VMworld 2012 Right Here Right Now

VMworld 2012 was in San Francisco this year and the weather was beautiful.  San Francisco was a lovely host and the Moscone Center proved to be very capable of handling the large crowds that were around for the event.

The Solutions Exchange was massive.  It included companies like HP, EMC, Netapp as well as some startup companies like Tintri, PHD Virtual and a very new Cloud Physics which was the talk of VMworld this year.  Check them out at http://www.cloudphysics.com.

When you’re tired of the Solutions Exchange, and that takes a while with the number of vendors there, there were some really great sessions presented by some of the best bloggers, VMware employees and vendors.  The picture below is a session I attended with presenters Frank Denneman @frankdenneman and Rawlinson Rivera @PunchingClouds speaking about Resource Pools, a fairly misunderstood subject.  This session made the top 10 of VMworld sessions this year.  http://download3.vmware.com/vmworld/2012/top10/vsp1683.pdf

Sessions aren’t the only way to learn at VMworld.  There were Hands On Labs to allow you to try out the technologies on your own.  This year there were some technical glitches so the theme “Right Here Right Now” probably didn’t apply to the Hands On Labs part of the conference.  There were some very long wait times periodically, but the labs were very good when they were working and I believe they may be available online after the event.  The HOL included a zero client and two large monitors for every station.  A great way to learn in my opinion.  Cheers to the HOL team for all of their hard work no matter what the outcomes were.

Many folks were unable to present sessions due to a limited number of slots open so the folks at the #vBrownbag crew got the #unconference going.  Here at the “hang space” there were several presentations on different technologies as well as interviews and all kinds of shenanigans.  Check out http://professionalvmware.com to see the updated content as well as the weekly brownbag that provides great content.  Also the autolab is a great tool to grab from this site.  Below you’ll see the stage setup at the hang space and a couple of knuckleheads from the vbrownbag crew sporting some theITHollow.com stickers.  Also, I’m not sure those are their real name tags.

 If you are thinking of going to VMworld next year, or even this year in Barcelona, I definitely recommend it.  It’s a great way to meet other people in your industry, learn about some great products that you don’t get to see much and learn lots.

P.S. If you’re going to head down to the Solutions Exchange, make sure you have plenty of space in your suitcase.  You might end up with a lot of swag.