Attended first VMware VMUG #PRVMUG

I attended my first VMUG in Washington DC today.  I have to say it was an enjoyable experience.

The day was looking shaky as we were supposed to get terrible storms in the area but it didn't affect the conference at all.  I headed out early to get to the conference but sadly I arrived a little late due to traffic and my GPS getting all upset about Rock Creek Pkwy not being available.  I arrived in time to hear the keynote from Chris Colotti.  Keynote focused mostly on vCloud but it was still interesting.  Chris was engaging.

I met with a few vendors.  Everyone was respectful.  A few vendors we are already partners with (Cisco, EMC, VMware, VEEAM) so it was good to see them again.  New vendors had some interesting products I need to follow up on.  I'm sure they'll call me to remind me.  My son got tons of toys from the event, he loves this stuff :)

The first session I hit today was Evolving the Data Center to Private Cloud by Cisco.  The presentation was mostly basic level Nexus 1000v and Cisco UCS.  It was interesting hearing some of the questions from the crowd.  So unfamiliar with even the basic idea of UCS.  It was surprising to me but I guess that's why you have presentations :).

My second session was Tales from the Field, Don't Let This Happen to Your VM's by VEEAM.  The presenter did a good job presenting his material.  The presentation was more about what VEEAM is then Tales from the Field.  I was hoping for some war stories and how VEEAM saved the day.  They had a couple of tweet quotes about the speed of VEEAM, I suppose thats a Tale from the Field.

Lunch was good, no complaints there.  Some of the conference rooms were a little warm.  Coffee kept flowing (probably the most important thing to me overall!).  I ran in to one of our good customers at the end of lunch.  I had no idea he was coming to the VMUG but glad he did.  We actually hit all the same sessions in the afternoon.  I also briefly met Greg Stuart (vDestination).  Nice Guy.  Great Blog you should check. --> http://vdestination.com/

The Q&A session was ok..  I didn't ask any questions so I can't really complain.  Some other attendees asked some network virtualization questions and the experts responded with I wish Scott Lowe was here.  They answered the questions but didn't seem to care to.  It's funny how virtualization guys view networking.

My afternoon sessions were Performance Best Practice for vSphere, A Guide to vSphere Distributed Switch (DRS) Deployments, and vCenter 5.1 Technical Deep Dive.  All 3 sessions were run by VMware.  My favorite sessions of the day were performance and the deep dive, both presented by Aries Youssefian.  He obviously works in the trenches and his presentation showed it.  Performance mostly showed use cases for ESXtop, obviously a tool I need to become more familiar with.  The deep dive session focused on SSO for the most part, but I didn't mind it, they only had 45 minutes for a session after all.  Thats probably the biggest pain point of 5.1.  The DRS session was hurting a little but I think that is because they had a last minute change for the presenter.

Overall, I enjoyed the conference.  I'm glad I went and look forward to more.  I encourage people to sign up to their local VMUG!!  It's free!!!  Just wish I could go to VMworld :)

http://www.vmug.com/