The week of VMworld started with an opening act to put all other opening acts to shame (except one of course!).  The big vEarthquake, which registered 6.0 (or was it 6.1?) on the Richter Scale 40 miles north of San Francisco,  awakened many of us early arrivers in the wee hours of Sunday morning to what sounded like a train coming through the room.  Nice way to welcome us to the earthquake capital of the US.  And it seemed like a very fitting opening to the week and tip of the hat to the seismic waves that VMware has been sending throughout the technology world for the past decade.  One couldn’t help to also notice the graphic for this year’s VMworld theme is a crumbling wall.  Just a little coincidental, I might add.  And as one tweeter commented, the Richter rating of 6.0 seemed to be a fitting, albeit unintended, promo for the upcoming vSphere 6.0 release.

Enough said about that – off to the event!  Partner Day was good – as expected, a little generic – but good.  It was fun to get the ball rolling early and get a sneak peak on some of the announcements that would be made the next couple days.  I believe this was the first year that VMware scheduled a whole extended series of sessions on Opening Day so that was a nice treat to have an entire day of sessions to get warmed up.

Then of course there was the Opening Acts.  And yes, not to be outdone by the earthquake, VMunderground and vBrownBag consolidated their efforts this year and put together a phenomenal series of panels on Storage, Networking, Architecture, Social… I haven’t yet seen if the recordings have been uploaded, but can’t wait to check these out.  I only got to see the Networking one moderated by Chris Wahl, but I heard the others were just as great.  Lots of very candid comments.  The one I saw had the inimitable Joe Onisick on board who never fails to deliver very lively perspectives.

After that, the Welcome Reception on the Solutions Exchange floor kicked off.  Great to see some of the vendors I’ve been vetting the last couple months as we’ve looked for companies and solutions to bring into our partnership fold.  I had productive conversations that night and throughout the week with companies like Tintri, Infinio, VMTurbo, Veeam, NetApp and Nutanix.  The opening reception has always been an exciting event since that seems to be the real official kickoff event for VMworld.  Food and drinks were flowing, vendors were eager to talk to customers, and attendees were looking forward to the week ahead.  I also had the pleasure of  running into buddies of mine from my former job – so great to hook up with them again.

After that was of course the legendary VMunderground party – the must-attend event to rub shoulders with vCommunity notoriety.  Again, not to be outdone by their Opening Acts or even their WUPassS parties in years past, the VMunderground crew hit a grand slam on this one.  Amazing venue, plenty of room, spectacular view, great food, lots of notable folks in the community….Well done guys! Good times and great conversations.

Great way to kick off the first day!