Sessions summary
Here is a list of sessions I managed to attend on Wednesday:
- Getting started with Horizon Workspace: Use cases and Configuration
- Demystifying VMware Mirage: Tips and Tricks for Success
Horizon Workspace is really quite well featured, and provides a centralised location for the workforce to access all the apps, desktops and data that is relevant to their role in the company. VMware use this internally, and it is a great example of how one can mobilise a large workforce.
The Mirage session felt quite lengthy, but it did have a wealth of information and best practices tips that were discussed. The session did start to feel a little bit tedious toward the end, but that was mainly due to the many slides of tips & tricks. Perhaps a slightly higher level look at the best practices would have suited the session time better. However, anyone who attended should now have a very good idea of how to approach a Mirage deployment from the start to the finish.
Vendor time / Solutions Exchange
I had a good wander around the solutions exchange and chatted with various vendors. Some of the interesting areas I looked at were:
- Nutanix
- Simplivity
- PernixData
- nVidia
- PuppetLabs
- Cisco
- VCE
I must say thanks to Simplivity and Nutanix for their vExpert gifts – I collected an awesome Raspberry Pi, and vExpert Beer glass from both 🙂
Hands on Labs
I got some more time on the HOLs section and managed to do some more PuppetLabs modules. This is a great framework/product and I’ll definitely be looking into it further in the future. It was also good to catch up with Steven Thwaites at the PuppetLabs stand – previously known from Xsigo, and have a chat with him around all the awesome PuppetLabs framework and functionality.
Bloggers / Community lounge
I spent a bit of time early morning catching up with other bloggers and networking. I had a good chat with Erik Bussink, and we also had a bit of a look at some troubleshooting his vMetrics plugin he grabbed from this blog which was having trouble connecting to WordPress. Incidentally, he has some awesome information about Infiniband and using it in your lab environment with ESXi – go check out his blog for more info if you are interested!
VMworld Party
Hanging around after the main conference event until 7pm, meant we could jump straight across to the VMworld party. The event was put together well, with some impressive layouts.
In the center area was a large roller disco, with the main stage up front hosting two or three acts throughout the evening. Food and drinks were plentiful and there were various arcade games scattered around the area. I had to fire up some old school Street Fighter, so we had a few vs. games of that among others.
