A very quick post on the my first day at VMWare VMworld 2016 US today and few tips for the attendees of the event.
As per explained my previous post, I’ve arrived at Vegas on Sunday afternoon as had planned after which felt like a looooong flight from London Heathrow, via Chicago to Vegas. I had been up since about 4am Sunday morning to catch the early flight and having not had much sleep on the flight (doesn’t work for me), I managed to get to my hotel by around 2pm. And unfortunately due to sheer number of guests arriving (mostly VMworld guests form what I could see), I then spent the next 2 & 1/2 hours simply queuing at the check-in desk which really didn’t help.
Anyhow, after check-in -> Shower, I decided to have a quick shower and go over to the event venue (its a short cab ride away from my hotel) in order to register and collect my badge before the morning rush on the event’s public opening day on Tuesday which went smoothly as been the case at every other VMworld event I’ve attended.
After the registration, it is typical that you go to collect your official VMworld back pack and having picked up this years, I have to say I’m not impressed. it looks a little tacky compared to previous years and slightly on the cheaper side when it comes to the build quality etc. So I’m thinking that I’d stick to using the last years bag myself and give the new one away to a colleague / customer who might appreciate it more than I would.
After collecitng the bag, I ventured out to the Solutipons Exchange. Solutions Exchange is where all the VMware partners (other vendors) have their exhibitoion booths that showcase all of their product and solution offerings that typically go hand in hand with VMware (and competitive offerings in some cases like Nutanix).
In the solutions exchange, I had a brief look around, spoke to few vendors after which I moved on to go find my fellow VMUG members at the VMUG party at house of Blues with a live band to have few drinks and catch up. Well, sure I had some drinks but didn’t really see many that I knew as it turned out most of the attendees were form all the US VMUG’s whom I’d never met 🙂
After couple of drinks and some food there, I was feeling pretty tired given the extra long day I’d had by then and decided to go back to my hotel for getting this post out and catching up on some sleep. I decided to take the tram from the venue (Mandalay bay hotel) which takes you all the way to Luxor hotel & Casino which was a short walk away from my hotel. As I was walking over one of the flyovers, I did manage to get a nice view of the famous Vegas strip too which looks full of life at night (below) though my priority was just getting back my air conditioned room pronto as I’d had enough of the heat by this time (note to myself: no more walking between hotels)
Cheers
Chan
#VMworld 2016 #Day 0
