As an experienced VMware engineer, I too was hoping for some real substantive content. When I didn’t really get any, I marked it up to being “too advanced” for VMworld and instead I’ll try to make it to TSX next year instead.

In any case, I’m glad the blog has proved helpful to you. I’ll do my best to keep the good content rolling, so spread the word, and thanks for reading!

VMworld was my first conference and may be my last. My wife told me I expect too much, but come on VMware, I have been to both Install and Configure and Deploy, Secure, and Analyze, and now VMworld HOPING to learn things that will prevent me from the need to call support and didn’t. I am really disappointed. Some of the other engineers from my company were with me also and reiterated the lack of real substance of the “technical” sessions. I sat through my Security Infrastructure lab and really felt like it had been written by either Marketing or a Linux Engineer that didn’t really “get” security. (NOTE: ALWAYS BACK EVERY FILE YOU MODIFY, NOT JUST THE PAM.D FILES). My other lab was a little better (the SDK one) but still left much to be desired. I sat in the “Running AD in a Virtualized Environment” super-session for about 20 minutes before recognizing that it really was just a talk on NTP.

However, I much commend two sessions, both on Thursday. VMCI and Vsockets have the potential to be one of the best reasons to run apps in a VM for any organization that cares about security and\or efficiency in a VM. From a troubleshooting and debugging point of view, VAssert and VProbe are two of the coolest tools I have seen in a while. Especially VProbe.

In conclusion, I wanna actually kiss your a$$ and thank you for your help. I have used your blog extensively over the last year and it has helped me more than any other resource.

It’s unfortunate that people are being so inconsiderate, and it’s true that the traffic management hasn’t been the best in the world. I was speaking with a fellow attendee yesterday who was also in LA last year, and we both agreed that last year’s venue was far more friendly than the Moscone Center.

I have to agree with you: I think the choice of the Moscone Center was not the best choice for this conference.

The staggering amount of people shoved into the conference center made going from one session to another is a logistical nightmare. Crowd control was almost non-existant on Day 1; there was a noted improvement on Day 2 — mainly because out of desperation the “handlers” adopted a hard-line attitude with the attendees — but it was still chaotic.

And perhaps it’s due to the overcrowding, but I have never seen the so many blatently inconsiderate people! I’ve lost count of the number of people that rudely try to cut in line because, as one person put it “the line goes so far back!” When someone else points out their lack of consideration and/or won’t allow them to cut, the person either a) sheepishly pretends that they never saw the line of hundreds of people or b) become belligerent and make a scene.

The best (worst?) example had a group of 5-6 guys simply by-pass a long line and calmly stand at the very front. When someone sarcastically asked “So, you’re just going to walk in front of everyone?” one from the group turned around and gave a smug “Yes, we are.”

I know that the “me-first” attitudes of a minority of the attendees isn’t the fault of VMware in regards to this conference. However, jamming that many people into a space that cannot handle the traffic is a black eye for VMware.