VMware Explore US 2022

VMware Explore – Confessions of a First-Time Speaker

2022 felt like a rollercoaster to me, in part due to an unexpected event. On August 30, in a big room from Moscone West, San Francisco, I presented my first session in a VMware Explore / VMworld conference: “Accelerate Time to Business Value and Achieve Faster Deployment with Lenovo ThinkAgile VX Deployer”, #MCLB1601US.This was an intense experience, so I feel that telling the story of a first-time presenter at Explore will be something interesting to my readers.

Wow! VMware Explore US

Close to the end of April 2022, answering an internal Lenovo call, I got the opportunity to submit a proposal for a VMware Explore session. Beginning of May, I submitted my proposal: a title no longer then 75 characters and a description no longer than 850 characters. I knew getting a session accepted is hard, so I got close to no hope of moving on to the next phase.

The morning of June 23 came with a big surprise:

Dear Constantin,
Congratulations! We are happy to announce that your session(s) has/have been accepted for VMware Explore 2022 US taking place at Moscone Convention Center in San Francisco, CA from August 29 – September 1st, 2022.

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VMworld 2020

VMworld 2020 – Which Sessions to Attend?

VMworld 2020 is just around the corner. In this COVID-19 world everything moved online and so does VMworld. Make sure to register to VMworld 2020 and reserve in your calendars the period 29th September to 1st October.

This year, VMware offers two types of access to VMworld:

  • General Pass – includes access to 500+ on-demand VMworld sessions – free of charge
  • Premier Pass – everything General Pass has plus access to roundtables, limited capacity sessions, birds of a feather (informal discussions), hand-on-labs, 1:1 expert consultations  – priced at $299

Few days ago, VMware made available the scheduler, so I will base this article on my selection of VMworld sessions, in no particular order. I have a free General Pass, so I will not touch anything reserved to Premier Pass. 14 sessions spread across 3 days, covering topics as private and public cloud, networking and security, containers, hyper-converged infrastructure, and career.

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VMworld 2017 US – Top 40 Sessions

VMware made available on YouTube the recordings of top 40 sessions from VMworld 2017 US. It’s a hard choice, but I made mine, I highlighted in bold the sessions I liked most. Of course it’s a personal choice, it depends mainly on what your area of interest is (you can easily guess which side I’m attracted too).

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VMworld US 2017 – VMware Cloud on AWS Recommended Sessions

VMworldI previously wrote about my recommendations on vRealize Automation sessions at VMworld US 2017, now it’s time for the en-vogue product everyone is willing to try called VMware Cloud on AWS.

VMware Cloud on AWS is scheduled to be general available this summer, so as expected there are plenty of breakout sessions to choose from. VMware announced the product last year at VMworld Europe and I remember how all the formerly secret sessions suddenly were “sold out”. I attended a session led by Frank Denneman (you will see two of his sessions listed below) and I was super impressed by his enthusiasm. Former Senior Technical Marketing Architect at VMware, specialized in DRS, vMotion and Fault Tolerance, he joined few years PernixData (up to Chief Technologist), to come back late 2016 at VMware to work on an unknown technology. He did signed up on blanc, without knowing what is this about. That technology was indeed VMware Cloud on AWS. Since last VMworld, we have seen demos and found more data on the product, but I’m really waiting for this year sessions and to finally have some hands on with the product.

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VMworld US 2017 – vRealize Automation Recommended Sessions

VMworld14th edition of VMworld US is coming to us on 27-31 August at the usual place, Mandalay Bay Hotel & Convention Center in Las Vegas, Nevada.

I play all day with vRealize Automation, so I thought to be proper to have vRA as topic of my first article on VMworld. There are plenty of sessions about vRealize Automation, sometimes it’s hard to decide, so I will signal you what brought my attention this year.

Manage, Govern, and Extend VMware Cloud on AWS with vRealize Automation [MGT2875BU]

Presented by Jad El-Zein, Principal Architect, and Charu Chaubal, Director of Technical Marketing, both at VMware, I totally recommend this breakout session for anyone interested both in vRA and AWS (either VMware Cloud on AWS or native AWS). Jad is blogging on one of the best blogs on vRealize Automation: virtualjad.com. Charu Chaubal runs the team that works on the vSphere product line and is blogging at blogs.vmware.com/vsphere. From official presentation: “Join this breakout to discover how VMware vRealize Automation adds service authoring and delivery, governance, lifecycle management, and enterprise extensibility to your VMware Cloud on AWS service.”

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Win Free Ticket to VMworld 2018 – by VMUG

VMUGVMUG just announced a giveaway of a free ticket to VMworld 2018!

Starting Monday 7th August 2017, VMUG will post on their Twitter account @myvmug a weekly clue: they will let us know where to find a certain content which we should re-tweet. Each tweet must include @myvmug and must contain the #VMUGOLDENTICKET hashtag. Hurry up, you should re-tweet in less than 24 hours after their post!

The winner may choose the venue, either US either Europe.

The contest ends August 27th at midnight and VMUG will announce the winner August 28th.

Stay tuned #VMUGOLDENTICKET!