDI, “Virtual is Better than Physical Delivering a Delightful User Experience from a Virtual Desktop“.

GTC is the world’s biggest and most important GPU developer conference. Taking place in Silicon Valley, GTC offers unmatched opportunities to learn how to harness the latest GPU technology, along with face-to-face interaction with industry luminaries and NVIDIA experts.

Leveraging his industry leading expertise, Kenneth “delivered in spades,” as described in a review of his presentation for The Register:

The VDI talk was the kind of GTC session I love. It’s where a real-world expert talks about how a difficult task is actually accomplished. Not the theory, not how it should work on paper, but what it takes to actually move a project from Point “A” to Point “We’re done with this”.
Ken Fingerlos from Lewan Technology delivered in spades with his “Virtual is Better than Physical: Delivering a Delightful User Experience from a Virtual Desktop” GTC14 session. Delightful? Hmm…In my past lives, I’ve had to use some virtual PCs and my experience ranged from “absolutely unusable” to “omg I hate this”.
It’s easy to see that Fingerlos has been around the block when it comes to VDI. He has all the right credentials, ranging from VMware to Citrix to Microsoft. But more importantly, he’s been there and done it.

Read the complete review from theregister.co.uk

Kenneth’s GTC Presenter’s Bio

View the complete session and slide deck:
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