I’m finally back at home after an amazing week at VMware Explore 2024, in Las Vegas!

As always, VMware Explore 2024 was the place to be, and THE most important conference of the year, at least for me, my clients, and those who need to be in the know.

See below for my insights on the conference, information and links, as well as some videos I created to talk about!

The Focus moving forward

This was the first VMware Explore with VMware by Broadcom. With the acquisition of VMware by Broadcom, there’s been a number of changes they have implemented, including their new strategy moving forward, SKU consolidation, as well as solution refinement.

The focus this year was on VCF, also known as VMware Cloud Foundation, with the announcement of VCF 9.0, and enabling technologies like AI (Artificial Intelligence) with VMware Private AI Foundation, and NVIDIA AI enterprise.

Why VMware Explore is important for me

For me, VMware Explore is important because of a number of different things. A brief of this is:

• VMware By Broadcom
  • Strategy
  • Product Releases
  • Technical Sessions (Learning, Training)
  • Hands on Labs (HoL)
• Community
  • VMUG – VMware User Group
  • VMware vExpert
• Networking
  • Reconnecting in person with clients in other cities (and other countries)
  • Meeting customers face to face for the first time
  • New Business

I can’t recommend enough how important VMware Explore is for career development. It’s a face paced conference, and you won’t have time to do everything you plan and want to, but you just need to go with the flow and let it happen naturally.

Technical Sessions

There was a number of AMAZING technical sessions, which are all available via the VMware Explore content catalog (click the link to view).

You can also view various community sessions, by going to VMware TV Live (click for link).

Check out my videos on VMware Explore 2024

I hope you enjoy the videos I created covering VMware Explore during the experience, and after.

VMware Explore 2024: A chat with Matt Heldstab about VMUG and Community

In this video, I sat down with Matt Heldstab, Global VP for VMUG (VMware User Group), to talk about the importance of community, VMUG, and how VMware Explore brings everyone together in person. This provides opportunities to reconnect with old friends, make new friends, and share a passion of technology (and VMware By Broadcom solutions).

VMware Explore 2024: Day 1, Let’s Explore

On Day 1, I chatted with Daniel Keer (owner and writer at theDXT), to talk about his experience at VMware Explore. This was Daniel’s first VMware conference, and large tech conference for that matter.

Daniel was having a blast, commenting on how he was able to connect with VCF experts even before the conference started, and how friendly and welcoming everyone was.

Daniel and I covered:

• The Conference
• Networking Oppurtunities
• Broadcom Aquisition of VMware
• NVIDIA AI Enterprise (NIMs and the NGC Catalog)
• Private AI
• VMware EUC split to Omnissa
• World of EUC
  • EUC World: Independence Conference
• VMware Communities
  • VMUG
  • VMware vExpert Program
  • Community Theatre

I was able to catch up with Daniel later, and he told me he was enjoying back to back technical sessions, and VMware Hands on Labs.

VMware Explore 2024: Day 3, Talking VCF and AI with Johan van Amersfoort

Johan van Amersfoort (owner/writer at vHojan.nl – Johan van Amersfoort) is a very well known presenter, often presenting on technologies such as EUC (with Omnissa Horizon), and now on AI and the endeavors both in his own home lab, as well as the work his organization is doing for customers with AI.

Johan and I talked about:

• VMware Explore recap
• Discussion on VCF, Private AI Foundation, and NVIDIA AI Enterprise (NIVIDIA NIMs)
• Johan’s Presentations (see below for links)
• Enterprise AI Workloads
• VMware EUC divestiture (separation of Omnissa)
• GPU Discussion
• Tanzu, Cloud Foundry
• Simplification of IT and Virtualization with VMware VCF
• Community

At VMware Explore, Johan had two sessions (click the links to view):

• Building Cost-effective Homelabs for AI/ML Workloads [CMTY1709LV]
• Build Service Deliverables with VMware Private AI Foundation with NVIDIA [CODEB1882LV]

VMware Explore 2024: Debrief and takeaways

Getting back home, there was a lot to take in and process, however I wanted to do a quick debrief and takeaway video.

In this video, I talk about:

• Broadcom’s vision for VCF
• Evolving world of IT
• Corporate IT strategy shift
  • Private AI
  • Private Cloud
• Practical AI use cases

Towards the end of the video, I also shared my thoughts on the last session I attended, called “GenAI-Powered Insights in Avi LB: A Journey into Next-Gen Observability“. You can click on the session name to find out more information and watch the video.

The session covered a real-world practical use of AI in IT, using an LLM to provide insight, analysis, administration, monitoring, and management of the VMware Avi Loadbalancer, using LLMs, with the choice of using Google Gemini in the cloud, or your own LLM on-prem using NVIDIA AI Enterprise, NIMs, and VMware Private AI Foundation.

Cool stuff!

VMware Explore, moving forward…

Moving forward, I’m aligned with and believe in the strategy of Private Cloud first, enabling technologies such as AI, while providing existing solutions such as compute.

I can’t wait for VMware Explore 2025!

As we approach the date, I wanted to write a post sharing Why I’m looking forward to VMware Explore 2022 and share what I hope to get from the conference and experience.

As most of you know, VMware Explore 2022 (formerly known as VMware VMworld) is taking place this month in San Francisco at the Moscone Center August 29th, 2022 to September 1st, 2022.

If you haven’t gotten your ticket, you can sign up here: https://www.vmware.com/explore/us.html

As some of you know, I regularly write about virtualization technologies, in particular VMware. VMware products are not only involved in the work that I do, but part of a personal hobby and passion. I was an early adopter of Virtualization, and on top of that, VDI (Virtual Desktop Infrastructure) has become a personal obsession of mine.

Because of the content I’ve written online, I’ve had the pleasure of helping others with these technologies. Over the years this has brought me new friendships, business customers, and given me a sense of participation in the larger community, ultimately leading to me achieving my VMware vExpert status, as well as being a part of the VMware vExpert EUC sub program.

Even though I’ve been in tech since becoming an adult, I’ve actually never had the opportunity to visit a large-scale conference in person in my entire life. VMware Explore 2022 will be my first in-person tech conference!

So why am I going? What do I hope to get from it? What are my reasons for attending?

Essentially there’s 3 big reasons why I’m going to be attending:

• Community
• Knowledge
• Business

Let’s dive in to each one…

Community

As mentioned above, I’ve had the pleasure of being a part of the VMware vExpert program for the past couple years. During this time, it has helped my content reach new audiences, I’ve had the chance to converse and talk with the top industry experts, I’ve also had the chance to learn more about the technologies I love, and it’s given a sense of belonging and participating in something “big”.

Blogging has been a passion of mine for as long as I can remember, with the first post on this blog going back to April 11th, 2010. Blogging has allowed me to not only share my knowledge, but also participate and contribute to the community. This has helped me meet new people, network, learn even more, and also help others pursue their passions and goals with technology.

Attending VMware Explore 2022 will help me take this a step further to actually meet some of those in the community face to face. I love meeting new people, and this will allow me to engage with those who have stumbled across my blog, and it will also allow me to meet those who are leaders with the community and hopefully even learn some new things from them.

I’ve already started working on my list of people to meetup with!

Knowledge

In addition to the knowledge I hope to learn from others in the community, VMware Explore 2022 has over 600 technical sessions (some even hosted by fellow vExperts) where you can learn more about the technologies you use everyday, as well as technologies you’re considering or planning on using in the future.

The full content catalog for VMware Explore 2022 can be found here: https://event.vmware.com/flow/vmware/explore2022us/content/page/catalog

In particular, a few products and solutions I want to increase my knowledge with are:

• VMware Workspace One
• VMware Horizon Cloud Service
• VMware vSphere+

In addition to the above, I’m sure I’ll be expanding my knowledge on things I wasn’t even planning on… You could say the point of the conference is to “Explore”!

Business

VMware products and solutions have been an important part of the solutions and offerings my business provides. In addition, those products and solutions are also the foundations of many businesses and organizations key IT infrastructure.

These conferences are great to network, discuss business, find new potential clients and vendors, and also connect with those that you already do business with!

In the last 4 years the amount of international consulting I’ve been providing has increased exponentially on a year over year basis. And while it’s been amazing experience and I’ve had the chance to help many organizations with their VMware infrastructure, the only complaint I have is that I can’t meet face-to-face and shake hands with those customers as much as I’d like to. We have Zoom and Teams, but it’s not the same thing…

One thing I’m really looking forward to, is finally meeting quite a few of those customers face-to-face for the first time. I’m sure we’ll even have a few stories after attending a few (or many) of the VMware Explore parties that happen during that week.

Additionally, many major vendors sponsor VMware Explore and will have booths at the event, so I’m looking forward to meeting and shaking hands with some of my favorite vendors!

All in all, I think it’s going to be a great time and I’m really excited to attend. I hope to see you there!