VMworld 2010 - or was it Disneyworld?

A week has passed since the last day of VMworld in Copenhagen. And I owe myself (and you as well) a roundup and summary of the event

Quite a few roundups have been published over the past week. I will not repeat what has been said in the other posts, but I would like to add my following comments.

Which kid does not like going to Disneyworld? So I guess you can say the same thing, which virtualization enthusiast does not like like going to VMworld?

There are very few events or places that you can go and find a load of people who are interested in the same thing you are, who understand what you are talking about, who will crack up laughing at the funny slogans on the splunk tshirts. So thanks VMworld.

There are many opportunities we all have to play with new technologies. But we hardly ever have the privilege to have everything prepared for us, the same way we provide for our end users and customers. That is why I think that the labs were such a hit. Of course the experience, the diversity, and the performance of the labs was amazing, but for me to go and and have a a vCloud Environment all ready for me with the click of a mouse, without me having to go and find hardware, storage, licenses and time to set it up, was a treat. So thanks VMworld.

The social networking. It was great finally meeting a great amount of people that I have chatted with, tweeted with, DM’ed and read their blog posts over the past year or two. It was an honor to meet you all. The conversations were great. The live troubleshooting sessions were great. The ad-hoc meetings were great. So thanks VMworld.

Meeting and talking with the VMware Product Managers / Architects. Meeting and talking with the Vendors, the Directors, VP’s, Architects and big-wigs. I have mentioned it perhaps before, but I am continually amazed at how accessible you all are. I sometimes think that maybe it is me who is well connected, but no it is not! It is all of you who are willing to listen, to help with a problem, to make the change when necessary. So thank you all and thanks VMworld.

I heard and read many a blog post about what is the important part of VMworld. Is it the sessions? Solutions Exchange? Labs? Maybe the Social Networking? I think it is all of the above.

I tried to divide my time between all of the above. I gave less of an emphasis on the sessions and Solutions Exchange. I picked and chose my sessions carefully. and only participated in 3 in total. I chose them because of the topics that I found appealing, the rest of the sessions that I want to see, I will download in the near future. I tried to get take some labs with products that I will hopefully be evaluating in the very near future to get a quick feel for the product. The few products I spent time with at the Solutions Exchange were ones that I felt would benefit from in the upcoming months, mainly with insight into the performance and analysis of my environment.

It was a blast, I think it was one the highlights of my entire year. It makes all the time spent blogging, on Twitter, writing and on email so worthwhile.

So thank you VMware for having VMworld and thank you all for making it the amazing experience it was.

See you next year!