It’s almost that time a year again….some might even call it that special time of year where VMware geeks from across the globe converge on VMworld.  One might even consider this summer camp, and like any who have experienced this before, you meet new people in the vCommunity, make friends, and part ways after the week of technical sessions, social gatherings, and just the straight up shop talking, war story sharing, and the sharing of ideas.  Personally, this will be my third year attending, and I am super excited to be going.  This conference means enough to me that, due to other circumstances that happened early this year, I purchased my own pass so to ensure that I wouldn’t miss out.

Now is the perfect time to cash in on those early bird discounts on conference passes, good until June 15.  Why wouldn’t you want to save a couple hundred dollars on one of the best IT conferences of the year?  For an individual, it’s $1,795 vs $2,095.  That’s before other discounts that may be applied like vmug memberships, or the discount for VMware Certified Professionals who hold an active VCP.

So, why go to VMworld?

I think for many first timers, there’s a certain electricity, and excitement about going.  Let me be the first to tell you, that feeling…. never really goes away.  Like the past couple of years, VMworld in the US will be held once again in Las Vegas.

I personally love coming to VMworld and have looked forward to it every year.  There’s always good energy here; the minute you get off the plane, it is happy.  Every experience I’ve had here is fun, and people genuinely are in a good mood.  This conference gives attendees the chance to attend VMware lead, and partner lead sessions on platforms you may have thought about using or are currently using.  These sessions are meant to share best practices with the community, transfer knowledge in ways to use VMware platforms, and also give you a chance to ask the experts, many of whom work for VMware, and in some cases, are very involved with the development of the platforms you use.

VMworld is not just about attending sessions however.  This conference gives you the unique opportunity to network with other IT professionals from across the globe and establish relationships that you would otherwise never be able to do.  Like it did for me, this conference may also inspire you to join the vCommunity, a thriving community of professionals who not only share their knowledge with others, but who also need help themselves.  I think we can all agree that no two environments/businesses are alike, and we have all used VMware’s platforms in ways that were intended, and in ways that even VMware might not have ever considered.  Members of the vCommunity take it upon themselves to share their experiences with others, through blogs, social media, and support forums to help others.  This conference gives us a chance to get together, share war stories from our time in the trenches, and many times, you will find attendees getting together to engineer and develop something cool.

VMware {code} group has even put together a hackathon, where members from the vCommunity can get together while at VMworld, to develop some amazing things, and sometimes there are even prizes to be had for the coolest of the cool ideas.  But don’t let those words “code” or “hackathon” scare you.  These sessions are not just for developers!  Sure it will certainly help, but the power of the community, enables you to participate in these teams anyways.  You may not be able to contribute code, but you can still contribute ideas to the team, and you might even pick up a few coding skills in the fun.  Let’s face it; some pretty cool ideas are cooked up during hackathons.  VMware’s internal hackathon cooked up the idea to bring VR into the datacenter, and allow you to virtually move your workloads from On-Premises Data Centers, into the cloud.  It’s freakin VR man!  How cool is that?

The VMworld conference also affords you the opportunity to attend instructor lead labs, along with VMware’s hands on labs that you can also experience from home.  While at the conference, there will be many vendors out on the floor where you can experience new products, ask questions about products that you already use, and lets not forget the vendor haul crawl where there will be free adult beverages, snacks, and cool swag vendors are giving out.  All can be found in the solutions exchange area.

I’m not going to lie, the parties at VMworld are pretty wild too.  Not saying that should be the only reason you go, but it is a good way to mingle with other conference attendees, jam out to some good music, and of course escape the Las Vegas heat.  VMworld of course wraps up with it’s own party, before the last day of the conference.

So what are you waiting for?  I can’t think of any reason not to attend the US 2018 VMworld in Las Vegas, August 26th – 30th, or the UK 2018 VMworld in Barcelona, November 5th – 8th.  Follow this link here, and I will see you at the conference in Las Vegas!  Remember to take advantage of those early bird rates, good until June 15th!  REGISTER HERE FOR VMWORLD 2018