Well, the dust has settled – or rather I’ve been so max’d out that I haven’t had time to write up my experiences. And I really should before it gets all fuzzy, like afternoon beer…
This TFD was in Boston, and virtualization focused. I was joined by a group other Merry Pranksters.
- Ed Czerwin, vSoup and vNinja, @ECzerwin
- Chris Dearden, J.F.V.I. and vSoup, @ChrisDearden
- Edward Haletky, The Virtualization Practice, @Texiwill
- Tom Howarth, PlanetVM, @Tom_Howarth
- Christian Mohn, vNinja.net and vSoup, @h0bbel
- Todd Scalzott, Don’t Call Me Scott, @TScalzott
- Shannon Snowden, Virtualization Information, @ShannonSnowden
- Gabrie van Zanten, Gabe’s Virtual World, @GabVirtualWorld
- Chris Wells, vSamurai, @wygtya
I found the event immensely fun, and tiring – and I wasn’t partying down at the bar with the other guys at the end of each day – and I was grateful to Clare & Stephen for arranging the events and making sure got enough R&R at the end of each day – be ready for the next…
The quality and range of presentation was many and varied – and think some vendors were a little intimidated by the group. TFD has a reputation for not suffering fools gladly, but I think occasionally our bark is worse than our bite. The presenters who came off worst were the ones who hadn’t really found about out the delegates – they came across badly when faced with Edward Haletky who’s a bit of security whizz – another vendor started to talk about VMware SRM not realising that I was in audience. Anyway, I don’t take these things personally (in a ‘don’t you know who am I way’) but no-one likes it when a presenter assumes you know nothing about subject – because they didn’t bother to find out the audience profile. TFD delegates aren’t pro-analysts or journalist (even though I find myself being some sort journo right in my current gig) – so delegates don’t especially warm to the kind of “briefing” content that’s some companies rely upon…
The general theme that came out from the event – is that group wanted more focus on integration with VMware vCenter – from all the vendors. Not a session went by when some didn’t mention whether the software in question had plug-ins into vCenter. That was especially true of the performance vendors – where folks were concerned about bringing in tools where VMware Admins just might not crank up the software – so overwhelmed they are by additional monitoring systems…
Personally, I would have liked have seen more small start-up vendors who were doing real bleeding edge development work. Perhaps that could be the a theme the TFD could pick up on next – Start-up TFD…
Anyway, here’s my decidedly partial view of each of the vendors who presented to us…
(more…)
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