VMworld Europe 2009 came to an end on Thursday. I finally traveled back on Friday, after a 5 hour delay.
I’m sorry I haven’t been able to write any technical content but you can’t imagine how busy I’ve been. I’ve gathered all useful links and added them to this post. But just to give you an idea what I was up to during VMworld:
Arrived on Sunday at 15:00, dropped luggage at hotel and went to the Hands-on Labs. Started unpacking the thin-clients and helping with the lab environment till 20:00. Changed clothes and went to the Veeam party.
Monday, 08:30. Preparing the labs again. Testing lab manuals, setting up thin clients and solving SAN issues. Finished at 21:00 and went directly to the Dutch VMUG Meet and Greet.
Tuesday, 08:30. Back to the labs again and do some final testing. At 10:30 first people entered the labs and I had Community Booth duty the rest of the day till 19:30. Quickly changed clothes and back to the VMware Benelux party.
Wednesday, 08:30. Watched the keynotes and hurried off to the community booth again. Helped a couple of minutes at the labs but mainly booth duty. Went to the hotel at 18:30 to change clothes for the VMworld Party Cloud9.
Thursday, 08:30. Lab duty for the first couple op hours. Booth duty the rest of the day. Couldn’t feel my feet anymore after a couple of hours. When the solution exchange closed at 16:00 we needed to put everything in the original boxes again. All thin-clients / monitors / keyboards etc. 19:30, done, change clothes and went out for a decent meal… actually the first decent meal this week.
This, was just a quick write-up. But you can imagine that most VMware employees have been running around all day long, no time to eat / drink / sit down. Talking to people all day long, answering questions or just random chit-chat, there’s even no time to reflect and digest all the announcements. Keep in mind that even weeks before VMworld people are doing preparations. For instance the VI-Toolkit lab had been tested by at least 6 people two week before VMworld. When I visited VMworld as an “attendee” last year I honestly didn’t have a clue how much work an event like this really is.
For the Hands-on Labs: At least 1000 attendees visited each day. Yes a THOUSAND at least. I really loved the format of the labs, the open floor instead of the closed lab sections was also a great idea! I would have never expected that there would have been queues, but there were… Sometimes even over 20 people were waiting just to get in. Definitely a big compliment to all Hands-on Labs staff, they/we did a great job.
And let’s not forget the team that organized this event, great job! Thanks!!!
I hope I will be able to attend VMworld 2009 in San Francisco. Over 15.000 attendees are expected at the Moscone Center:
