Yes, after the confusion last year on what number are the days, I’ve decided to go for a neutral name. Avoids all the naming issues (unlike the products we work with every day!)

Got to Barcelona at about noon on Sunday and checked in. Had to sacrifice the start of Russian GP (Formula 1) but hey, the choices one has to make in life!

but as Damian Davis quite rightly pointed out, life is full of choices so I chose VMworld!

As mentioned in a recent post, I like to do the registration on Sunday afternoon (along with getting the pass and VMworld bag), relax a little bit and then head off to the vRockStar party. That was exactly what I did but there was a pre-party shocker waiting for us….

William Lam who we all know and love for his mega contributions to the virtualisation community, got interrogated by Interpol as they had some unhealthy interest in his website:

#Lamgate (as Alex Galbraith, Fred Hofer and I are calling it here at the blogger’s table) took the virtualisation Twitter stream by storm and no one could believe why would that happen. Messages of support came flooding in as nobody could understand what could possibly be wrong with what he posts on his website. The story even got covered by The Register. Thankfully, after many tense hours of waiting, he tweeted to say that he’s free again. Bad news is that he won’t be able to make the sessions:

Even though everyone will miss him here, we’re all glad that the ordeal was over finally. I am sure we’ll see him next time, back with his awesome content as ever.

Back to the vRockStar party… As always, the party was great fun and was even bigger and better than previous years. This time, the whole of the cafe was booked and was jam-packed with people, with drinks aplenty and loud music. Pretty much everyone from the virtualisation community was there and we had great chats (or shouting sessions to be exact). Thanks to Marco Broeken, Patrick Redknap and the team for organizing it and especially, to the sponsors who make it all possible.

Julian Wood in his extremely efficient style, posted an update just before midnight, which has pictures from the party, including a very unflattering one of yours truly. Party was great but I am glad that it was the only one for the day as I had a very early start so .

Yesterday (Monday) was the “Partner/TAM Day”, which is a good day for anyone wanting to take exams and checkout the Hands-On Labs, which are very busy as ever – even though it’s supposed to be quiet before VMworld actually starts!

If you’re around, there are great labs to try out so don’t miss out and maybe fit in a lab or two in your schedule.

The day was also dominated by the announcement that Dell has bought EMC, which of course, owns 80% of VMware. There was enormous interest in the news on the Twitter and everyone has their own perspective on it. Like all news, only time will tell the effect that’s going to have on the industry but big companies of the past, may have a rocky future from now on. There is an interesting piece on Wired about this very subject. There are rumours that the keynote today may have some last minute changes so it might be quite interesting to attend.

In the evening, it was party time. As every year, VMware hosts a party for vExperts, which was an obvious one for me to attend. Pretty much all vExperts attending VMworld were there and as always, there were great discussions happening all round.

vExpert Party

There were so many great parties to choose from and one wants to attend them all. Of course, that’s not possible so I went to the PernixData party, which was hosted at the same venue as last time. This year, they’re doing the theme “The Datacenter Awakens”, which is obviously a play on Star Wars.

PernixData Party

This party seemed to be quite popular as people just kept pouring in and as I left (just after midnight), people were still coming! Anyway, it was enough for one day so I called it a day.

So, today it all really kicks off. It could be a very interesting day of announcements so I am looking forward to it. I will be Tweeting and posting updates as they come so stay tuned. If you are here, wear comfortable shoes, stay hydrated and fed, meet lots of people but above all, have fun!