So this is it – VMware Explore is happening in Barcelona for the first time. And we’re less than one week out. Now it’s a huge event, with SO much to see and do, but where do you start?
Well, I’d be remiss if I didn’t recommend attending “The Multi-Cloud Universe: Bold Innovations and Insights to Accelerate Your Business (aka the General Session) at 9 AM, Tuesday morning. It’s my top pick, and suggest it be yours as well (and not just because I’m in it ;-). So, where do you go from there?
Next up, I highly recommend you look at attending the Solution Keynotes. These will give you more detail on strategy and announcements in the key areas for our customers, with leaders from across VMware in a star-studded line-up.
Compelling New Innovations from the VMware Office of the CTO [VIB1542EUR]
Tuesday, 8 Nov | 11:00 – 12:00 CET | Hall 8.0, Room 17
First on your list after the Solution Keynotes should really be this session by our Chief Research and Innovation Officer, Chris Wolf – this is where you’ll really get a glimpse of the future you came to VMware Explore for. Attend this session to see compelling deep dives and technical demonstrations of emerging and differentiated innovations that will have a meaningful impact on how you drive innovation within your organization.
Sovereign Cloud Summit 2022
Monday, November 7th 1:00–5:00 PM | Hall 8.0 Room 13
The drive to sovereign clouds is top of mind for many of us in the industry. In face, you can hear me talk about the topic in the recent film “Clouded.”
To that end, we are running the first Sovereign Cloud Summit on Monday, November 7th, and I highly recommend you attend this inaugural event – it’s going to be big. You’ll learn how to navigate legislative challenges and drive opportunities for local economic growth. Hear the latest about EU policies and trends affecting data sovereignty, analyst market, predictions and views, legal and industry analysis, and customer and provider successes.
Police Pursuits and Microsoft Azure: Surrey and Sussex Police Talk SD-WAN [CEIB1930EUR]
Tuesday, 8 Nov | 14:00 – 14:30 CET | Hall 8.0, Room 31
This session features a really cool project I’ve been closely involved with. In addition to the creative use case, I love that it shows what you can really do when you challenge our Office of the CTO and Global Field.
And it all started with a question, “Why don’t we drop a [VMware] Edge device into a police car, connect it to our body-worn cameras, and stream live video whilst traveling at speed?” said Dr. Steve Conn, Technical Project Manager of Connectivity and Security, Surrey and Sussex Police Forces in the UK. Attend this session if you want to find out what happened next!
UK’s National Crime Agency is fighting crime with Horizon, NSX and Nvidia [SECB1455EUR]
Wednesday, 9 Nov | 15:00 – 16:00 CET | Hall 8.0, Room 23
Here’s more on the law enforcement technology front, a topic I personally find fascinating.
Hear how the UK’s National Crime Agency (NCA) is using VMware Horizon along with NSX-T to provide high-performance secure virtual desktops for digital investigators in support of high-profile criminal investigations, underpinned by Nvidia and Dell.
A Better Way to Onboard and Govern Native Public Clouds – AWS, Azure and GCP [CMB2355EUR]
Wednesday, 9 Nov | 13:30 – 14:30 CET | Hall 8.0, Room 27
We talk the talk about Multi-Cloud, but this is where we walk the walk. In this session, you will learn about the newly released VMware Aria Guardrails that provides the ability to create cloud environment landing zones with predefined org setup, network, IAM and security, cost and performance policies.
Tutorial: Introduction to VMware Tanzu Application Platform [CNAT2177EUR]
Monday, 7 Nov | 15:00 – 16:00 CET | Hall 8.0, Room 27
VMware Tanzu Application Platform (TAP) is game-changing for developers, and customers tell me all the time how much of an impact it’s made. Here’s your chance to see why. This session will explore some of the powerful capabilities the VMware Tanzu Application Platform provides on top of any Kubernetes to close the developer experience gap.
Diversity Discussion: Journeys of Empowered Women in Tech [PCB1138EUR]
Tuesday, 8 Nov | 12:00 – 13:00 CET | Hall 8.0, Room 30
There have been some amazing diversity sessions at VMworld in the past, and VMware Explore is continuing that tradition — while, at the same time, stepping things up. I’ve learned a lot from attending these over the years, and this session looks particularly promising. This session will bring together women leaders and allies from VMware and our customers to discuss how diversity has shaped the industry and their journeys to leadership.
A Cloud Management Journey – Monolith to Modern Apps With vRealize Suite [ELW-HOL-2201-08-CMP]
Monday, 7 Nov | 11:15 – 12:45 CET | Hall 8.0, Hands-on Labs, Workshop 1
Workshops and Hands-On-Labs are something very special about VMware Explore, and this one really caught my eye, as it addresses one of the major themes in my conversations with customers. Learn how vRealize Cloud Management can support development teams as they transform applications as part of an application modernization strategy.
Refactoring IaaS Automation to a GitOps Methodology with Aria Automation [CMB3296EUR]
Thursday, 10 Nov | 10:30 – 11:30 CET | Hall 8.0, Room 23
Sessions with customers talking about their real-world experiences are always valuable and recommended.
Exploring VMware Tanzu and Sustainability [CNAB2802EUR]
Wednesday, 9 Nov | 09:00 – 09:30 CET |Hall 8.0, Room 25
ESG (Environmental, Social & Governance) and particularly sustainability are very close to my heart, and something I have championed and led here in EMEA for many years. It is now becoming intrinsic in our products. In this session, we’ll explore and demonstrate the potential of Tanzu to help in the achievement of enterprise sustainability goals. In addition to providing the container orchestration platform of choice for modern applications, Kubernetes has the proven potential to reduce the carbon footprint across a company’s app infrastructure.
How VMware IT Optimised carbon Footprint in Datacenters utilising Aria Operations ( previously called vRealize Operations) [NETB2242EUR]
Wednesday, 9 Nov | 09:00 – 10:00 CET | Hall 8.0, Room 24
Here’s another sustainability-focused session aimed at achieving carbon reduction and ESG goals. This session will show how VMware IT leveraged VMware vRealize Operations sustainability-focused dashboards to measure and track carbon footprint, thus giving the capabilities to optimize it.
VMware Tanzu for Developers [ELW-HOL-2235-01-MAP]
Thursday, 10 Nov | 11:45 – 13:15 CET | Hall 8.0, Hands-on Labs, Workshop 3
Another workshop/lab – getting hands-on with the core parts of Tanzu for developers – even if you are not a developer, go sit in their shoes for a bit.
Deliver Ransomware Protection with VMware NSX, VMware Carbon Black, and VMware Cloud Disaster Recovery [SECB1237EUR]
Thursday, 10 Nov | 12:00 – 13:00 CET | Hall 8.0, Room 26
Ransomware? How does VMware help with that – well, we can be core to your defences. My colleague Amanda Blevins wrote a great paper on this, and this session goes further.
Need to Migrate Thousands of Workloads? No Problem! [CXS4056EUR]
Wednesday, 9 Nov | 16:00 – 16:45 CET | Hall 8.0, Customer Experience and Success Theater
This is one of the coolest sessions – and was the VMware Explore US 2022 People’s Choice Award winner for a reason. In this session, you will learn how to avoid the pitfalls of large-scale migrations.
Finally, these two sessions kind of go together and the second one sounds quite fun, “Take part as a fictional company gets breached” – anything with the words “War Room” in it sounds intriguing to me, and the list of presenters is impressive:
Security Mindset: Changing The Way You Think About Enterprise Security [SECB2987EUR]
Monday, 7 Nov | 13:00 – 14:00 CET | Hall 8.0, Room 25
Day in The Life of a Cross Functional Security War Room [SECB2988EUR]
Monday, 7 Nov | 14:30 – 17:30 CET | Hall 8.0, Room 25
While carefully curated, it’s admittedly not a particularly short list of recommendations. There are just going to be too many great sessions to choose from during your time in Barcelona. I hope this list inspires you to check out something new while at Explore or maybe just validates some planning you’ve already done.
See you in Barcelona,
Joe
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