By: Kevin Lees
VMworld is almost upon us. Technology continues, of course, to be a key enabler in helping IT on its transformation journey, whether that journey is to offering IT as a Service, moving more fully to Cloud, supporting cloud native applications and continuous delivery, DevOps, or any number of other initiatives focused on providing increasing value to the business. It’s also the primary reason you attend VMworld. But, as we work with our customers across the world, we continue to see how integral people and process changes are to really making this journey successful and to truly providing the value business is increasingly demanding of IT.
To help you make the most of the great technology and solutions VMware provides and will be showcasing at VMworld, we’re hosting an Operations Transformation track again this year. As the Principal Architect for our Global Operations Transformation Practice, this track is near and dear to my heart. We have a great lineup of sessions focused on the practical aspects of applying organizational, people, and process change to get the most out of VMware’s technology.
I have several sessions this year, but one that might be of particular interest is focused on the key best practices we’ve learned while helping some of our biggest IT customers transform their value proposition to their business customers by deploying a Software-Defined Data Center (SDDC). I’ll discuss what not to do and what to watch out for, as well as what you should do to be successful. I’ll present lessons learned through real customer examples (though the names will be changed to protect the innocent) and provide guidance on how you can avoid learning the same lessons – the hard way. Of course I’ll address the organizational, people, and process aspects but will also dive into some of the technical challenges we overcame or avoided along the way. This particular session is OPT 5361 on Wednesday at 11 a.m.
I know you’re looking forward to VMworld as much as I am. I hope to see you in one or more of my sessions but more importantly, check out the Operations Transformation track in the on-line Schedule Builder. You won’t be disappointed and you could be the hero “back at the office’ because IT’s success isn’t just about the technology.
Quick guide to my sessions:
Tuesday Sept. 1
- 12:30 OPT 4743 Organizational Change Group Discussion
- 2:30 OPT 4992 vRealize CodeStream: Is DevOps about Tools or Transformation?
Wednesday Sept. 2
- 8 :00 OPT 5232 Cloud Native Apps, MicroServices and Twelve-Factor Apps: What Do They Mean for your SDDC/Cloud Ops?
- 11:00 OPT 5361 Best Practice Approaches to Transformation with the SDDC
- 2:30 OPT 5972 80K VM’s and Growing: VMware’s Internal Cloud Journey Told by the People on the Frontlines
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Kevin Lees is principal architect for VMware’s global Operations Transformation Practice and is based in Colorado.
