By now, you’ve undoubtedly heard about the big change with our annual flagship tech event — VMworld is now VMware Explore. And while the scope of the event has changed, for me, one thing remains constant; I go to learn and be inspired.
Sure, I’m looking forward to the opportunity to see colleagues, customers, and partners again in person. And yes, the VMware Explore party Wednesday night at the new Chase Center is an iconic part of the experience. But as a life-long learner who is passionate about advances in infrastructure technology and curious about industry trends — the sessions are what I look forward to the most.
At last check, here’s the rundown of sessions at VMware Explore:
- 467+ breakout sessions
- 86 expert-led workshops
- 95+ labs
- 51 demo stations in the VMware Expo
- 49 meet the expert sessions
- 10 tutorial workshops
- 8 solution keynotes
- 1 general session
And with so much to choose from, there are a few that I think deserve some special attention. Looking through the event scheduler, I noted a handful I would consider “don’t miss” sessions. Here they are:
Innovation Through a Different Lens [CMK2437US]
Wednesday, Aug 31 | 1:00 PM – 2:00 PM PDT
I did not include this session because it’s my keynote; I included it because it’s going to be awesome! (I am not one for tempering expectations). Seriously, I’m excited to share some examples of how VMware approaches innovation differently and to geek out with attendees over some cool new Tanzu, digital forensics, blockchain, and crypto-agility tech.
Extreme Performance Series: vSphere Advanced Performance Tutorial [CEIT1097US]
Three Sessions starting on Monday, Aug 29 | 1:00 PM – 2:00 PM PDT
Dive deep into vSphere! This session is so valuable that they decided to hold it three times. In it, you’ll get the most advanced technical performance-oriented training about vSphere performance design, tuning, and troubleshooting. It will be a great chance to learn directly from the experts in an interactive setting.
Getting Kubernetes Ready for Developers with Platform as a Product [DOST2359US]
Monday, Aug 29 | 1:00 PM – 2:00 PM PDT
There’s a lot of talk and focus on agility from all corners of the industry these days (rightfully so!). This workshop will highlight how operations groups are transforming from a service delivery mindset to a platform-as-a-product approach, giving developers the type of nimbleness they need.
60 Minutes of Virtually Speaking Live: Accelerating Cloud Transformation [MCLB2804US]
Tuesday, Aug 30 | 12:30 PM – 1:30 PM PDT
It’s a live edition of the Virtually Speaking Podcast! VMware legends Frank Denneman, Duncan Epping, and William Lam join Virtually Speaking to discuss the complexities of cloud transformation from a technical and operational perspective. The hosts say that audience participation is highly encouraged – I have a feeling this is going to be a fun one.
Adventures in Technical Career Progression [VIB1558US]
Wednesday, Aug 31 | 2:00 PM – 3:00 PM PDT
Don’t miss the winner of the Vision & Innovation track’s People’s Choice Award. The hosts of the Nerd Journey podcast bring their show to VMware Explore. Nick and John will discuss top-of-mind topics for many attendees: determining if people leadership is for you, becoming a top-level individual contributor, and value in making lateral moves – excellent subject matter for everyone, no matter where you are in your career journey.
A New Approach to Building and Operating for Multi-Cloud [MCLB2320US]
Wednesday, Aug 31 | 12:30 PM – 1:30 PM PDT
Super excited for this session led by Hüseyin Dursun and Pradeep Nair, who lead our VMware Platform Services engineering organization. They’ll share learnings from their team’s experiences and valuable insights on changing your engineering organization’s approach to building services with multi-cloud.
Design the Future of Multi-Cloud with Us [DES1917US]
Six sessions starting on Tuesday, Aug 30 | 3:00 PM – 4:00 PM PDT
These sessions are a great opportunity to directly impact the future of multi-cloud through this “Design with Us” session. Join our Design/UX team in one of their many interactive “Design with Us” sessions, where they will collaborate with customers and partners to explore key areas of future design. I can’t wait to see the ideas that develop from these conversations.
Getting Started with VMware Blockchain [SPL-HOL-2288-01-EMT]
Hands-on Labs | Self-paced
While there are Hands-On Labs on about every topic you can imagine, I’m particularly excited to see the “Getting Started with VMware Blockchain” lab. The term Blockchain can be misleading and misunderstood. With VMBC, we are building a distributed ledger platform – enabling the next generation of application architecture. Some really cool technology that can bring tremendous value to organizations – be sure it check it out!
A year of transformation at the United States Army Software Factory [CNAB3009US]
Wednesday, Aug 31 | 9:30 AM – 10:00 AM PDT
In 2021, The United States Army Futures Command embarked on a journey alongside VMware Tanzu Labs to transform Soldiers and Department of the Army Civilians into agile software developers. The goal — for these developers to become capable of building software designed for the US Army and to reduce reliance on contracted software development support. Edward Hieatt – Senior Vice President, Services & Support at VMware Tanzu, will be joined by Lieutenant Colonel Vito Errico – Director Army Software Factory, for what is sure to be an inspiring fireside chat. They will reflect on this unique program and discuss what it takes to transform a large organization and implement a DevSecOps culture.
If you happen to join the Wednesday night gathering and we run into each other, let’s compare notes. The only thing better than attending as many sessions as possible is learning from all the great sessions I did not get to attend.
Best,
Kit
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