VMworld 2016 US Part 4 – the last one!

So right now it’s thursday evening and here I am in my hotel room too damn tired to even go outside. VMworld is a wrap and wow it was awesome. Yesterday I had 2 more sessions. First a quick vExpert session at the Docker booth where we got a nice vExpert embroided hat.Then it was time to get the vExpert Raspberry Pi 3 at the Datrium booth. Men they had big issues on getting them in but succeeded at last so thank you very much for that! I ended with a Rubrik session with Chris Wahl that was pretty good. In the evening it was time for the biggest party of them all at the Las Vegas Motor Speedway. To be honest I think the sound of the bands sucked and the music of the dj’s wasn’t good either but I had an awesome time playing all the games, talking to people ad even made a lap in 1 of the 50! Rental cars that wil probably be going back to budget with hardly any tires left.

So today was the last day and I did only 1 session and that was about troubleshooting Horizon and killed the time by doing some labs and hanging at the vBrownbag area where I learned a lot by listening to the sessions. This space just seemed to be vExpert HQ the whole week.

All in all I think this was the best way ever to experience your first VMworld. I really want to thank all vExperts for welcoming me in the community because I don’t think I would have had such an awesome experience without you guys!

VMworld 2016 US report part 3

Wow it’s wednesday already, time flies at VMworld! Yesterday again was an awesome day, first the 2nd keynote and after I had to head out to the Luxor for the Inner Circle fireside chat.

The Inner Circle is a group of about a 1000 people that is engaged by the VMware Customer Advocacy program. We have our own forum, weekly polls on the site and surveys by mail. Our feedback gets handled by VMware on a high level and personally I really have the idea that they listen to us. The fireside chat they had an idea of how to do it but it ended as an organized free for all where VMware received honest, harsh but really good feedback. In short they got slaughtered on several topics. They did not expect this so it was good to see that they seemed to handle it pretty wel. Later in the day I went to stop by at their boot hand asked them to get more vExperts involved because I think we are exactly the kind of people that can give this feedback.

Because of the Inner Circle session running way over time and me getting hungry pretty bad I missed the uem 9 sessions so I hope that one is recorded. My final session of the day was the vSphere 6.x Host Resource Deep Dive by my fellow Dutchies Frank Denneman and Niels Hagoort. This session was soo deep the entire Mount Everest might fit into it. Really good stuf and very useful.

After the sessions it was partytime! First a quick beer and a snack at the Inner Circle reception and after I hopped on the bus to The Mob Museum for my first vExpert party. First we had our mugshots taken. We got a print but also digitally by mail so please check mine on Twitter. We had great fun over there and had Pat Gelsinger over doing a Q&A for over an hour! Best quote? Hyper-V is free as a puppy!

Today I had a hard time waking up, not getting out of bed but during my first session at 8 am I was not paying enough attention at all. But still it was a good session on how to architect a HA resilient scalable mobility & desktop environment. After that I had a session about troubleshooting avSphere 6 environment by a couple of GSS guys and picked up a lot of good stuff!

VMworld 2016 US report part 2

Òk so in part 1 I stopped after the Partner General Session. After lunch I wanted to do some labs but the queue was really awfull so I decided to attend a group discussion about vCloud air or mobile management in general. I got some good info on the view about this from the us people while I managed to spice it up now and then with things we dutchies like or don’t like.

Monday was the first real day of VMworld. During the keynote VMware cloud foundation was announced but I don’t think I will use this multi cloud management platform in the near future. After this it was time to prepare for my vBrownbag session. I was really nervous and went over my stuf way to fast so I was done in 6 minutes or something. If you want you can find it here.

The afternoon I had 2 awesome sessions: enforcing a vSphere cluster design  with powercli by Duncan Epping and Chris Wahl and after that a ask the experts session about VDI wich where both just awesome. I finished the day at the CXI Party on the 59th floor of the cosmopolitan with a great view.

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VMworld 2016 US report part 1

RIght now I am setting in the Partner Exchange lounge and since I have some time at hand it might be time for a short message from the US. Since this is my first VMworld, first time in the USA I have to admin I am really in awe of everything over here. Everything is just soo big.

Now about VMworld itself, yesterday I was in a vRealize Automation bootcamp for the whole day and really liked it. It seems to be very complicated but after you create the blueprints everything will be easy (Really?) I do see the advantages that are to be gained so it was nice. In the end we went over all exam questions as a group before most of us did the exams. I managed to pass the first but with the 2nd one I really started to get tired so I’ll gues I need to do that again. We do have 99 times to try it so it’ll be good.

Now to the sunday morning. I had 2 deepdive sessions. One about EUC & NSX and the other one about app volumes. Both where not as deep as I expected but a lot of knowledge was gained in those 2 hours. After that we had the Partner General session were wounded warrior Pat Gelsinger had a nice chat with Michael Dell and we had some information on stuff that is coming in the near future.

If I made some typos in this: they where on purpose or I blame the fact that I am still getting used to the time difference 😀

vExpert 2016

Last friday I received word that I was added as vExpert in the 2nd batch of 2016. After several people nudged me to apply for this I went ahead but never expected to be chosen. vExpert is no technical title but more of an award for people who have done things for the VMware community like speaking at Vmug’s (which I did but failed at), blogging, tweeting en being an advocate for it with your employer or customers. I never did the things I did last year for this goal but it’s an awesome acknowledgement.

I hope to be able to keep contributing to this awesome community and will do so as long as I have content. The first thing will be speaking at the vBrownbag sessions at VMworld US 2016!

vExpert-2016-Badge

#VMworld here I come

Earlier this year my boss agreed to let me go to VMworld this year. Finally my VMworld virginity will be taken. Although I am from The Netherlands he also let me choose were to go, Barcelona or Vegas and since I visited neither I decided to go for Vegas. I am really looking forward to this although I expect to be flabbergasted a lot!

Schedule

I will be flying out on Friday august 26th and back on Friday september 2nd. Saturday and Sunday 27-28th of august the menu consists of the Partner Exchange and maybe some free time Saturday evening. From Monday the 29th (my birthday!) it will be time for the real event: VMworld itself, my expectations are that in the evenings I will be dead beat by all the gained knowledge but will try to visit some parties here and there. I have no idea yet how I get there or how that goes but Tuesday the 30th it’s time for the big VMworld party this year starring Fall Out Boy and Capital Cities this year it will be held at the Las Vegas Motor Speedway thursday will probably be half a day some maybe some spare time!

Content

looking at content I will be interested the most in EUC and common vSphere stuff. Also I might take a peek at some automation sessions.

Presenting

Wil I be presenting? Not sure yet, maybe a vBrownbag techtalk 🙂