VMworld Europe 2012 - Day 1

This was the day that 8000 or so people descended on the conference centre in Barcelona as VMworld opened its doors wide. Whilst the Fira Barcelona appears to me to be a bigger venue than the Bella Center in Copenhagen, it does still have its pinch points and I was glad to get there early enough in the morning to avoid the rush to the keynote speech.

For me, this was the first time that I'd seen (or read) anything publicly from new VMware CEO, Pat Gelsinger, since he took office and I was interested to see how or if the message had changed since Paul Maritz moved on.

Pat's keynote speech was well delivered and well received in my opinion. I sensed though that he was being careful to try and establish his credentials as someone who can take a successful company like VMware and continue to grow it. I hope he is.

Despite being able to watch VMworld sessions online, there were a few on Day 1 that I wanted to see. They were:

• VSP1168 Architecting a vCloud Infrastructure with David Hill, Aidan Dalgleish, Frank Denneman and Rawlinson Rivera
• ITT1918 Is My Organization Ready for Cloud with Kevin Lees and Andy Troup
• CIM1274 What's New in vCenter Orchestrator 5.1 with Thomas Corfmat, Joerg Lew, Ian Hirsinger and Christian Rudolph

All three were well presented and interesting and I took something away from each of them that was either new to me or sparked an idea or a thought in my head and that's the benchmark of a worthwhile session for me.

I also spent a small amount of time in the Solutions Exchange (more on that in another post) and in the Hang Space watching vBrownbag sessions. You can catch up on these sessions online here.

In the evening I headed to a combined vExpert / VCDX / VMware CTO reception in a hotel. It exceeded my expectations and I got to meet many other vExperts and VCDXs. VMware CTO Steve Herrod was there briefly (see below) but left hurridly after being accosted by Gregg Robertson and Darren Woollard who were trying to persuade him to attend the forthcoming UKVMUG. No joy on that front but maybe a future London VMUG…

L-R: John Troyer (VMware Communities); Erik Ullanderson (Director Global Certifications); Steve Herrod (VMware CTO)