How To Guy

An Expert's VMworld 2014 'Must Attend' Session List

James Brown details the sessions he's put on his schedule, and discusses why you might want to add some of them, too.

• By James Brown
• 08/11/2014

I'm excited about VMworld later this month, especially given VMWare's big push into Virtual SAN, vCloud, Virtual Hybrid Cloud Services (vCHS) and VDI. But let's not forget the vSphere, high-availability (HA) and Distributed Resource Scheduler (DRS) foundation that allows us to operate and administer vCenter in the first place. I added some sessions on vSphere and its components to improve technical knowledge in these areas as well.

This is my list; you will, of course, develop your own. With each session, I've included a note about what I'm hoping to get out of it, why I chose it, or who might benefit most from it.

• HBC1533: How to Build a Hybrid Cloud - Steps to Extend Your Datacenter. HBC1533 will provide step by step instructions to move foward for any novice Engineers and those new to Hybrid Clouds.


• HBC2638: Ten Vital Best Practices for Effective Hybrid Cloud Security. HBC2638 shows you how to properly protect and harden your Hybrid Cloud.


• INF2427: DRS: Advanced Concepts, Best Practices and Future Directions. In addition to the DRS Advance Practices, this session will provide a sneak-peek into some futuristic features and scalability enhancements being worked on by the VMware DRS team.


• BCO2701: vSphere HA Best Practices and FT Tech Preview. BCO2701 will provide you insight into new technologies concerning the vSphere HA and FT. Quite a few new technology surprises as well.


• STO3038-SPO: vSAN is Good – Make it Better with a Properly Designed All Solid-State Drive Solution. This is geared toward those new to vSAN. First timers being exposed to vSAN are strongly encouraged to attend.


• MGT2175: vCloud Automation Center Overview and Glimpse into the Future. MGT2175 will provide you with the new delivery and management of applications via the cloud. Important, since the old delivery systems are slowly fading away.


• STO2521: Virtual SAN Best Practices and Use Cases. This session compliments STO3038-SPO (discussed above) and will provide tips, sizing, performance and best practices for vSAN.


• MGT2047: Planning a High Availability Deployment of vCloud Automation Center. MGT2047 is one my most-recommended sessions. It addresses your current HA environment and expands on it with the addition of the vCloud Automation Center (vCAC).


• SDDC2370: Introduction to OpenStack for VMware Administrators. Integrating OpenStack with vSphere, NSX, vSAN, vCAC, and so on. Jump on this train now before it leaves the station.


• EUC2035: Horizon 6 Technical Overview. VDI users, and those investigating or contemplating a VDI implementation, would do well to put this on their schedule. It includes a walkthrough of using the Horizon 6. One cool feature  includes mix-and-matching VDI desktops.