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Day 1 keynote I’m not going to lie, the start to the keynote was weird. There was drums and poetry. I will say no more. Another thing I’m not going to do (because many people do it far better than me - I’m looking at you Julian) is do a blow-by-blow account of the keynotes, for me the headlines are that VMware announced VMware Cloud Foundation and Cross Cloud Services.

I landed in Las Vegas about 9:30PM local time on Saturday evening, having not executed my plan to sleep on the flight! I had planned to sleep on the Toronto to Vegas leg, which would have meant I could head over to the Sips and Stogies pre-event, however a very rowdy hen do a couple of rows away meant that I didn’t sleep at all, so I grabbed a taxi down to my hotel, the Excalibur, and got myself checked in.

In my post yesterday I promised to post my VMworld session picks, so here it is! I have filled my schedule, and even added some alternate picks when there were too many good sessions to go for. My session picks are focussing around: vRealize Automation NSX VSAN PowerCLI, APIs and automation Now, before anyone tells me I’ve picked too many and I won’t make it to all of them - I know!

I’ve been very fortunate to be able to go to VMworld Europe for the past 3 years, mainly thanks to the vExpert program and the availability of the blogger pass. This year I knew that I wouldn’t be able to get to Barcelona because of work, so I thought I’d apply for a VMworld US blogger pass - I’m very excited to have been given one! As with previous years, I'll be blogging at least once a day with my thoughts and any useful info I've gleaned - I definitely don't want to take the pass for granted!

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!

First of all, thank you to everyone who came along to my session at the UKVMUG yesterday, it was great to see so many people at a round table discussion, sorry for those that had to stand! I hope that it was helpful and maybe a few of you will be building some awesome labs in the cloud! Ravello very kindly sponsored a free home lab, equivalent to the vExpert 1000 hours account as a prize for my session at the UKVMUG yesterday.

I use mind maps quite a lot for study, I find the visual representation of info makes it a lot easier for me to remember! Below is a mind map I created for learning the roles in vRealize Automation, which I used during my presentation for #vBrownBag on VCP6-CMA objective 2. You can download a PDF version here: vRealize Automation Roles Mind Map

Apologies in advance if this is post is a jumbled nonsense, I’m still way too excited! This morning I woke to the news that I have passed my VCDX-CMA! This was my second attempt at VCDX and although the first failure was a painful experience, the lessons learned from it were invaluable to take into the defence the second time around. Failing doesn’t have to be a negative experience - if there is one thing that I will take from the VCDX program it is that there is ALWAYS more I need to learn, and I can always do better.

The first full day of VMworld after PEX was a busy one. After the keynote (highlights were the docker announcements) I was on “booth babe” duty at the VMUG lounge. It was great to meet so many folk who were existing VMUG members and leaders as well as prospective new members. If you are at VMworld this year you should definitely stop by! After lunch I hit the solutions exchange to catch up with a few vendors whom I had a few queries for also took the time to collect the #vExpert hoodie from @simplivity and the #vExpert tile from Tegile (thank you!

My trip started with a farcical attempt to fly – my 11:50am flight on Sunday didn’t leave ‘til 3:30pm, but in light of William Lam’s travel woes on the same day, I don’t think I’ll complain to heavily. After a quick stop off at the Fira to register and grab my VMworld bag and I headed off to meet DefinIT co-author Simon (@simoneady) at our AirBnB apartment (which, by the way is awesome and a whole load cheaper than a hotel).