by
adam baum
It's 3pm and my first day here at VMWorld is over. I can't decide if today was a good day or an average day. I made it into two labs: "Leveraging VCB for DR" and "Building a Dynamic Datacenter with Multi-site DR using VI3". I was a walk-in for both of them.
The VCB lab was pretty good. I was able to make a number of mistakes (next time I will follow the lab manual) so I got plenty of troubleshooting experience. I completed all the labs and even had time for the optional labs. The lab instructors were engaging and did a good job of presenting. To keep things interesting, they hooked up a lab participants computer to the projector so we could watch them work. Given that I need to implement VCB in my shop, this lab alone was worth the cost of airfaire. (for those not in the know, I come from Arizona - airfaire is cheap)
The DRS lab was a bust. Not much info, not very engaging. To be fair, I was not at a computer for this lab. It seems VM made a rookie mistake when it came to the labs: not enough seats and computers. There were a lot of people turned away from the labs. In my case, I was not able to register for any of them because I only registered for VMWorld two weeks ago. All the labs were listed as full when I tried to register for them in late August.
Rant on: One thing that really bothered me was lunch, or should I say the lack thereof. Even though I attended the morning VCB session, I was not entitled to lunch because I did not pre-register for the lab. Keep in mind that there is no extra charge for the labs. Yes, I have a per diem so money was not the issue. It's the prinicple. I've paid to attend. I completed the lab. The only thing I didn't get was a blue sticker that pre-registered folks got that entitled them to lunch. Rant off
I've met more interesting folk and listened to them describe how they use VM. DR seems to be big this year. I have yet to find anyone interested in ACE or VDI, but everyone wants to know how to to DR.
So...my day of labs is over. Now I have to find a way down to Monster Park (Candlestick Park to us purists) to catch the 49ers vs Cardinals football game. I have an extra ticket and a parkinmg pass and I can't seem to find anyone to give them to. Loos like I'll be taking the bus. Regardless of how my day went, my night is going to be great. :)
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