Twas the week before VMworld: top 10 things to do and see + secret hints (including Megalaunch III)

As I fly at 30,000ft from place to place this week, it’s the ideal time to bang out the VMworld session decks, write blog posts, and pull the things people count on me for over the line.  At the same time, I depend on other people far more – and a huge thank you to the people cranking on demos, shipping kit, prepping HoL, building funny videos, getting v0dgeball ready, aligning keynotes and more.   People will never really know how much goes on behind the scenes for these mega conferences (EMC World, VMworld, Oracle Open World, SAP Sapphire, Microsoft Tech Ed, etc) – trust me, it’s a lot of work behind the scenes to make it great for you – the customer.

For the 80 EMC SEs who were nominated to support VMworld – thank you for your efforts in advance.  It’s a privilege – but also a responsibility.  I’t not easy to man the booth, lab, and breakouts for a full week.   They were selected based on their VMware focus and skills.  It’s nuts.  We have hundreds of VCPs (most refreshed to VCP5), almost 900 people just finished their VTSP, and yup, a select few VCDXes (and some going for their defense this time).   Amongst those – it was not easy to pick.

To my friends (including my respected competitors, who I look forward to putting down the tools of the battlefield, and learning from each other), colleagues, customers and brothers and sisters at VMware – safe travels, and I look forward to seeing you!

Read on for my top 10 things to look out for!

1. My week starts with the VMware SE tech summit on Saturday – the equivalent of the EMC SE conference.  While not open to all, I’m thankful for the invite.   I’m looking forward to spending time with my fellow SEs from VMware.  Dave Schroeder (my brother SE leader for the Americas VMware team) has asked me to bring a vendor-neutral “what’s going on in storage land” update.  LOTS of disruption.  Flash, SDS, next gen platforms all around, software-only stacks, converged compute/storage models, and “seas of storage” and “data lakes” larger than anyone can visualize – but power services we use every day.  I’ll try to honor the request for honesty, neutrality and represent the vendor community at large.   On top of that, I want to frankly discuss the emerging dynamic of VMware as a storage vendor themselves in addition to the traditional dynamic of partner to the storage folks.  VMware SEs – I can’t wait to hang out with YOU!
2. On Sunday, we’re going to be holding the traditional rally for the EMC folks focused on the VMware partnership, and the VMware folks focused on the EMC partnership.  It’s an intense morning – lots to focus on.   BUT the BIG thing that is OPEN TO ALL is v0dgeball at 2pm.   v0dgeball has become a must-see event at VMworld.  Want to know more – check it out here.   Want to see my moves?   Check this out (yes, that’s me – as in NOT me – here):
1. Details: 
1. Where:  The SoMa (South of Market)/ Gene Friend Recreation Center – the address is: 270 6th Street/Folsom Street, San Francisco. It is a short walk from Moscone.
2. When: We made sure that it didn’t conflict with other Sunday activities (reception at the solutions exchange at 4pm, #vmunderground at 8pm) – so it’s between 2pm and 4pm on Sunday!
3. Who:  ANYONE WHO WANTS TO COME!   Being a spectator is a gas – it’s a ridiculous event.   There are 12 official teams at this point – incredible how quickly it filled up – thank you, and they contributed more than $12,000 donated to the Wounded Warriors, one of the EMC charities (and if you drop in, we would love a donation!):
1. Juniper
2. Brocade
3. “Recovering vSpecialists” – captain Matt Cowger
4. EMC – The team Chad will play for lead by JaseM
5. SMP
6. Coraid
7. vDB’s – Twitter team captained by @vcutlip
8. Cisco – vBacon - @commsninja
9. Cisco – Cloud Bunnies - @commsninja
10. NetApp - @vStewed
11. Vmware – VCDX
12. vExperts
3. Use your vPass!   There is a TON going on at VMworld – and for folks that are EMC customer or interested – the vPass has key stuff all in one place.   Get it all here.
4. The VMware and EMC HoL.   A ton of effort has gone into the VMware HoL (mostly VMware of course, but all their vendor partners pull out the stops).   The EMC specific-HoL is definitely off the beaten track.  Suffice it to say you will be a “puppet master” if you attend :-)   Seriously, it’s built by a lot of the team that has been working with the team at VMware on the vCloud Hybrid service, which has a crazy amount of abstraction and automation built in.    We’ve done the “hey, we have a vSphere client/web client plugin” HoL for the past couple of years – if you don’t know about it, we have it, yup it’s awesome, and yup it’s handy.  Check out the EMC HoL if you want to use learn more about the plugin, or the EMC booth.   But if you want EXTREME automation – check out the VMware HoL in the EMC partner labs:
• In the VMware HoL – we chose to go… more “extreme” (and check out the teaser below):
• Learn how to use Puppet, and then apply it with vSphere 5.next
• Use SDS using SPBM, ViPR and more
• See how you can use your new mad skillz to make Data Protection simpler, faster, heck almost the "backup as a service" model that you see in vCHS :-)
• Learn how to use vCO to make PaaS simple
• Learn crazy Hyperic skills
• check it out in the teaser video below (with awesome music – catch the reference before youtube makes us pull it!)
• Now, for folks who want even more around VMware/EMC goodness, there’s more than 15 (!) labs in the EMC-specific HoL (find out more here):
• VMware vSphere Integration with VNX for Efficiency & Performance
• Identify and Manage Storage Performance in your Virutalized Environment with the EMC Storage Resource Management Suite
• Introduction to EMC Storage Analytics for VMAX (ssshh… yup, full vCOPS support for VMAX)
• Manage Virtualized and Cloud Environments with EMC Service Assurance Suite
• VNX/VNXe Storage Monitoring & Analytics For Your Business
• VNX with AppSync: Simple Management, Advanced Protection  (sssh… Now full support for NFS use cases!)
• Achieving High Availability in SAP Environments using VMware ESXi Clusters and VPLEX
• Accelerate your time-to-value for the Cloud with the VMAX Cloud Edition self-service, enterprise-class cloud storage delivery platform
• Distributed Scalable Storage for your VMware Virtualized Environment with EMC Isilon
• Virtualize Storage without Compromise with EMC ViPR Software-Defined Storage
• Lightning Fast VM Recovery with EMC Avamar Featuring VM Instant Access
  Transform to Trusted IT  (ssshh… super duper new integration between Avamar and DD for instant restore of backed up VMs via insta-NFS datastore mount)
• Leveraging Fast and Efficient VMware Backup and Recovery Through vSphere with EMC NetWorker
• Operational and Disaster Recovery using RecoverPoint
• 3 Site HA & Disaster Recovery in a distributed VMware vSphere environment using EMC VPLEX Metro and RecoverPoint
• RSA Cloud Security and Compliance
• VSPEX Proven Infrastructure for End User Computing enabled by Citrix XenDesktop and VMware vSphere
5. Breakout STO5420: “Software-Defined Storage: The Art Of The Possible” (2:30pm PT, Monday) – this session is all about what is REALLY going on when it comes to “Software Defined Storage” (SDS) at VMware, at EMC, and in the industry in general.  Expect a fun rollercoaster into the minds of engineers writing storage stacks everywhere, and my experiences in the boardrooms of vendors, service providers and customers alike.  If you want a decoder of what’s REALLY going on at the giants and startups – this should be a useful session.   It’s conveniently on Monday at 2:30 – I’m sure I’m biased, but I would check it out before other storage-centric sessions from other vendors.  It will give you critical context, and I guarantee that I will be more vendor neutral than other folks.  If you want to bring tomatoes, bring ‘em.   Also, this one has the highest likelyhood of getting me fired (I love my job, I don’t want that to happen – but sometimes you know you are near the line) – always a fun-o-meter :-)
6. Breakout STO5464: “Leading Edge: Evolving To A Software-Defined Data Center” (11:30am PT, Wednesday) – this session builds on STO5420.  You don’t NEED to have been to STO5420 to get this one, but I assume a lot (if you want to share a lot of technical goop, some assumptions are always needed).  I would recommend having gone to STO5420.  This one is all about what the disruptions are doing to various storage architectures and stacks.   It will be a demo extravaganza.  It will have everything that we’re doing to out-adapt, out-evolve, out-innovate everyone around us (as they work to do the same to us – you’ve GOT to love being a customer!).  Here are some teasers:
• Sshh.. The next gen VNX has been quietly in beta, and no available for a bit.  Primary storage dedupe?  Yup.   want crazy performance testing results (block and NFS)?  Yup.      Want to know more?  Come to this session.  
• Ssshh…  We have put XtremIO through it’s paces at 100’s of customers now.   Want to know what we found?  Come to this session.   
• Shhh…   We’ve had customers order 80PB+ of storage for single use cases.   Want to know what that looks like?  Come to this session. 
• Ssshh…   ViPR is going to GA soon.  Want to find out more, and how to get it for FREE?   Using vCAC or Openstack – with _____ storage, and would love to automate more?   Interested in how to build a solid S3/Swift/Atmos stack on pretty well anything?  Want to know how it works?    Come to this session.
• Sshh… Progress on vVols is cool.   Everyone wants VM-granular everything.  Want to see the latest demos?  Come to this session.  
• Ssshhh.   Oh, not willing to wait for vVols?   BTW, we can now snapshot and replicate a single VM using Recoverpoint – with no hardware, and with ANY storage model (DAS, vSAN, EMC, non-EMC – tintri included :-) whatever).   Interested?  Come to this session
• …..I put the odds of me pulling this off in the time allotted at… well… zero.
7. STO5638 “STO5638 Best Practices with Software Defined Storage” (Wednesday, 4:00pm PT) Vaughn and I have been beavering away at the content for this one.  We’ve done this now for 3 years, and it’s always been well attended.  I think half the people come to watch Vaughn and I spar on stage, but the other half will enjoy it also – there’s lots in there about what we both see yesterday, today, and tomorrow.
8. The announcements.   Hey, I bet (wink, wink, nudge, nudge!) VMware has some big announcements in store! :-)
9. The keynotes.  I always dig Pat’s keynotes.  For me, that’s a must see on Monday.   Frankly, I’m going to miss Steve Herrod’s day 2 on tuesday, it has been a tradition – but there’s a strong crew, a strong team at VMware.  Will be great to Esch bring it as the MC, and the engineers to come to the forefront!  They will bring it, and I can’t wait!
10. The parties!  
• #vmunderground is a fave (though I’ve been forced to miss it recently) – I dig it because it’s “for the community, by the community” (though sponsorship has inevitably crept in – it happens – and THANK YOU to the sponsors).   Yup, it’s on like (software defined) donkey kong!  http://www.vmunderground.com/
• The EMC customer appreciation party on Tuesday at 8pm PT, Ghirardelli Square.   I threw down the gauntlet to the EMC event team several years back “make it the party everyone talks about”, and it’s been true for the last 3 years.  Every year, I take personal joy in being ignorant about the details so it’s all as much a surprise to me as everyone else – and yup, it’s true this year.   And.. what do you get if you combine EMC’s customer event with partners like Cisco and Intel?   You get a Cloudfest!  If you’re an EMC customer, trust me, get the bracelet/identifier you need to get it.   You must be a registered attendee of VMworld 2013 in order to participate.  Pick up your ticket at the EMC booth #1207 during exhibition hours.   It will be worth it.   We’ll also be awarding our Journey to the Cloud awards for the customers doing the funkiest stuff….   Find out more for that  here.
• Obviously Wednesday night is the big one when it comes to the party.   For EMC customers – I **might** have a suite at AT&T park (wink wink :-)  Talk to your EMC reps, ask them to plug in their “Cloud Business Director” and pull for a spot, and perhaps a hello to the band!   This year it’s Train, a great SF band through and through (though in the pic, they look like Mafioso's)

… Oh, and since ever list of 10 must be dialed up to 11….

11.   A crazy stupid, fun EMC nerd video.   Yup, we’ve done it again.   No, I won’t tell you details yet.  You’ll see it next week.  To give you an idea how consistently we are willing to make asses out of ourselves in good fun…

Here’s what we did in 2010:

… and the European team’s rejoinder:

Here’s what we did in 2011/2012 (EMCworld) (yes, and playas I remember you fondly):

And here’s what we did in 2012 (VMworld) – the most popular to date (very uncomfortable when I was actually in Gangnam, Seoul several weeks back)

… So what could we possibly have in store?  :-)

… And, intentionally hidden from VMworld (no point in fighting VMware for airspace)… is MEGALAUNCH III.   Megalaunch is the annual ultra-mega-exa launch of new EMC tech.   In the first one, we used a motorcycle to set a record jumping over VMAXes (and launched 40 other kickass products).  In Megalaunch II, we launched 42 new products, and set all sorts of new records, and used ridiculous, over the top theatrics to make it stupid and fun :-)    What. Possibly. Cloud. We have in store for Megalaunch III?   Here’s a hint:

HOLD YOUR CALENDARS, AND TUNE IN!

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