VMworld Europe 2013 - Partner Day

I have to confess to feeling a little jaded this morning thanks to the vRockstar party last night. I'm not complaining though, as I have been on the previous two occasions that I've attended VMworld Europe, I'm both excited and glad to be here.

Registration was a breeze and a few subtle changes to the layout of the venue were immediately apparent. Compared to last year, I think that the conference is occupying a lot more floor space. The Solutions Exchange will open tomorrow where the General Sessions were last year. The HoL and Community / Alumni / Partner lounges have moved to occupy the space where the Solutions Exchange was last year. So far I like the layout.

As with previous years, Monday is VMware's Partner Day. Owing to a perfect storm of circumstances I only managed to get in to one session but it was probably the one that I was most keen to see.

TEX5350 Designing network virtualization for Data-centers: Greenfield Design and Migration scenarios
Software Defined Datacenters and Network Virtualization technologies are essential components to enhance operational efficiency, unlock agility in provisioning new application and services, and enable extensibility to rapidly respond to business needs. This session will discuss how modern virtualization techniques, such as VXLAN, vWires can be deployed over 3-tier or 2-tier datacenter IP fabric topologies. Particularly the session will analyze requirements for the physical network, followed by logical network deployment options. The session will analyze the benefits of a generic vendor agnostic Layer 3 Leaf/Spine IP fabric and use of LACP, vmknics, host profiles will be covered with use-case discussions, design recommendations and Best Practices.

I have a few other session lined up that focus on or fit with NSX so this was a useful primer for me.

For me though, VMworld isn't just about the sessions. Probably the biggest benefit that I derive from attending events like these is the networking (with people) and a great many people arrived today to register, take lab sessions and get the lay of the land.

As things started to wind down at the conference centre, the focus naturally shifted to evening activities. The VMUG organisation held a well attended party in the centre of the city. The Veeam guys (who were sponsoring the event) wasted no time going straight for Jaeger-bombs!

Pernix Data also held a well attended event on the other side of the city centre that I was pleased to be invited to.