Here we go again! 2012 marks the 9th VMworld Conference (I remember Steve Herrod, then Senior Director of R&D, giving a technical overview of ESX and explaining what a VMM was) which is only 23 days away, but for some the planning started months ago. This is by far the best IT conference on the planet, it all started with a little love for virtualization and has grown by the need for next generation computing. There isn’t one event that captures everything from core infrastructure components and software all the way up the stack through application development and end-user computing devices. One full week filled with education, networking, entertainment and awesome technology!

The networking opportunities have to be the best piece of VMworld, never will you be able to meet with other people as passionate about a single thing as you are. This year I believe we’ll learn a lot more about where the direction of VMware (as a company) is going. Hopefully we’ll be able to put somethings together about their recent acquisitions, DynamicOps and Nicira to name a couple. And perhaps Paul Maritz will put a little more content to why he’ll be joining EMC as their Chief Strategist. This is still all in addition to the great breakout sessions that you’ll find at VMworld, including (shameless plug) INF-VSP1504 – Ask the Expert vBloggers :).

So here is my schedule, full of great sessions, fun networking opportunities, awesome parties and completely slammed from morning to evening….boy I love VMworld! I’ll keep this schedule up to date as I add new events, so please keep this bookmarked! At the bottom of the page I’m going to include some “Interested” sessions and Vendors, these are sessions that I wasn’t able to schedule due to conflict but that I’d still very much like to watch perhaps on-demand after the conference.

If you have an event that your hosting/sponsoring and you’d like it added to my schedule, please let me know!

Legend
	VMworld Session
	VMworld General Session
	Party/Event
	vTweetUp

Sunday, August 26th
4:00pm	VMworld 2012 Welcome Reception
	Food, Drinks and Networking….all inside the Solutions Exchange.
4:00pm	EMC Annual #v0dgeball Charity Tournament 2012
	SoMA Rec Center 270 6th St and Folsom St San Francisco, CA 94103
	If you can dodge a wrench, you can dodge a ball!This event should be great fun for a great cause.Come see up to 12 teams battle it out.A $5 donation fee is suggested and appreciated. All proceeds go to The Wounded Warriors Project.If you cannot attend but would still like to donate, click here to donate.
8:00pm	VMunderground Party 2012
	Jillians 175 4th Street San Francisco, CA 94103
	In its sixth year of existance, the VMunderground Party is the largest party out of all of the festivities all week. Put together by guys who love virtualization and some great sponsors that are down for the cause. This is the Mother of All vBeers, a party not to be missed.
Monday, August 27th
8:30am	General Session
	Paul Maritz’s, VMware CEO, Opening Keynote for VMworld 2012
10:30am	INF-VSP1168 – Architecting a Cloud Infrastructure
	Unknown Room
1:00pm	INF-VSP1196 – Whats New: vCloud Director Networking
	Unknown Room
2:30pm	INF-VSP1504 – Ask the Expert vBloggers
	Unknown Room
	Come to this panel session where you’re the focus point of discussion! You ask the questions and the experts answer them, live on stage. Come have @frankdenneman, @duncanyb, @scott_lowe, @sakacc and @rick_vmwaretips answer your questions!
3:30pm	INF-NET3457 – Nicira and the Future of Software Defined Networking
	Unknown Room
7:00pm	Official/Unofficial VMworld Tweetup and #vFlipcup Tournament
	Cable Car Pub One Hallidie Plaza (5th & Market) San Francisco, CA 94102
8:00pm	vGeekfest Party
	Infusion Lounge 124 Ellis Street San Francisco, CA 94102
	Awesome party you will not want to miss hosted by EMC’s Chad Sakac.
Tuesday, August 28th
8:30am	General Session
	Steve Herrod, VMware CTO, will be presenting his keynote to the VMworld 2012 audience.
10:30am	TEX2198 – Cloud Application Platform Roadmap (TAP Only)
	Unknown Room
2:00pm	SS1010 – Cloud Transforms IT. Trust Transforms Cloud. Big Data Transforms Business.
	Unknown Room
	Come see President and COO of EMC, Pat Gelsinger, deliver his keynote during this VMworld Super Session.
3:30pm	INF-STO2192 – Tech Preview of a Software-defined Storage Technology
	Unknown Room
4:30pm	DTCUG-IP at VMworld 2012
	DellTechCenter.com User Group Event
6:00pm	EMC Customer Appreciation Party
	The Grand Nightclub 520 4th Street San Francisco, CA 94107
8:00pm	Veeam VMworld 2012 Party
	Mezzanine San Francisco 444 Jessie Street San Francisco, CA 94103
9:00pm	vBacon TweetUp
	Cable Car City Pub & Cafe One Hallidie Plaza San Francisco, Ca 94102
Wednesday, August 29th
8:00am	TEX2225 – Cloud Infrastructure Suite Roadmap (TAP Only)
	Unknown Room
11:30am	INF-STO2223 – Tech Preview: vSphere Integration with Existing Storage Infrastructure
	Unknown Room
2:00pm	TEX1899 – VMware vCloud Automated Networking Framework: Network Extensibility (NetX)
	Unknown Room
3:00pm	XtremeIO Live
	Unknown Room
	XtremIO is revealing a huge hands-on opportunity at VMworld 2012. Get face-to-face with an online system and with the Engineers that built it.
3:30pm	TEX2158 – Enabling Scalable Virtual Networks with VXLAN – Customer and Partner Scenarios
	Unknown Room
7:00pm	VMworld 2011 Party
	The party of the year! This year VMware brings Bon Jovi to rock-out VMworld 2012
10:00pm	VMworld 2012 vStogies
	Occidental Cigar Club 471 Pine St San Francisco, CA 94101
	vTweetUp event at the Occidental Cigar Club, where you can get your stogie and a smooth cognac.
Thursday, August 30th
9:00am	General Session
	VMware CMO, Rick Jackson, presents his keynote along with some special guests.
10:30am	INF-VSP2203 – Datacenter of the Future
	Unknown Room
12:30pm	OPS-CSM1449 – Tech Preview of the Next Generation of vCloud Connector
	Unknown Room
2:00pm	EUC1305 – What’s New and What’s Next for VMware View?
	Unknown Room

Other Must Watch Sessions at VMworld

• INF-VSP3046 – What’s New with Cloud Infrastructure Suite: From Management Application to Integrated Applications and Extensible Platform
• **EUC1453 – Managing from the Middle with Horizon
• **INF-STO2980 – vSphere 5 Storage Best Practices
• **OPS-CIM1900 – Moving from Reactive to Predictive Performance and Systems Management
• OPS-CSM2033 – Auto Scaling and Cloud Bursting in the Hybrid IaaS Cloud
• INF-BCO2655 – “VMware vSphere Fault Tolerance for Multiprocessor Virtual Machines—Technical Preview and Best Practices
• INF-STO2143 – Software-Defined Storage – VMware’s Storage Vision & Strategy
• **SPO3338 – The Latest in IT Transformation with EMC and VMware
• **INF-BCO2807 – vSphere HA and Datastore Access Outages – Current-Capabilities Deep-Dive and Tech Preview
• INF-VSP2164 – Automation of vCloud Director Disaster Recovery
• INF-NET2373 – Best Practice for Deploying VXLAN with Cisco Nexus 1000V and VMware vCloud Director
• EUC1526 – VMware Horizon: Upcoming Attractions and Roadmap
• APP-CAP1250 – Fast Data Meets Big Data
• INF-VSP1423 – esxtop for Advanced Users
• INF-BCO2982 – Stretched Clusters and VMware vCenter Site Recovery Manager: How and When to Choose One, the Other, or Both

Must See Vendors at VMworld

Last year Nutanix and Tintri really caught my attention at VMworld, this year I have a new list of vendors that have sparked my interest and I will definitely be checking them out:

• DynamicOps (recently purchased by VMware)
• PureStorage
• Simplivity
• Canopy

So there you go… A week full of events, sessions, general sessions, parties, vTweetUps and more. This is going to be an amazing week. I can’t wait to see some old vFriends and to meet some new ones!

Be sure to find me while at the show, I love meeting new people and reconnecting with old vFriends, so be sure to keep an eye out on Twitter for my live tweets.