VMworld EMEA usually ends up being a re-run of VMworld US but this year promises to actually be more exciting than the US edition was. The main reason for this is that VMware announced very little at VMworld US and overall the announcements were a bit lackluster. This year the timing of the new versions of VMware’s core products were a bit too far out from VMworld US so VMware will doing a lot of big product announcements at VMworld EMEA instead. As a result you are going to be wanting to pay attention to VMworld EMEA and if you can’t attend I’ll tell you how to do it.
The bloggers
There are hundreds of bloggers that write about VMware technology and there is no shortage of bloggers that attend VMworld and report on what they see, hear and experience at the show. You can expect bloggers to write about anything from thoughts and opinions on products and companies to what parties they attended to live blogging about sessions they attend. Even bloggers who are not attending the show will be posting about the announcements at the show as VMware has held pre-show blogger early access briefings. So blogs are a great way to tap into all the information relevant to the show and the announcements.
Once of the best ways to keep up with what the bloggers are posting is checking out my recently re-vamped and re-launched Planet vSphere-land which serves as a post aggregator for the top 100 vBloggers as well as VMware official blogs. The VMworld EMEA website also has a special list of VMworld bloggers along with feeds to keep you informed of all the latest blogger posts. You can also check out the official VMworld blog as well.
If you’re not on Twitter by now, why not? You may not be that social or the chatty type but its a great way to listen in on the thousands of people on social media all talking about VMworld in real time. So if you don’t have an account, sign-up now before VMworld and then use the many VMworld focused twitter resources to listen in and participate. The @VMworld account is the official account for VMworld so make sure and follow it, you also might follow the most popular bloggers as well to see what they are saying about VMworld. You can see the top bloggers here along with their twitter handles and also check out my list of the Top 100 VMware/virtualization people to follow.
You’ll also want to keep an eye on hashtags that flag tweets that related to a specific topic. The official hashtag for VMworld is #vmworld (not #VMworld2016 or #VMworldEMEA) there are also hashtags specific to each session (#sessionID) and fun ones such as #vmworld3word and #vmworldselfie. VMware also has a Social Stream of Twitter feeds available that is like a giant tweet billboard that you can watch to see the latest Twitter action at VMworld.
Live streams
VMware doesn’t live stream breakout sessions but they do live stream the 2 main general sessions which are where all the new product announcements are made. The opening general session (Tuesday) is historically more focused on VMware’s high level vision and strategies as heard from Pat Gelsinger and I’m sure Michael Dell will make an appearance. The 2nd general session (Wednesday) is more focused on the details and specific products and technologies and typically features more techie speakers such as Sanjay Poonen, Ray O’Farrell, Kit Colbert and Yanbing Li. The general sessions are at 9:00am London time so they are pretty late for us in the states (1:00am PST) but they always post the replay for you to watch after the session is over. To sign-up to view the general sessions live head on over to VMware’s general session live streaming page and pre-register where you can put in your email address and be sent a calender invite for them.
YouTube
I’m pretty sure VMware will have a camera crew roaming around VMworld EMEA recording content for VMworld TV which will be narrated in part by the famous Mr. Sloof. In the past they featured a nice roll-up of the days happenings that summarized everything using the recordings that were made throughout the day. Keep an eye out on the VMware TV YouTube channel for posted recordings.
View recorded sessions
Almost all breakout sessions at VMworld US were recorded as it’s impossible for attendees to see more than a small fraction of the amount of total sessions (700+). The recordings allow attendees to watch each session after the event is over to check out all the great sessions that they could not attend while at the event. The audio for all sessions is recorded and presented along with the slides for each session, in some cases for more popular sessions they have video recorded them as well at past VMworlds.
This year VMware decided to release all of the recordings to the general public so you can go there and watch them now. Most of the sessions at VMworld EMEA are re-runs of the US sessions and are not recorded again except for panel type sessions that are usually different at each event. Because of the unique announcements at VMworld EMEA this year there will be session that were not at VMworld US, VMware has posted a list of them here. I suspect they will be recorded and available after the show as well.
