VMworld.com: VMware - please make this right

13 Replies Last post: Sep 14, 2009 9:20 PM by Lawrence Dee

Aaron Margeson

4 posts since
Jun 5, 2009

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Sep 1, 2009 12:09 AM

VMware - please make this right

Here's a summary of how things have gone so far for me. I hope VMware takes notice of this.

Signed up within one hour of schedule builder going GA for labs and sessions. 3 weeks later, told Lab4 was overbooked and recommended I register for other labs I didn't want to do. Then next day inexplicably got another email saying new sessions for Lab4 were added, which I registered for. Why allow me to register for Lab4 when it was overbooked in the first place? Why tell me it was not gonna be available and then the next day say it was available for other times?

First lab was Lab01 at 7:30am Monday. Absolutely nothing worked, and I'm not exaggerating. Finally after an hour of lab staff frantically trying to get things going, someone exclaimed, "can we get another session since nothing worked?" and applause broke out. VMware staff to their credit offered to repeat it for us at 8:30pm tonight. I showed up faithfully, even though I was tired and exhausted from the day. This time more than half the exercises didn't work still. The manuals were inaccurate and missing crucial steps, too, even had it worked. Hardly anyone else's worked either. There goes one of my instructor led labs.

Planned most of the day for self-paced labs. Went by there, and sign was up saying they weren't up, would be at 10am. Came back later - 2pm. Stood in line at 1:45, and got to sit one a lab after and hour and a half of waiting. When finished, jumped back in line to at least get one more in. This time the line was tiny compared to before. Got into the waiting area and waited... and waited... and waited... the numbers were being called up at a pace of one every 10 minutes. At 5:30pm, six numbers back, I left in utter frustration to go attend the Solutions Exchange.

I'm a sympathetic and understanding person. I understand that things happen despite your best planning. However, so far for me with everything related to VMworld, I feel nothing but frustration. I do appreciate the willingness of the staff on the ground making the best of an abysmal situation, but when this many things go wrong, something needs to be done to make this right.

Tim Abrams

1 posts since
May 12, 2009

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1. Sep 1, 2009 10:27 AM

in response to: Aaron Margeson

Re: VMware - please make this right

I had the exact same experience and also agree that something needs to be done to compensate people for thier time.

I missed the Welcome reception to repeat the 7:30 am lab at 8:30 pm and the lab still did not work. The whole first day was a bust for me!!!

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VMworld Team

132 posts since
Jun 12, 2008

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2. Sep 1, 2009 1:42 PM

in response to: Aaron Margeson

Re: VMware - please make this right

Gentlemen,

Thanks for your comments, and believe me, we are listening and trying our best to make the best of this situation.

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Colleen Bennett

1 posts since
Jul 12, 2008

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3. Sep 1, 2009 5:23 PM

in response to: Aaron Margeson

Re: VMware - please make this right

I had the same experience, I was hoping my lab today would be better but it was so slow we couldn't complete anything. Very frustrated.

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asingc

1 posts since
Sep 10, 2007

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4. Sep 1, 2009 5:59 PM

in response to: Aaron Margeson

Re: VMware - please make this right

My vSphere ". . What's new. ." lab was terribly frustrating as well. While there were clearly some technical shortcomings costing the 100+ ppl in the lab to forgoe the vStorage exercise (among others), there were some minimum dissatisfiers that I'd hope future labs and VMWorld conferences could take note of:

Facilitators and support staff needed considerably more practicein their delivery, pace, projection, and energy
Lab materias should match lab exercise
Provide a makeup opportunity for attendees to experience the lab in whole

Looking forward to the next lab and vmWorld.

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Matthew Sebel

7 posts since
Oct 26, 2007

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5. Sep 1, 2009 8:05 PM

in response to: Aaron Margeson

Re: VMware - please make this right

vCenter Heartbeat lab today was completey jacked. Spent two hours waiting on the install to go because of imporper configuration on the virtual machines and hosts. Staff offered to let us retake the lab if we wanted. Still... should not happen!

Anyone else find it ironic that the products that claim such eas of use, extreme performance, and reliability, set up by the people that actually work for the company and use the stuff every day have the same issues each year? Anyone seen Office Space? "We fixed the glitch."

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Aaron Margeson

4 posts since
Jun 5, 2009

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6. Sep 1, 2009 9:04 PM

in response to: VMworld Team

Re: VMware - please make this right

I can only say that if nothing is done by VMware to make things right, I won't be coming to another VMworld. Just on principle, the amount of money paid for me to be here in travel, lodging, time away from work, and the conference itself just makes it absurd to have to go through this.

I will say today was better, although there are still self-paced labs that don't work. However, it doesn't make up for the fact that I missed out on one instructor led lab effectively because I registered on the first day, and I'm skipping sessions I registered for because I couldn't complete the hands-on labs Monday, so I'm being forced to make choices I shouldn't have to make between sessions and hands-on labs.

I hope VMware cares enough to do the right thing. An apology alone won't and shouldn't cut it.

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dchmax

3 posts since
Sep 10, 2007

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7. Sep 2, 2009 11:39 AM

in response to: Aaron Margeson

Re: VMware - please make this right

....so if VMware was to make it right what would they have to do?

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Jason Cornell

1 posts since
Jul 31, 2009

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8. Sep 2, 2009 1:44 PM

in response to: Aaron Margeson

Re: VMware - please make this right

I was in Lab01 as well and agree it was a complete waste of time...First they can't get DNS to work and then machines wouldn't provision to the proper blades and then the network wouldn't route traffic and then Update Manager wasn't even installed and there wasn't enough space on VC to install it...Did they not test a single thing in the lab before deploying it for hundreds of people? Nice first impression of vSphere and UCS!

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Aaron Margeson

4 posts since
Jun 5, 2009

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9. Sep 2, 2009 7:39 PM

in response to: dchmax

Re: VMware - please make this right

Considering I wasted 4 hours doing the original botched lab and the second botched attempt, maybe attending the What's New training for free when it's near me... some free online training... I don't know.

The other issues weren't just me only. I don't think it's out of line to say they should be giving some money back to people who attended this year, or discounts to something.

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Lawrence McKay

1 posts since
Jun 30, 2009

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10. Sep 4, 2009 4:33 PM

in response to: Aaron Margeson

Re: VMware - please make this right

Looks like everyone had the same issues. Labs that just did not work. Standing in que's listening to slide readers as the give there presntations. What a waste of $$ and time. Would i recommend coming back. NO.

would i recommend there product for a large data center. NO not after the issues and problems I saw in the LABS. I take my hat off to the LAB staff as they were on the sharpe end of the stick. They did very well. Its just the management need to stand up and admit they made a big mistake.

This would have to be one of the worst Conferences Ive been to. I traveled all the way from New Zealand for this and feel it was a waste of time. I got more from this meeting up with some of my fellow systems engineers.

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Curtis Turner

3 posts since
May 12, 2008

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11. Sep 8, 2009 11:23 AM

in response to: Aaron Margeson

Re: VMware - please make this right

I tend to agree with the comments here. The monday led labs were pretty much worthless. I skipped out of mine due to the fustrations of things not working well at all and provisioning stuck at 94%. The majority of the staff on the ground was nice and tried to be forthright and disseminate information to us as best as possble although there were some staff members that were just down right rude and obnoxious. I understand they were fustrated by the issues encountered, but come on these are customers and potentially bigger customers. Not a very professional foot put forward and being rude just made it worse.

I did eventually (wedensday -thursday) get some goodness out of the selfpaced labs and would reccommend that future attendees stack more time for that in their schedules.

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Heath Higgins

6 posts since
Nov 12, 2007

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12. Sep 10, 2009 7:35 AM

in response to: Aaron Margeson

Re: VMware - please make this right

I totally agree with Aaron. I was in the early Monday morning lab and also made the return at 8:30pm to still find things not working. Monday's lab was a complete write off and have nothing to show for it. Aaron has only listed the technical issues we experienced, but as documented in other threads, there were other issues with the conference such as the food. Overall it seems a lot of corners were cut this year and am seriously considering not coming back next year.

I also like aaron's idea of providing a free what's new for vSphere class in my area. That would go along way for VMware showing that they care about their customers and acknowledge the mistakes that were made this year. I went last year and was totally impressed with how smooth everything went and the conference was great.

Heath

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Lawrence Dee

5 posts since
Jan 30, 2008

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13. Sep 14, 2009 9:20 PM

in response to: Aaron Margeson

Re: VMware - please make this right

You think this was just on Monday? uh-uh

What most of you apparently don't realize is there there was a invitation only event on Sunday - a vSphere upgrade BootCamp. I travelled a day early, extra hotel night, etc - only to have a 10 hour BootCamp event be completely worthless (the instructor got pulled out mid presentation in the afternoon to go brief onthers on how bad things were). I got more watching VMware's online videos on vSphere upgrading (90 minutes total) than I did in 10 hours in that room. So to those of you frustrated in losing a day of labs, think how some of us who lost 2 days (Sunday and Monday) feel.

Having the 'datacenter' across a WAN link from the labs doesn't seem wise. Cisco appears to have seriously dropped the ball (didn't you just love all the amber alert lights on the Cisco blades, and the drooping chassis - too funny) , and VMware for trusting Cisco to have a 1.0 release actually working for such an important event (without seruious pre-testing).

I heard they had multiple issues

- blade resets (possibly caused by the bowed chassis)?

- routing / broadcast storm issues

- storage issues (possibly related to network issue above ??)

Come on VMware - if you can't get your own LAB datacenter working right, how are we supposed to trust your mgmt or products?

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Sep 1, 2009 12:09 AM

VMware - please make this right

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