VMworld 2018 US – VMworld has come

It is again this time of the year where a lot of people gather in Las Vegas for one of the biggest conferences, VMworld 2018. So to say it in Game of Thrones terms: VMworld has come. This year I’m really thankful that I could make it to this awesome conference. A big thank you goes to my wife for making this possible to me and taking care of our 2 kids during my absense. In the past I have only attended one VMworld US which was in 2012 in San Francisco. There I was sheer overwhelmed about the size and the people you can meet there. VMworld Barcelona is also big but the US conference is even bigger. Thanks god it’s not my first time in Vegas. I was there during my vacation in 2012 and during internal VMware events so I know what I have to expect.

Saturday

Unfortunately it is already Sunday and I didn’t finished this post in time. I met up with Ather Beg and we explored possible path to the venue so we won’t get lost the next day. After that we went for dinner and at 9pm I was already so damn tired that I needed to get to bed.

Sunday

Sunday really started early because I woke up at 5am and was surprisingly refreshed. I made myself ready and went to the registration. I really didn’t expect so many people at the registration at 7am and it looked like that there was some problems printing the badges because I waited nearly 25min to get mine. Others got their badges in less then a minute.

After finishing the registration I cought up with Shane Williford who is running the #vBreakfast US. At the breakfast I met few other people who I didn’t met face to face in the past like Mark Crawford, James Green, Ken Nelbone, Joe Houghes and Richard Kenyan to name a few.

After breakfast I made my way to the VCDX Workshop (again, 3rd time). This is the type of workshop which should remind me that there is still a goal on my bucket list I need to accomplish. After a short break I attended the vSphere Upgrade Workshop led by David Stamen and Nigel Hickey. This gave me the last inspiration how to run such workshop for my customers in Austria and also gave me some additional input to my VMTN community session on Wednesday (VMTN5534U – vSphere Upgrade Process – 2018 Edition). In the evening I have planned to attend the VMworld Welcome Reception and the VMunderground party. I hope to see a lot of you guys there. Just if you know me and obviously want to chat with me come by and say hello. I can assure you I won’t remember your name so hopefully you will wear your VMworld badge.

Monday

Monday is really relaxing from an appointment perspective. I will watch the General Session from the VM village and hope to get in touch with new and old friends from the #vCommunity. During the day I will spend my time in the blogger area or at the VMTN theater. I also looking forward to the following sessions:
Ariel Sanchez – vSphere and Ansible: From zero to useful [CODE5551U]
Russell Hamker – vDeploy – PowerCLI only method to fully deploy a VM [VMTN5513U]
Thom Greene – Automating Troubleshooting with vSphere Operations Manager [VMTN5522U]
From 5pm to 6pm there will be also a book signing session for “Clustering Deep Dive” at the Rubrik booth (#1334). You can meet and chat with the authors (Duncan Epping, Niels Hagoort and Frank Denneman) there .
At about 6:30pm the real fun for this day will happen. The VMworld hackathon. I have not attended the previous one because I didn’t fell useful for a specific team, but that is not the intention for the hackathon. The intention is that there are team who can learn and create something which is cool and even if you’re thinking that you can’t contribute anything you will get a great learning experience out of that.

Tuesday

On Tuesday I will watch the General Session from VMvillage and I’m really looking forward to the talk of Noble peace prize winner Malala Yousafzai. To be honest I haven’t heard about her before but after reading her history and what she is doing I was really impressed and inspired by her.
From 10:30am to 11:30am there will be a book signing session at the Runecast booth (#2835) for “IT Architect Series: Foundation In the Art of Infrastructure Design: A Practical Guide for IT Architects” written by John Arrasjid, Mark Gabryjelski and Chris McCain. All the authors will be there to sign the book.
In the afternoon I will be most of the time at the blogger area or VMTN theater. I have also the following community sessions on my list for attending.
Jake Blecha – A better way to see PowerCLI data [CODE5549U]
Sean Massey – Upgrading Your VDI Environment to Windows 10 [VMTN5976U]
In the evening I’m registered for the #vExpert party and the legendary Veeam party. Let’s see how I can split myself to attend both. Looking mainly forward the the #vExpert one because there is a bigger chance to chat with fellow vExperts.

Wednesday

Wednesday is a more busy day at VMworld for me. I have a session on the list to attend but as an employee you’re not allowed to pre-register for a session so I will show up there and see if there is any place left. The session I’m talking about is from Katarina Wagnerova and Mark Brookfield about “Designing for the Unexpected: Delivering IT on a Boat with VMware Horizon [VIN2650BU]”.
From 11:00am to 11:30am I will be part of the “vExpert Daily“. Not sure what to expect now but Im really looking forward to this stuff because this is something which is putting me outside my comfort zone.
At 12:15pm I will meet up with all the #vBeards at VMworld to do an awesome vBeards photo.
The rest of the afternoon I will usally stay at the VMTN space, because I have a session there at 3:30pm for the topic “vSphere Upgrade Process – 2018 Edition [VMTN5534U]”. Currently the session is FULL which really makes me happy but I think there is still standing space available and I assume not everybody will show up. Other sessions I will attend will be:
Thom Greene – Creating a Blog with Hugo [VMTN5527U]
Matthew Allford / Tim Carman – Documenting Your Virtual Infrastructure with PowerShell and PowerCLI [VIN3327BU]
In the evening you will find me at the VMworld FEST.

Thursday

As Thursday is the last day at VMworld and everybody will be tired and exhausted I have no specific plans. As always you can find my around VMTN or at the Solutions Exchange.

Final Thoughts

VMworld will be busy and exhausting like every year but I really do like the show and the people who are attending. It’s a great place to be and to meet old and new friend and I won’t miss that for a minute. Also if you’re still don’t know which party to attend check out my party list post.
Also if you find any spelling error, you can keep it! 🙂