#UKVMUG – Curry – Beer – Sessions – Weddings
Simon Eady
This was my second UKVMUG and it was my first vCurry evening! so I was really looking forward to getting up to the event and seeing everyone.
The vCurry event was excellent and it was a great chance to enjoy good food in great company. Had the chance to meet with many people I would not normally get the chance to see, Frank @fbuechsel and Brad @VMUG_CEO to name a couple! To top off a really great evening we (my table/team) won the vQuiz which was organised and conducted by Stuart @Virtual_Stu (thanks Stuart!), a big thank you to Matt @Twickersmatt for the beers (one of the prizes).
Needless to say for me that was a great way to start the conference.
The next day the Usercon start in earnest for which I made the error in assuming bacon would be served for breakfast suffice to say @sammcgeown has been giving me grief ever since..
The opening keynote delivered by @JoeBaguley titled “Containers, Microservices, Turtles, Chickens and Other Animals” was superb, kittens, chickens, “tri-modal”, Docker, whiteboxes and unikernels! were just some of the subject matter. If you did not get chance to see it I would highly recommend keeping an eye out for the recording (which I believe will be available on the VMUG website).
Next up after quickly hitting the vendor floor I sat in on @sammcgeown’s Ravello home lab session. This was of great interest to many as naturally the need for home lab these days is pressing but how do you choose what is right for you? Sam demonstrated the strength of the Ravello product and how it is a very real and valid candidate for your new home lab or at very least an extension to your existing one.
After that session I had to quickly made ready for my own session titles vROps Rox, this was my first ever session at the UKVMUG so I was keen to be as prepared as I could be.
I am glad to say my session went really well (no technical hitches) and had a great deal of interaction from the attendee’s, lots of discussion on deployment considerations and the Automation framework, I want to say a really big thank you to everyone that came along!
After finishing my session I took time to hit the vendor floor once more and catch up with attendee’s, just like VMworld the UKVMUG is a great place to meet people from all around the nation as well as abroad!
The only other session I got along to was to a packed @Steiner_Matthew vROps session which was superb covering specifically Performance Monitoring.
The day was finished off with a closing keynote by @jtroyer “Architecting Your IT Career” which was excellent another session to add to your watch list once it becomes available.
The event was rounded in a bitter sweet fashion by the vendor prizes being handed out and then the sad news that not one but three of the four UKVMUG/LonVMUG commitee members would be standing down. Alaric aptly named it on his slide deck “The Red Wedding” while not quite as brutal it is with out question a big shame and they will be very sorely missed as they really have set the bench mark for VMUG events in the UK. Alaric, Jane and Stuart have worked tirelessly for years for the good of the community. So it will be big shoes to fill for whomever steps up to take their place along side Simon Gallagher. I wish the three of you the very best in your new ventures!
So quite a Usercon but incredibly worthwhile thank you again to the organisers and the VMUG team (@VMUGBrandi, @VMUGEmily) who travelled over from the states to support and (as Alaric put it) “made everything look great”.
Already looking forward to the Usercon next year!