EMC World 2014 kicked off May 5 in beautiful Las Vegas, and The VAR Guy was on hand to offer up the lowdown on all of the day’s most important developments, sessions and info. So without further ado, here are some of the day’s most interesting events.

EMC Chief Marketing Officer Jonathan Martin opened the event in a big way, channeling his inner Eddie Van Halen and treating attendees to a guitar solo before discussing this year’s theme, "Technology Redefined." EMC, he said, is focused on helping its resellers migrate to what it calls the third platform (which the rest of us know as the cloud) to accelerate their businesses and ultimately improve the speed and quality of their data centers. What guitar solos have to do with cloud computing is beyond The VAR Guy's purview, but props to Martin for delivering a lighter-worthy performance.

EMC Chairman and CEO Joe Tucci then brought onstage a mariachi band in recognition of Cinco de Mayo, extending the musical narrative. Following the band, Tucci offered up a brief history of software-defined storage (SDS). The four big drivers of data growth, he said, are Big Data, cloud, mobile and social networking, all of which combine to create the third platform of IT (with mainframes and distributed services making up the first and second platforms, respectively). IT is in the midst of the rise of the software-defined enterprise, he noted, as CEOs continue to view technology as a driver of digital business innovation and growth.

Tucci also touted the newly formed EMC Federation, a group of companies working together to provide strategically aligned technologies aimed at software-defined data centers and the third platform, and announced storage product provider DSSD has joined the likes of VMware (VMW), RSA and EMC II as a member of the federation.

David Goulden, CEO of EMC Information Infrastructure, was next on stage, where he elaborated on the company’s plans to accelerate channel partners' move to cloud technology. He compared EMC’s redefinition of cloud storage to the advances made by Google (GOOG), with its acquisition last year of Nest, and Elon Musk’s Tesla Motors.

“The third platform is going to redefine business,” Goulden said.

Goulden followed up with new info on XtremIO, EMC’s all-flash array the company is promoting as the pinnacle in performance for data services. In typical Vegas fashion, Goulden bet audience members $1 million that they could not get the system to falter for even a second, before revealing a case with a million in cash just offstage.

EMC also plans to release ViPR 2.0 in Q2 2014, adding support for native and open stack storage to the company’s previously released SDS infrastructure. The update also features geographic replication and distribution, which, according to EMC, will provide users with a truly global cloud system. ViPR 2.0 will be fully compatible with VMware’s SDS offerings as well.

Super Session: Well-Run Hybrid Cloud Strategy
Brian Gallagher, EMC’s president of Enterprise and Midrange Systems Division, outlined how partners can establish and run an effective hybrid cloud. He emphasized the cloud needs to be self-provisioned, well-priced and unavailable to the end user to be successful.

Fidelma Russo, SVP of EMC’s Enterprise Storage Division, followed, and spoke about the importance of application infrastructure transformation, simultaneously announcing a new 800GB flash drive scheduled for release in Q2 2014. Russo also told attendees about a new EMC Flash Boost Program, designed to help users optimize the speed of their hybrid flash arrays. The program is also expected to launch in Q2 2014.

Jeff Boudrau, SVP and general manager, Enterprise and Midrange Systems Division, then took the stage to discuss the importance of infrastructure transformation in SDS. The three most important aspects of any data array, he said, are efficiency, security and agility, which epitomizes EMC's VNXE 3200 midrange unified storage solution.

Super Session: Well-Run Hybrid Clouds
EMC CTO and VP of Strategy and Technology Barry Burke followed up on the day’s first super session with more ways in which resellers can utilize EMC’s flash technology for their hybrid cloud arrays. Burke promised to do away with any marketing and get straight to the technology demos, which he did by bringing out several engineers to help show off the company’s automated storage systems. Burke said the most important aspects of any automated storage system is that it's simple, smart and designed to manage applications, not just systems.

“Unfortunately, simple ain’t easy,” said Burke. “It’s actually a pretty big challenge.”