Last year's VMworld was an exciting time and its shaping up to be bigger and better than ever in 2011. I have scrolled through the entire list of VMworld sessions and was pleasantly surprised to see all my submitted sessions are open for voting. Even if you know you won't be able to attend VMworld 2011 in Las Vegas, you can still vote. I encourage everyone to log in to their VMworld account or create a new account (it's free) and VOTE! I feel like the 8th grader running for class president and trying to get all my friends to vote for me, but sometimes shameless self-plugs are part of the process. I had an exciting time speaking at VMworld 2010 and I really do appreciate your votes to make it all happen again in 2011. Even if my sessions aren't your cup of tea, then vote for ones that do strike your interest. The voters dictate the outcome of the conference so take a few minutes to make it happen!
Session 1940: 10 Best Free Tools for vSphere Management in 2011
Last year, Team Free Tools (David Davis and I), did our session on the Top 10 Free Tools for vSphere Management. It was the 3rd highest rated session at VMworld 2010 and had stellar feedback. This year, David and I are back at it again with a brand new session with more free tools, an updated list, demos, and even more videos for your eye candy. You won't be disappointed by what we have lined up!
Session 1734: Advanced Virtual Machine Artistry: Tuning for the Cloud
This is my attempt at a solo session but it will be a guaranteed great session for many people. Virtualization became mainstream to reduce costs and make environments more agile. Many of us were trigger-happy to virtualize everything we could get our hands on. As the industry progressed, recommended practices were formed and our trigger-happy former selves overlooked ways to tune and optimize virtual machines. By attending this session, you will learn how to implement recommended practices around virtual machine performance tuning. This knowledge will enhance your private cloud and prepare your workloads for the future of hybrid and public cloud. We will cover topics that will increase virtual machine boot times, improve I/O and throughput, as well as unlocking advanced VMware features.
Session 1720: vCloud Design Considerations When Using Vblock
Chris Colotti and I, in conjunction with Jeramiah Dooley and a few other folks from VCE and VMware, have been developing a solution brief/whitepaper for VMware vCloud Director on the Vblock Platform. This session will focus on the architecture of using Vblock under vCloud Director for both the Resource Groups, Management Groups, and overall design. There is also sometimes confusion on where vCloud Director, UIM, Nexus 1000v, and Management play within the total solution. The end goal will be to help customers understand the power of Vblock, UIM, and vCloud Director Combined. In addition, people looking into both of these solutions will see that the architecture is already in place. Vblock and vCD combined, creates a fast to market and proven approach to cloud. Once this solution has made its way to a formal paper, you will be seeing another blog article diving deeper.
Session: 2976 Your Own VMware vSphere Home Lab – An Installation Guide
Come to this session to get tips and tricks on building your own VMware home lab. Using their own hands-on experience and actual home labs as examples, the presenters will cover: hardware options, vSphere installation and configuration lessons learned the hard way, tips for getting the most for your money, how to get software licenses, where to get free Virtual Storage Appliances (VSAs), and mistakes to avoid.
