My first VMUGBE+ event

Posted on by Kristof Asaert

The people following me on Twitter already knew that I was excited to go to this event. On Twitter I saw a lot of posts about other VMUG’s and it seemed like a really nice event where you learn and meet new people.
Well it was all true 🙂

1. The event

The event started with a keynote from VMware VP & CTO Joe Baguley. Man doe he has some great presentation skills :-o.
One slide I really liked, was the one where automation should be baked in our solutions. Something we can learn from, as it’s mostly seen as an added cost afterwards, BUT never gets done.

2. The sessions

The VMUG event is a free event but that doesn’t impact the quality of the sessions. There were some really cool sessions. It was nice to hear Johan van Amersfoort talk about a real life example where VMware technology was used for a “Force for good”.
Another session I found interesting was the one about vvols. That reminded me about the fact that I need to chase our storage guys to setup our XIV test environment so we can start playing around with it. But at least I know who to contact now when I have some questions about it (Maarten Van Driessen).
And then off course any session from the powercli master Luc Dekens is a good one. Unfortunately I don’t script every day so that makes it difficult to get mastered at it. When I start scripting I always need to “get into the flow” before I’m rolling. But at least I know that I’m using the correct tools => Visual Studio Code but I need to link it to GitHub.

Sessions I attended:

  1. VMware Cloud on AWS: Architecture and Solution Design
  2. Veeam availability suite 9.5 Update 4
  3. Unlocking the power of SPBM with traditional storage arrays
  4. ITQ – “VDI by day, compute by night”
  5. PowerCLI the Power of Code
  6. Community Session : vExpert

3. vExpert

The last session of the day was about the vExpert program. It was really nice to hear our local vExpert PRO Stijn Depril talk about the community. We also got to hear some feedback from current vExperts Maarten Van Driessen / Harold Preyers & Tom Vallons which was an eye-opener. Apparently we Belgians are modest and shy, but that shouldn’t hold us back to apply for vExpert. If you have a story to tell and want to give back to the community then you should apply for vExpert. So I’m going to put my money where my mouth is and applying for it this weekend. Fingers crossed 😉

4. The networking

At the end of the event we could enjoy a nice BBQ where we could talk and start to meet some new people. In my opinion as important as the sessions, if not more important.
At least it allowed me to meet some extra people of the ITQ team and also some of the speakers on the event.

5. Conclusion

  1. Help me spread the word about our Belgian VMUG community so next VMUG we have 300 participants.
  2. If you have a story to tell apply for vExpert.
  3. Definitely joining the next VMUG 🙂