vExpert

How to survive #VMworld 2015

dvdmorera VMworld 2015 , ,

vmworld2015VMworld 2015, is just a few days away. Is that time of the year when all us geeks meet at one place to share and acquire knowledge, make new connections, and enjoy some local cuisine.

I have been to many VMworld conferences as well as other conferences, and always learn something new about how not to be tired by day 2.

It is easy to get excited about the conference, there is a good vibe about VMworld that makes you go all out and do it all in one day. There are a lot of sessions, many of them already full.

What to do if you didn’t get into the sessions you wanted? Well, IF there is a session that you feel you must go to, you can still go and line up outside and hope there is some room left for the people standing on the wait queue. If you are out of luck and did not get in, don’t sweat it, you will be able to have access to the recordings after VMworld.

I have found myself in this same situation, once or twice I took a certification exam just to “kill some time” and surprisingly finding out I passed. Exams are 1/2 price, so I figured, Why not? I have also visited many vendors that I never heard of, even the ones in the super tiny booth with no swag to give. I have been surprised by what some of the smaller vendors at the expo have to offer. Make sure you TALK to them, not just collect swag.

BurnedoutTry to spread out your time among sessions, vendors, networking, food, etc. as evenly as you can. Going to sessions all day long makes for a very boring and tiring day IMHO.  Don’t burn yourself out on the first day, VMworld is 4 days long, or 5 if you are there for the Sunday sessions. So try to stay fired up at least until Wednesday… see what I did there!?!?

 

 

As far as food goes, we all know that food any conference food is a carb loading feast. Be careful there not to overdue it, or every session will seem like a snooze fest.  You are what you eat, so try to eat somewhat healthy, at least during the day and save some room for the parties at night. Many vendors have started to offer breakfast meetings rather than parties at night, so that is something to consider.

VMW_Donuts

 

Parties. There are probably too many parties from vendors and groups, and most are at the same time on specific days. The VMworld party is on Wednesday night at AT&T park, so that leaves only Monday and Tuesday night for a bunch of vendors to do their marketing parties.

Here is a VMworld 2015 Events list that a fellow blogger put together.

img-att-park

 

Enjoy VMworld 2015!!!

 

If you see me, stop me and say Hi…

 

vExpert: So What the Fuss

dvdmorera Other Techy Stuff

vExpert

“So What the Fuss” is not just a Stevie Wonder song, it is also what many people are thinking about the vExpert announcement. This past Thursday, VMware announced the selected vExperts for 2015.

What is vExpert?

Let’s start with what is not. A lot of people think of it as the highest cert available from VMware, and confuse it with the VCDX certification. Well, it is not. Although some VCDXs are vExperts, not all vExperts are VCDXs. A vExpert is an individual that is passionate about his/her job and cares enough to share knowledge with others without compensation. People become a vExpert based on their quantitative and qualitative contribution to the community, not by taking a test; therefore, vExpert is not a certification.

What’s in it for me?

This program not only helps VMware get the word out about their products, but it also helps aspiring vExperts push the limits and dig down into the technology and capabilities. This not only benefits the individual’s knowledge base, but also his/her employer. For those of us that are customers, the employers win by having the best infrastructure they can have. For vendors/consultants, it makes their jobs easier. For start-ups, well, this should be required, IMHO.

So What the Fuss?

So, what is the big deal? Well, it is a big deal in my opinion. Individuals spent countless hours of their personal time, including nights, weekends, and being away from family in order to contribute to the community. So, to be recognized by VMware, is a nice pat on the back for those of us that make the sacrifice. VMware has a great community and a great program led by Corey Romero and his team, so thanks to them for the all the great work they do. I am humbled and honored to be named a vExpert once again.

VMworld 2014

dvdmorera VMworld 2014 , , , , , ,

DAY 0

There are a lot of new things that will be announced this week, that I can’t wait to talk about. We started VMworld week with a nice 6.0 earthquake in the area. I guess VMworld is rocking San Francisco.

Starting the day with the VMworld 5K charity event followed by VMunderground sessions and meeting fellow vExperts and fellow geeks.

More info to come. Got to run (literally).

…Run was a lot of fun, many people showed up for a good cause.

VMworld 5k Fun Run
VMworld 5k Fun Run

The sessions for VMunderground/vBrownBag were pretty good. There were a lot of good questions, some that may be answered this week after the big announcements are made. I had the pleasure of meeting a lot of fellow vExperts and geeks at the VMunderground party. Great event.

The main take away was the up and coming Hyper-converged strategy that is not only coming from different vendors but also VMware with their announcement of EVO:RAIL (more on EVO:RAIL here). For those not familiar with Hyper-Converged, it is (in simple terms) the combination of storage, networking and compute resources into one single box, but allowing for scalability by adding more nodes. More on Hyper-converged later.

Had a chance to stop and talk to several exhibitors, not only because they were giving some really nice vExpert swag, but I was interested in learning about their solutions. Coho has an interesting approach to storage and really liked the performance UI they put together, that has always been a tough one with storage. Simplivity also has a decent hyper-converged solution that also includes backup and de-duplication technology for both storage and backup. Ravello systems also has a nice solution for use cases such as test/dev. I will talk more about them post VMworld.