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.