PA VMware Conference

Yesterday I attended the PA VMware Users Group conference in a Philly suburb.  It was the subject of much discussion and anticipation among the crew, with just about everybody wishing to go. This was my first foray into user group events.

I’ll be honest: I hate salespeople.  Most of the salespeople that I meet make my skin crawl, although I’ll admit to being more sensitive to bullshit and hype than others.  My boss, on the other hand, loves salespeople.  I suspect if she could, she’d have them scheduled from morning til night, armed with their presentations, their teams, and hopefully lots of free food.  I’d rather work than eat free food (yes, I know, I’m clinically insane) and listen to sales pitches.

Somewhat coincidentally, I suspect that salespeople aren’t all that fond of me either (no matter how much they smile and tryto shake my hand).  They definitely don’t understand me.  They’re perennially offering me things for free.  Unfortunately they never stop long enough to listen to me, so I wind up getting all sorts of things that I can’t use, like sports tickets and fancy dinners.  It’s great because I can pass these onto others but it would be nice to get something I could use for once.  I don’t expect that anyone will walk through the door with a Custom Shop left-handed Fender Stratocaster for me but there’s more than likely a happy middle ground.

So, VMware conferences and salesmen….

Oh yeah, I noticed that the majority of the planned seminars were given by commercial entities that weren’t VMware.  And strangely enough, the topics of the planned seminars given by commercial entities that weren’t VMware centered largely around the products produced by these entities.

In other words, I smell salesmen.

Although extremely poorly marked, it wasn’t difficult to find the Room of the Grand Wazoo, where the shindig was to start.  I had to get a name badge, which was more amusing because they ran out of plastic so it looked like my mom had pasted a note to me.  Since the entire experience fascinated me, I decided to invent some credentials to see if anybody was paying attention.  I went as a semi-famous person, with the title Chief Infection Officer.   Exactly one person noticed the name and that was all.

My first impression was “Yup, there are network geeks here.”   It was right out of Central Casting.  Men were men, women were scarce, and sheep were nervous.  African-Americans wished there were as many of them as women.  And the longhairs barely outnumbered the African-Americans.

The Room of the Grand Wazoo contained a small handful of vendors.  Each table had lots of shiny, blinky goodies to give out and very friendly… salespeople.  Imagine my surprise.

I headed right for VMware to tell them I love their products.  I was immediately informed that they wanted everyone to sign a non-disclosure agreement (NDA) for the late session.  I suppose if we didn’t, they’d have to kill us. Trying not to laugh in the guy’s face, I asked the most important question of the day: WHEN IS THE LINUX VI-CLIENT COMING OUT?

The VMware Dude laughed, for some reason not known to me.  He told me that officially, he couldn’t comment on it.  So I asked him to comment on it unofficially.  All he could tell me was that they were `working on it.’

The president is working on peace in the Middle East.   Neither of these pieces of information is new, folks.  ESX server is built on linux.  What’s the problem with a VI Client for linux?  We cannot eradicate Windows from the enterprise without a linux VI Client, guys… there are actually businesses that had to purchase a copy of Windows to run this.

The crew figured out early that we would attend the VMware seminars, as they wouldn’t be selling anywhere near as aggressively as the others.  The sessions were informative, especially as we didn’t know about some of the product changes.  It was also very good to hear that most of what we heard about virtualizing Exchange and SQL was FUD.

We have VMware’s Virtual Desktop Infrastructure (VDI) on our to-do list.  Apparently they changed the name and added some functionality.  We were pleased.  I can’t wait to implement it because it will allow us to stop using our software VPN client, which has to reside on filthy, malware-ridden home pc’s [involuntary shudder].

One really weird thing that people were noticing was that a few of the VMware presenters had Macs.  For some reason this really disturbed us.  At one point, a presenter had to reboot some virtual machines and made a comment about Windows.  I responded that IF HE WERE USING LINUX, HE WOULDN’T HAVE TO REBOOT AT ALL.  Judging by the laughter and applause, I wasn’t the only one who thought so.  During the Q&A, someone asked WHY THE MAC?.  Somehow I don’t think they anticipated this line of questioning.

They cleared the room before the late session.  This was the one that required the NDA’s and they checked every single person to make certain that they signed.  I asked them if this meant I couldn’t live-blog the event.  They just looked at me funny (I’m used to it, believe me).

The final session was very interesting.  But if I told you about it, I’d have to kill you.  All.

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There was a lot of back and forth about whether this event was worth my time.  It partially confirmed my suspicion that the only way to truly learn what you want to is to specifically pay for it.  I don’t mean to denigrate PAVMUG or VMware.  I would just have preferred some more technically-focused sessions that weren’t about selling something.

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By the time I got home, I discovered that two very important pieces of proprietary software BROKE at work.  And just to put the icing on the cake, a contractor had DELETED a virtual server.  All of this destruction was naturally focused on the payroll department and you know what that means…

It means that we sure picked a bad week to stop smoking crack.