VMworld, just be there!

Usually 1.5 month before VMworld all the “VMworld, why you should attend” posts start appearing. My title says it all, Just be there! But if you are still not sure why, here are a bunch of arguments you can use to convince yourself and your manager…

As most of you know Rick Scherer, Scott Lowe, Chad Sakac, Tom Howarth and myself will be hosting the Ask the Experts Panel Session(TA2259). This session will be a round-table alike session. You get the chance to ask questions regarding virtualization and designing virtual infrastructures or as we like to call it these days (internal) clouds. If you’ve got a question you can already ask them here, you can even provide us  diagrams if you feel that would help better understanding your environment!

Now of course this is not the only reason why you should attend VMworld 2009 in San Francisco. Besides the fact that San Francisco is one of the coolest cities in the US these are the reasons why I think you should visit VMworld 2009 in no particular order:

• VMworld Party. Do I even need to explain this? The reputation this party has says enough. It’s more than worth it. Not only the VMworld party also companies like Veeam, Vizioncore etc will organize parties which are excellent to meet people! And what about the Warm Up Party? Be there!
• VMware Technology Exchange Developer Day
  Something different for a change, a whole day based on developing tools, scripts etc! Make sure you attend this extra day it will be worth it!
• Networking. No better place to do networking than VMworld. I’ve met so many great people at VMworld, heck I even had job interviews at VMworld. (Don’t tell your manager this :-))
• Knowledge. The amount of info to be gathered at VMworld is just insane. I know the sessions will be available online but this will not give you the chance to discuss your experiences and ask your questions(Genius Booth, visit it!). Isn’t it awesome that all the top virtualization experts are walking around and you can actually walk up to them and ask them that one thing you always wanted to know!?! I highly recommend the following sessions:
  • BC1500 – Lee Dilworth – vCenter Site Recovery Manager “Up and Running” – Best Practices & Avoiding the Pitfalls
  • BC3197 – Marc Sevigny – High Availability – Internals and Best Practices
  • TA1394 – Mostafa Khalil – vSphere 4.0 Advanced Storage Log Analysis
  • TA2525 – Srinivas Neginhal – vShpere 4 Networking Deep Dive
  • TA2627 – Kit Colbert – Understanding “Host” and “Guest” Memory Usage and Other Memory Management Concepts
  • TA2963 – Krishna Raj Raja – esxtop for advanced users
  • TA4341 – Boon Seong Ang – Virtual Network Performance
  • TA2942 – Bhavjit Walha – Performance Best Practices
  • TA2650 – Hal Rottenberg/Luc Dekens – Take PowerCLI to the Next Level
  • TA2647 – Chad Sakac – Best Practices to Increase Availability and Throughput for the Future of VMware
  • VM2241 – Carter Shanklin/Scott Herold – Managing vSphere with VMware PowerCLI

Drop your manager an email and ask for his approval and start booking! Don’t forget to visit the VMTN/Community Booth. Most of the bloggers, including myself, can be found there. Come by and say hi!