We had a wonderful time at VMware Explore Las Vegas last month, connecting with customers and peers, learning from world-class experts, and celebrating all things VMware. After all, they don’t say Viva Las Vegas for nothing!
We made plenty of exciting announcements and shared a few special moments with everyone on site — and we can’t wait to tell you about everything that happened in Las Vegas before we look ahead to VMware Explore Barcelona in November. Check out our Vegas recap below.
Standing room only at the CXS Theater
In the CXS Theater, we hosted 24 expert-led sessions, all targeted at helping our attendees prepare for the multi-cloud universe. Our experts brought content the spanned from skill-building in multi-cloud adoption to
preparing for the VMware Certified Professional – Data Center Virtualization exam. We also got to bring back a few fan favorites, including two sessions led by Tim Burkard, our very own @v_gandalf.
By popular demand, Daniel Mazzini and Kacy Reed led a “Best Practices for Hardening Your VMware Infrastructure” session — our People’s Choice winner that was so sought-after we had to schedule a second session! It was great to see so many VMware Explore attendees experience the session they voted for.
Action-Packed Customer Sessions
We also led several customer sessions demonstrating how our customers have leveraged VMware solutions to address their business priorities. While we’d love to walk through every session, here are a few that were particularly special:
- Wellstar Empowers Healthcare with Cutting Edge VMware Horizon® Hybrid Flexibility. Wellstar Health is one of the largest health systems in Georgia, supporting more than 25,000 providers at more than 300 facilities. VMware Staff Consulting Architect Josh Tacey and Wellstar’s Executive Director of Enterprise Computing Dax Sharpe showed how Wellstar used VMware End-User Computing solutions to increase flexibility, scalability, and security while optimizing operations.
- Liberty Mutual: VMware Cloud Foundation Modernization Journey. In this session, our experts — VMware Senior Consultant Chethan B H, VMware Senior Project Manager Sarah Elsherif, and Liberty Mutual Senior Infrastructure Engineer Ravi Chandra Jampani — dove into how VMware helped Liberty Mutual transition to a modern cloud platform with VMware Cloud Foundation 4.x. The benefits of this transition include simplified operations and scale, data center and app modernization, and more.
- Private Cloud Transformation: Building First Citizens Bank’s SDDCs. Senior Technical Account Manager David Downey and First Citizens Bank IT Principal Engineer Tejodher Muppidi demonstrated how VMware helped First Citizens Bank transition to a Software-Defined Data Center (SDDC) and build a private cloud on VMware Cloud Foundation. VMware worked with First Citizens to upskill team members, enabling them to work in the collaborative VMware Cloud Foundation environment while achieving greater operational efficiency.
- State of Idaho: How to Modernize a State from A to B. VMware is helping the state of Idaho and its 20 agencies transition from a classic siloed model to a fully automated service provider with VMware Aria Automation, VMware Tanzu, and VMware Workspace ONE. VMware’s Didier Gaudin and Michael Vance were joined by Idaho IT Services CTO Tyler Jackson and Project Manager Michaela Geszvain to show how the transformation is helping Idaho improve the delivery and accessibility of government services and information.
Would you like to watch these sessions and more from VMware Explore Las Vegas? Click here to access the full video library.
New Cloud Training to Support Your Learning Journey
Calling all learners! At VMware Explore, VMware Learning announced new, upcoming cloud-focused training and certifications to address the cloud skills gap that many organizations face today.
Developers of all skill levels can earn these certifications, building the skills to design, deploy, and operate VMware cloud infrastructure solutions — including complex multi-cloud structures. In today’s cloud-dominant IT environment, you won’t want to miss out on these valuable ways to grow your cloud expertise.
VMware Learning Winners
We also announced our winners for Learning Partner of the Year and VMware Certified Instructor (VCI) of the Year!
ExitCertified, a leading provider of IT courses and certifications, won our Learning Partner of the Year award. ExitCertified has been a VMware Learning Partner since the program’s inception 15 years ago.
“From my perspective, a good learning services program needs to have three objectives,” said ExitCertified President Mark McCreath. “Number one, a full suite of offerings. It has to cover all of the offerings under the company’s umbrella. Number two, multiple modalities to address the customer requirements for blended learning solutions. And number three, material demand for the training. VMware’s Partner Program achieves all three of these objectives.”
Marcelo Soares took home the VMware Certified Instructor (VCI) of the Year Americas award. Based in Argentina, Marcelo has more than 10 years of experience teaching VMware solutions and was named a 2022 VMware Instructor of Excellence. He is also a VMware Certified Professional in Network Virtualization and Data Center Virtualization.
VCDX Day
On the first day of VMware Explore, we hosted an event for VMware Certified Design Experts (VCDXs), which included a town hall and workshop.
At the town hall, VCDXs interacted with VMware leaders to discuss the future of VMware, IT, and more. Our VCDXs also helped the next generation of aspiring experts prepare to get certified at our workshop. Thank you to everyone who volunteered their time at the workshop — after all, who better to learn from than the best of the best?
Customer Success Central
At Customer Success Central, we joined our VMware Success 360 and Technical Adoption Management Services customers for 50 in-depth sessions about maximizing your VMware investments — and it’s safe to say that our customers had a great time.
Fun at the Expert Bar
There were plenty of good times to be had at the Expert Bar too, where our world-class Global Support team worked with customers to help them better understand and implement VMware solutions.
Congratulations, VMware Certification earners!
Finally, we want to shout out all of the VMware learners who earned their certifications at VMware Explore! Earning a certification is a major accomplishment and a testament to your hard work and expertise. We couldn’t be prouder to have shared this achievement with you in Las Vegas.
What’s next
Haven’t gotten enough VMware Explore yet? Neither have we!
We’re heading to VMware Explore Barcelona from November 6-9 with even more illuminating sessions, new customer stories, in-depth customer support, and all the guidance you need to make the most of your VMware solutions. Plus, what better place is there to connect with experts and fellow IT professionals to talk all things tech?
Visit our registration page to secure your spot today!
