VMworld 2017 did not disappoint! While spending an awesome week in Las Vegas I walked about 38 miles, attended a ton of great sessions, and did a lot of learning. I am glad to be back home and already looking forward to next year!
Mandalay Bay Conference Center
VMworld Announcements:
There were some great VMware announcements this year. In my opinion here are the top three:
HCI Acceleration Kit: This kit This kit includes vSphere Standard and vSAN Standard for three-node, unlimited VM cluster of single socket servers for $7,850 limited to a single site installation. That is a 25% discount over list pricing. Read More Here
VMware AppDefense: General availability of VMware’s new security solution. AppDefense aims to secure virtual machines in vSphere environments by learning what is normal behavior and taking action if something deviates from that. Read More Here
VMware Cloud on AWS: The flagship announcement this year is generally available for customers. VMware Cloud on AWS is an on-demand service that enables you to run applications across vSphere-based cloud environments with access to a broad range of AWS services. Read More Here
Around VMworld:
I arrived in Las Vegas on Saturday to allow time for flight delays and issues due to previous experiences. Luckily none occurred! A extra night in Vegas, nothing wrong with that! Below is my photo collection of the conference. I figured the more pictures, the better.
Registration: Went to registration on Sunday to pick up my badge and the 2017 VMworld Backpack. Check-in was a tad confusing, there were signs but you could still get in the wrong printer line. I’m sure it would be difficult to have a perfect process for 23k attendees!
Registration located at Solution Center / VMvilliage
Registration located at Solution Center / VMvilliage
Backpack – Can transform into a messanger bag. The best VMworld bag thus far!!
VMware General Sessions: The opening on Monday was visually amazing. They had dual cellists playing cello with rock music. There was an artist onstage painting with VR. Amazing, I tell you! Business-wise: One of my favorite announcements was AppDefense and VMware Cloud on AWS. You can watch the Monday and Tuesday General Sessions here(Sadly they didn’t get the opening I described above)
VMworld 2017
I sat in the Media area
VMworld 2017
Pat Gelsinger!
Found this statistic staggering.
Capitol One – Jennifer Manry: “We think of ourselves as a technology company that is also a bank”
VMware Cloud on AWS – Officially generally available
First adopters of VMC on AWS. Shoutout to Scripps for being on the Lighthouse program!
VMware Cloud Services
5 Pillars of Cyber Hygiene
Introducing AppDefense
CIO Top Spending Priorities of 2017
CIO Top Priorities
Digital Transformation – Circle of Life
Solutions Exchange: I really enjoy walking the floor and talking with the various vendors to see how existing and new solutions could improve my environment.
Solutions Exchange Entrance
VMvillage
Solutions Exchange – Walking the floor
Solutions Exchange – Walking the floor
Solutions Exchange – Walking the floor
Eaton Power Throne
NexSAN SATABeast – 600 TB for $80k list.. Throughput of 3 GB/s
Commvault v11 – Web interface is pretty versus Java client
Cisco ROBO Offerings
Creator of Horizon View Flashstack Architecture Documentation
Creator of Horizon View Flashstack Architecture Documentation
Cisco Rack
Flashstack – Cisco UCS powered by Pure Storage
Flashstack – Cisco UCS powered by Pure Storage
Pure Storage Flashblade
Dell VXBlock – This one had Cisco UCS with NetApp Storage
These are the data sets your looking for
Rawlinson Rivera – CTO of Cohesity
Rawlinson Rivera – CTO of Cohesity
Around the Conference: Random pictures from around the conference
On my way to get registered
VMworld Branding throughout the conference
VMworld Branding throughout the conference
Monday after the General Session let out. So many nerds! 🙂
Located in the Vmvillage, who doesn’t love Legos??
General Ackbar – Best way to describes the Don’t of Disaster Recovery. Session: Site Recovery Manager: Disaster Recovery Testing at Its Finest
Lunch offerings one day
Typical breakfast offering
Session: VMware and Chef: Leveraging the vSphere API Together
Session: DevOps Deep Dive
Session: DevOps Deep Dive
Hands On Labs
Hands On Labs: Deployment Stats
This looks suspicious… random VXBlock in the HOL area? What could it be…
It was a fridge!!
Hackathon Training – I need to learn more Python!
Why the Amazon Echo?
vExpert Reception at the Pinball Hall of Fame
vExpert Reception at the Pinball Hall of Fame
At the Luxor waiting on the tram to Mandalay
Walking to the T-Mobile Arena
View of Luxor from tram
View from room at night – windows were tinted making it look darker than it was (and easier to sleep)
VMworld Party: Located at T-Mobile Arena a few miles away from Mandalay Bay. There were shuttles running from the Luxor and Mandalay Hotels to the arena. The performers were The Bleachers and Blink-182. Both were great, Blink-182 brought me back to high school days. 🙂 Overall, this was a fun way to end the conference. Many lessons learned, many memories made, looking forward to next year!