Hi,

I was a Vmworld virgin as well and I have also enjoyed the entire conference. Being the only VM guy in our company it is great to actually come out  and network with other Sys Eng/Adm and find out how they have implemented systems and what issues they were facing.

I think I ended up getting more from the Solutions exchange more than anything else; Vmware were especially helpful and I was very impressed not only with their knowledge but also their enthusiam for their products. It would be nice to have some way to give feedback to some of the VM guys, particularly at the Genuis bar - just to let some individuals and their managers know how grateful I was for their help and patience answering my questions.

A few people have commented that the conference was too busy, I would agree we were moved about en mass on a few too many occasions, but I was never late for a session and lunch was a very impressive operation. I used the wifi on occasions without any problems, but then I just used the free Venetian wifi in gambling area most of the time and that one never had any issues.

One final issue would be the BOF sessions - I got the impressions they weren't expecting them to be a speaker lead session and that it would be an area which encouraged conversation between the attendees with the help of an expert. Clearly though this wasn't what happened and I, like others, attended these for 5 minutes and then gave up. Not the right location or setting for these sessions at all. Also, they tended to just be used as desks for all the laptop users and wasn't a place only for the specific area of interest.

Overall I really, really enjoyed the whole conference. For the price I feel I have got a lot more ROI than attending a training session, especially when combining all the hands-on labs with the breakout sessions, solutions exchange etc. Next time I just want to bring my manager so I can sell the products to him as we go!

Jon

Regarding the BOF sessions... I completely agree. Fortunately, I only signed up for one and I walked away less than 2 minutes into it. For future shows, I would reccomend against holding them again. This was my first VMworld and overall I had a great time. I share the same issues that others have noted though (lack of lab availability, overcrowding, etc).

My biggest complaint was that some of the sessions weren't necessarily as advertised. For example, the IP Storage best practices session was billed as just that but it turned out to be a best way to run NetApps NFS with a 5 minute blurb on iSCSI. While technically NFS is IP storage, not all of us use NetApps and the session time could have been better allocated to a more relevant session.

All in all, I felt the best sessions were those held by VMware employees as they gave the most relevant content and insider, horses mouth tips, tricks and best practices although the Exchange 2007 on VMware: Two Real-World Success Stories was great (hosted in part by a VMware customer, Adrian Jane.

Great show overall, I look forward to 2009.

Tyler