Archive for the ‘User Groups’ Category

Please to announce that registrations are now open for the Irish VMUG which takes place next Thursday at:

Dell Inc.
Raheen Business Park
Building: Auditorium
Limerick, Ireland

The Agenda includes:

11:00 a.m. – Pre-Lab Registration
11:30 a.m. – 10 Stations, Two People Per Station
1:00 p.m. – Non-Lab Registration and Lunch
1:30 p.m. – Introduction and Tour of Facility
2:15 p.m. – VMware Cormac Hogan on New Releases
2:50 p.m. – Storage Virtualization – Equallogic & Compellent – Justin Rohan/Martin Petty
3:20 p.m. – Break/Refreshments
4:00 p.m. – VIS, Mobile Clinical Computing, Connected Classroom Solutions All VMware Industry Vertical Solutions – Tom Maher/Jeff McCann
4:30 p.m. – VMware View 4.6 Reference Architecture – Mike Hayes/Andres McDaniel
5:00 p.m. – Q&A and Refreshments

Click at the graphic to register!

It’s my pleasure to announce the date for the very first UK wide VMware User Group Conference. This has been in gestation for sometime, and its basically a user group of user groups. With all the main user groups in our region coming together for the very first time. This is very much like the one-day regional summits or conferences that I have been attending this year in the US.

Registrations are now open (click at the graphic above!). The steering committee members are building out the agenda and gathering the sponsors, ably supported in this effort by the Global VMUG. So register – and fix the dates in your diary. It starts on Thursday, November 3, 2011 and will run from 8am to 5pm. There will be multiple tracks to chose – that will suit all different types of interests – and some notable keynotes as well, along with Labs. It will be held at:

National Motorcycle Museum
Coventry Road
Bickenhill, Solihull, West Mids, England B92 0EJ

So along side some very interesting sessions, I’m hoping to find time so see some legends of the road!

I’ve agreed to speak and take part in a possible panel session – as well as spend the rest of my time in the “experts/genius bar” too!

I’ve also heard that Joe Baguley, VMware’s new Chief Cloud Technologist for EMEA has agreed to speak at the event too..

Last week I spent a couple of days in Nashua, NH with Dell – and then later on I pootled over to Indy to present at the VMUG there, and take part in a panel along side Scott Lowe (EMC), David Davis (TrainSignal), Scott Herold (Quest) and Vaughn Stewart (NetApp). Here’s some photos of the day…

It’s just a couple a weeks to the next London VMUG on the 14th July. I will speaking at the event, and I have small incentive to encourage attendance. I’m up against some stiff competition in the rival track. So I want to make sure I’m NOT talking to myself in an empty room [Yes, I know folks will say I do this anyway...]

So if you attend my session (the whole session!) – then you stand the chance of winning a “Goodie Bag” stuff with contents tempt any hardened purveyor of swag. The bag will be awarded to an individual according to my own arbitrary and mercurial criteria.

The Bag: The bag is a laptop style bag with the logo “VMware Beta Program” in large white block letters.. and contains:

• 1x ZeRTO T-Shirt in red
• 1x Retro “Boxes-in-Boxes” VMware Logo’d mouse mat (up there with having the original DOS 5 floppy disks!)
• 1x VMware branded work shirt… (not a polo shirt, it has an actual collar. Heck, you might even where a tie with it!)
• 1x Bouncy ball from Quest that lights up… (Makes you go oooh, and ahhhh – like its Bonfire Night)
• 1x Double-Take Torch (It’s actually quite good, and not at all ****)
• 1x Microsoft Tech Kit (which includes Wireless Mini Mouse, 4port USB 2.0 hub, 18-1 Memory Card Reader, Bluetooth Dongle, USB Adapter Kit)
• 5 Books by Edward Haletky, Andi Mann, Frank Dennerman, Duncan Epping and many, many more…

It’s my pleasure to help promote the next stop in my US Tour of VMware User Groups. As Alan Renouf said, I’ve become the whore of VMUGs. Not sure if that is quite politically correct – but I’m enjoying my year of virtual prostitution. So my next stop is Indianapolis VMUG User Conference on the July 28. The event is being held in the Indiana Convention Center at 100 S Capitol Ave. Registration kicks of at 7am, and remember if you haven’t pre-registered we do accept a number of limited “walk-in” registrations. After the warm up the first session is a Ask the vExperts Panel comprising of myself and other such industry luminaries such as Scott Lowe, David Davis and Vaughn Stewart. When I’m not doing my own session I hope to be heckling Scott, David and Vaughn from the back of the room – I feel its important to nobble competition at every opportunity that presents itself. OK, in case you didn’t realize I was joking!!! :-p

There will be three sets off labs on:

• EMC
• PowerCLI
• ThinApp

and whole host of vendor touting the warez, and want to give you an IPAD. What’s not to like? Interesting – click at the big VMUG graphic to see a full agenda and pre-register!

Last week saw the announcement of the new London VMware User Group Meeting. I will be speaking myself on the topic of the “Future of SRM”, a sneaky peak at the future features of VMware’s Site Management technology.  The event is as at our usual location at Chambers of Commerce and Industry on 33 Queen Street, EC4R 1AP. The event kicks off at 10am to continue to make full use of the groups venue, and following the recent success of the groups “cloud” day – the format will very similar with two tracks – there will also be vCOPS focused lab together with a “Genius Bar”.

Click the graphic to register for the event – see you there!

Registrations for the Scottish VMUG have opened – and the event is on the 16th June.  Once again the event is being held Glasgow at:

Grand Central Hotel Glasgow
99 Gordon Street
Victoria Suite
Glasgow G1 3SF

and the event will run from 1:15 p.m. – 5:00 p.m…

Click at the VMUG Logo – to register, agenda to follow…

Well, I’m just about over the worst of my jetlag. But already my thoughts are turning towards my next speaking engagement in the US.

I will be speaking at the Western PA VMUG User Conference – on the 7th June…

I will be really looking forward to the event – especially for Hans Bernhardt’s session on “Cloud in the Real World”. I met Hans at the San Diego VMUG, and again last week in Palo Alto. He’s a great guy and I’m sure he’s an excellent speaker. All I can say is make sure you bring your rubber chicken along with you!

Registration in the morning begins at 7:30 a.m, and the event finishes up at  5:00 p.m.

It will be held at the prestigious Robert Morris University at this address:

Charles L. Sewall Center
6001 University Blvd.
Moon Township, PA 15108

Registrations are now open – if you want to attend click here!

How to get there: http://www.rmu.edu/web/cms/aboutrmu/Pages/campus-directions.aspx

Last week I was in Charlotte, North Carolina – I took part in two ways – first speaking about the Future of VMware Site Recovery Manager, and second as the 4th person in a panel about the Cloud – along side fellow panelist – Mike De Prelllo, Scott Lowe and Jason Nash.

Scott Lowe gave a rather interesting – and industry neutral – take on VMware HA stretched clusters – I was very taken with his thoughts, and I’m hoping to have him back on the chinwag to replay those thoughts…

I will be at the Pittsburgh VMUG in June, and the Indianpolis VMUG in July… Here’s my photos from my trip

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This is just a gentle reminder – I recently recieved an email for the London VMUG to say that the registration process had opened up for our “Cloudy Day”. It’s been a long time since London had a pea-souper fog, but we still get clouds occasionally!

When I last wrote about this the agenda such as it was still being fleshed out – but there’s now much more detail.

Sadly, I won’t make this VMUG as I will be out of the country at the time…