VMWorld Day Two

Day Two General Session
Carl Eschenbach on stage for General Session COO for VMWare
No reason for us NOT to virtualize everything to 100%

NSX Network Virtualization - Not just vmworld-how about NSXWorld?
"Business relies on IT"
"Reduce friction between IT and Business through software."  Great thought here unless the friction is BECAUSE of software, but I get the well made point.

Software-Defined Data Center (SDDC) This is a huge buzzworld around this week.
"We need to move from a world of management to a world of automation" Carl Eschenbach, VMware COO
Kit Colbert, Principal Engineer at #VMware, now taking the stage to show a demo of #vCloud Automation Center. #VMworld

ITaaS in action
• Self-service
• Transparent pricing
• Governance
• Automation

Typing today was a bit difficult as I didn't make the tables in time.  That's OK though as it was much more fun to watch and listen to the dialog between the COO and Kit.  (Who sounds like "kid" if you say it fast enough.

This is the mass exodus leaving the session.  People were ready to get out of there and head to some sessions.  I actually found myself staying away from the session today although I went to two of the four I had originally scheduled.  See, the problem is that there are four main buildings.  Moscone North and South which houses the main areas for the vendor shows, hands on labs, testing, hang out space, food and some other areas of interest including the spot for the keynotes.  Moscone West has most of the sessions on the second and third floor.  The remaining sessions are at the Marriott up the street a bit.  No, it's not far, but once you get there, you still need to go down into the bowels of the hotel lower floor meeting area to get to the sessions.  So, if you have 30 mins between sessions in different buildings, you will have quite a time getting there.  Oh, and if you wanted to go to the bathroom, forget it.

I actually spent some time in the hang space.  That is quite the space for us geeks and nerds albeit a bit smaller than last year, we're still able to have a pretty good time relaxing around our peers and unwind a bit.

One of the greatest areas is the #vBrownbag session recording area.  These guys are top notch and hold weekly podcasts right here for your viewing pleasure http://professionalvmware.com/brownbags/.

Here are some more photos from this great place to hang out in and network.  (No LEGO sets this year)

As you can see, plenty of places to play around with some a pretty cool set up.

Just outside of the hang space is plenty of area to sit and enjoy the non-conference food and such.  

Tuesday night is generally the night of vendor parties and while I simply can't get to them all, I did find a few great ones that were happening.  All of these were fairly close to each other. That was a great thing since it's easier to walk around and forget about getting a cab as there's no reason to. 

This list is in order that we attended and we met some incredible folks along the way.

CTO party - At the Old Mint.  A great historical building with plenty of history and plenty of folks to mingle with and chat about the day's events thus far.

Veeam - interesting venue - we didn't stay long because it was way crowded and quite loud but folks seem to be having a good time.

Dell - We actually enjoyed ourselves here as the top floor was less noisy (less people) and there was a great Moroccan Mint Tea and Turkish Coffee stand. (Mint tea was very sweet and warm!)  The food was fantastic and rich to boot.  This was also held in the historic Jewish Museum.  Super appreciate Dell opening up this area for us to visit.

vBacon - This was crazy.  Lots of people crammed into the Cable Car City Pub & Cafe.  There was only a sliver of bacon by the time we got there.  But that's OK!  Great talks with some industry leaders as the night continued. 

Day two was great, but I was beat down tired.