VMTN Blog

Photo by Janex & Alba under a Creative Commons license.

Blogging at a conference like VMworld is complicated business.

Bloggers have to think on their feet in the first place -- they need to be opinionated, keep up to date with news & technical documents, quickly grasp the substance of a piece of news or the solution to that technical problem they've been digging on all week at work, and then crank out 500 words that explains it in a way somebody cares about. And normally all that happens between the dinner dishes and bedtime.

VMworld, even without blogging, is a huge rush. It's consistently one of the best conferences in the industry, with new ideas, product releases, both good and boring sessions, new and old friends, fish stories, and often some libations all sloshing about for 3 or 4 days. It's hard enough to keep up and absorb new information without also trying to digest and then write an article immediately.

Blogging at VMworld is something that only a fool, an adrenaline junkie, or somebody with a giant brain should attempt. Luckily, we have a few of each category in the VMware blogosphere, and they kept busy last week giving their first impressions and analysis while running between sessions. My hat's off to you all.

Duncan Epping over at Yellow Bricks has compiled a view of last week through 76 links about VMworld Europe to various blog posts and bloggers. It's well worth checking out to dip into the VMworld experience. In particular, these were his top links:

• Jason Boche: Tuesday keynotes
• Jason Boche: write up of Wednesday
• Jason Boche: VMware next gen datacenter exploration
• 20 Videos by NTPro.nl
• Martijn Lohmeijer’s write-ups
  
• Simon Gallagher’s write-ups

Now not everybody was busy livebloging. Some bloggers did more absorbing than writing -- nothing wrong with that -- and we should start to see their views and analysis -- of VMworld, vSphere, and the next generation of virtualization and what it means to you, your data center, and your desktop -- coming over the coming days.

This week here on VMTN Blog I'll also do some analysis as we dip into the various themes and technologies that were highlighted at the conference.

I'm having some technical difficulties. In the meantime, for more news out of VMworld I highly advise checking out Planet V12n, where you can keep tabs on keynotes, individual sessions, and what looks like an amazing party. Also check out VMworld.com (caution, sound!) -- right now it  has a nice video on vCenter Server Heartbeat, as well as access to both keynotes, and the headlines. A Google News search for VMworld is not a bad option for a mix of press coverage. SearchServerVirtualization's VMworld coverage is, as usual, excellent.

I hope to resume our regularly scheduled coverage tomorrow, although if you click those 4 links above, you'll really know everything there you need to know about VMworld Europe.

[Update: ok, I can't resist dropping in one thing. There are probably announcements and topics that will be more relevant to your daily life, but the first demos of our Mobile Virtualization Platform had the crowd buzzing. Also check out today's podcast where we talked a bit about it as well. More on the podcast later.]

An empty Solutions Exchange the day before the show opens.
photo: Viktor van den Berg

They're just waking up over there in Cannes. Time to get dressed and head in to the opening keynote for VMworld Europe 2009. Today was Partner Day, and although most of it was under NDA, some of our intrepid bloggers reported around the margins. Geert Baeke somehow actually channeled what I was going  to link to, in advance, so just hop over to this psychic's blog to take a look at what I would have posted: baeke.info :: VMworld Europe 2009: Partner Day. You'll be hearing more about everything, but that's a tasty sip. (The highlight for me was vCenter Server on Linux Technology Preview. w00t!)

There are many ways to track what's going on the next few days. I think this may be the most documented virtualization conference in history. Not only has our informal contingent of bloggers grown (virally? like a bacteria colony on a dish of tasty agar? like the budget deficit?) over the past year -- there a literally dozens of folks blogging from Cannes, but also many of them have connected via Twitter to make some distributed alien intelligence and hive mind. Trust me, there's going to be lots of coverage. In addition, VMworld Impressario Richard Garsthagen has provided a passel of them with Flip video cameras, so expect to see lots of action shots of men in business casual attire talking about vSphere.

• If you just want the highlights, stay tuned here in the VMworld Europe 2009 category. I'll try to sum up each day and point to some good stuff from VMW HQ in rainy California.
• For the firehose, tune in to Planet V12n, which aggregates a lot of the virtualization bloggers.
• For the tsunami, check out Twitter. Rich Brambley has set up a nice Tweetgrid for VMworld which is a good way to watch you're not normally on Twitter: Use Tweetgrid for Virtual Attendance of VMworld Europe 2009 | VM /ETC.

I think many people are going to be liveblogging the conference. Check Planet V12n for more on the blog side. I know @lode, who was our star on Twitter last year, will be joined by many others on their BlackBerries, iPhone, and laptops.

I also highly recommend checking out VMworld Europe 2009 Networking Community. That's the right place to talk about the conference on the Discussion Threads. From there, you can check out resources like:

• VMworld Europe 2009 Blogs (conference highlights and feeds)
• VMworld Europe 2009 Press Room (news and press info)
• VMworld Europe 2009 Videos (post your conference videos)
• VMworld Europe 2009 Photos (post your conference photos)

You can also vote for the Best of VMworld Europe 2009 (registration required).

Flickr: search for VMworld, VMworld Europe 2009 Pool
YouTube: search for VMworld
Vimeo: search for VMworld

You know have all the tools you need to follow all the action over the next few days. Have fun, and remember to back up.

Stu from vinternals posts the first picture from VMworld Europe. Next week, we're all VMworld, all the time!

And VMworld organizer Richard Garsthagen snaps what's going on behind the scenes. There is a serious amount of hardware in Cannes right now.

Today's guest post is from Eric Sloof, who blogs at NTPRO.NL, is a VCI, and is often seen with a video camera at virtualization conferences. He has helpfully included everybody's Twitter avatars, so you have a better chance of stalking them in Cannes. (Yes, Duncan really looks like that, although that's an awful photo of Alan.)

So if you're at VMworld Europe next week, be sure and check out these unusual sessions on Tuesday and Wednesday. I guarantee you will get your question answered, or your money back!

VMTN: Ask the Experts session at the community lounge

The VMworld Europe 2009 Call for Participation is now open -- you can now submit proposals to present at Cannes. Be sure to read the Call for Participation Instructions. The deadline is January 16, but the instructions say you'll have a better chance if you submit early. From the instructions:

VMworld will be held on February 24, 25 and 26 2009 in Cannes, France and we expect around 5000 attendees interested in the virtualization industry. VMware together with 100+ technology partners and virtualization vendors will be showing their solutions across the solution exchange exhibit hall, break out sessions and hands-on labs.

About the Attendees
Based on previous events, we expect 50% of the attendees to have a technical background and the other 50% to be focused on business management. 65% of the attendees are working for companies that use virtualization in their own organization, 35% consult/support/sell virtualization solutions. The attendees will be from a geographically diverse group of countries, with the majority coming from Europe. The largest represented countries/regions will be UK (20%), Scandinavia (16%), the Benelux (16%) and Germany (11%). The event official language will be English and we expect all content to be presented in English.

About the Sessions
We will have around 150 unique sessions; this will include sessions from VMware employees, customers, sponsors, virtualization vendors and industry specialists. The Sessions will fall into 6 different Tracks:

Virtual Data Center	Operating System Focus on topics about running virtualization in the Datacenter
Desktop Virtualization	Focus on topics about Desktop Virtualization and Mobile Virtualization
Technology and Architecture	Focus on a single or just a few (technical) components, not an overall solution.
Application Workload and Performance	Focus on running business applications in the real world in virtualized environments and sessions about performance.
Technology Partners	This track will include all the Sponsor Sessions and can include commercial information about their solutions.
Hands-on Labs	Sessions where attendees can get hands-on experience by doing exercises on different technical topics.