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Submitting Sessions for VMworld?
- Thread starter NetJunkie
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I looked at it and was honestly disappointed by the process. Considering the crazy high cost of VMworld I find that the organization is totally lacking in comparison to say AGU. AGU has approximately the same number of attendees (let's not argue about 1-2k more/less) and is also held at the Moscone Center. Costs ~$400 (http://fallmeeting.agu.org/2012/travel-housing/registration-rates/), and has a much more refined way to submit abstracts.
Detailed session information for AGU is actually known ahead of time beyond the totally non-descript VMworld session descriptions (http://download3.vmware.com/community/pdfs/vmworld-2013-cfp-tracks.pdf). My favorite from VMware is "Management".
I looked around on the VMworld web page to find out what the duration of presentations is, whether there are different durations available, smaller rooms as opposed to the main rooms that sit like 1k people. I gave up after 5 minutes and lost all interest.
It's amazing to me just how "ad-hoc" the VMworld organization seems to be. Maybe my standards are inconveniently high but I have been going to AGU for close to a decade and their organization is just so much better by leaps and bounds.
So to answer your question; Not this year. Will make another go at it next year.
Detailed session information for AGU is actually known ahead of time beyond the totally non-descript VMworld session descriptions (http://download3.vmware.com/community/pdfs/vmworld-2013-cfp-tracks.pdf). My favorite from VMware is "Management".
I looked around on the VMworld web page to find out what the duration of presentations is, whether there are different durations available, smaller rooms as opposed to the main rooms that sit like 1k people. I gave up after 5 minutes and lost all interest.
It's amazing to me just how "ad-hoc" the VMworld organization seems to be. Maybe my standards are inconveniently high but I have been going to AGU for close to a decade and their organization is just so much better by leaps and bounds.
So to answer your question; Not this year. Will make another go at it next year.
Well.. Have you been to VMworld? If so all those questions would be answered. If not they may not want a first time attendee to submit.
Sessions are 45 mins with 5 mins at the end for questions/cleanup. They have rooms of varying sizes. The tracks are described enough for most people to pick one...if it's not right they'll move it based on your abstract and outline.
As for cost... Again, been to VMworld? I really doubt that the AGU is doing a meeting of the same scale and quality. Plus, AGU is focused on academia where funding is very tight.
If your session is accepted you get in for free plus one or two nights of hotel (I can't remember which).
Comparing the two and looking at the submission guides I'd say the AGU works with a much smaller set of submissions which does allow more flexibility. I doubt they are dealing with 5K session submissions...
Sessions are 45 mins with 5 mins at the end for questions/cleanup. They have rooms of varying sizes. The tracks are described enough for most people to pick one...if it's not right they'll move it based on your abstract and outline.
As for cost... Again, been to VMworld? I really doubt that the AGU is doing a meeting of the same scale and quality. Plus, AGU is focused on academia where funding is very tight.
If your session is accepted you get in for free plus one or two nights of hotel (I can't remember which).
Comparing the two and looking at the submission guides I'd say the AGU works with a much smaller set of submissions which does allow more flexibility. I doubt they are dealing with 5K session submissions...
Whether or not someone previously attended any conference should have no bearing on whether an abstract is accepted. Acceptance should be on the merit of the abstract.
The annual AGU Fall meeting is this year being held for the 46th time. It's a 5-day event (as opposed to VMworld's 4 days) and in addition to each of the days being filled up with oral presentationas all across Moscone and Moscone West there are thousands of poster presentations each day. Poster session abstracts are automatically accepted. Oral presentation abstracts are reviewed by the different session committees which decide whether a presentation is "worthy" given the overall limited amount of time for the conference.
AGU has more days, more presentations, and more attendees (24k in Fall 2012) than VMworld, yet somehow they manage to organize it better on a lower budget. So you are correct, it's not the same scale and quality, AGU is bigger and better.
From where I am looking there is no excuse to run a for-profit event (that's really what VMworld is at the end of the day) and not provide a decent web page with a clear event outline for participants and authors/presenters.
Which makes me wonder how you feel about that some (many?) people come to VMworld for your presentation and while VMware makes a profit off of that you still have to pay a registration fee (I assume that you do and that VMware doesn't comp it for you)?
To me personally that's just another one of those things where VMware displays arrogance a la "what are they gonna do? not show up?"
We have seen in the past that this type of approach has not served VMware well (licensing in general, and vRam Tax specifically). Today more than ever a company like VMware needs to do everything it possibly can to engage customers rather than alienate them. With every day that goes by VMware is slipping from a position where they can command the licensing prices that they do as other vendors and products catch up with very competitive offerings.
As a stand alone event of the VMworld web site not being very helpful doesn't mean much. However, pair that with memories of vRAM Tax (whether or not it actually affected you), the bugged mess that the 5.1.0 GA release was, the change in VMware leadership, the layoffs, etc. etc. etc., and all those little things eventually add up to something big enough to make customers consider whether VMware products are actually a good choice moving forward. At least in the case of the VMworld web page just a couple more hours of payroll could have easily added much needed information to the page.
My employer pays for conference travel if the traveler presents something or is part of some committee around the event. Attending VMworld would cost us ~$7k (registration/travel/payroll). Would I receive more than 7k value out of that event? Since I am an infrastructure administrator the answer to that question is a resounding NO.
Any knowledge gained there can be gained online, and as an admin there's no benefit in wheeling and dealing that makes sense for vendors or service providers.
If you can agree to that premise then it's really not too much to ask to at least have a decent web presence for the event.
The annual AGU Fall meeting is this year being held for the 46th time. It's a 5-day event (as opposed to VMworld's 4 days) and in addition to each of the days being filled up with oral presentationas all across Moscone and Moscone West there are thousands of poster presentations each day. Poster session abstracts are automatically accepted. Oral presentation abstracts are reviewed by the different session committees which decide whether a presentation is "worthy" given the overall limited amount of time for the conference.
AGU has more days, more presentations, and more attendees (24k in Fall 2012) than VMworld, yet somehow they manage to organize it better on a lower budget. So you are correct, it's not the same scale and quality, AGU is bigger and better.
From where I am looking there is no excuse to run a for-profit event (that's really what VMworld is at the end of the day) and not provide a decent web page with a clear event outline for participants and authors/presenters.
Which makes me wonder how you feel about that some (many?) people come to VMworld for your presentation and while VMware makes a profit off of that you still have to pay a registration fee (I assume that you do and that VMware doesn't comp it for you)?
To me personally that's just another one of those things where VMware displays arrogance a la "what are they gonna do? not show up?"
We have seen in the past that this type of approach has not served VMware well (licensing in general, and vRam Tax specifically). Today more than ever a company like VMware needs to do everything it possibly can to engage customers rather than alienate them. With every day that goes by VMware is slipping from a position where they can command the licensing prices that they do as other vendors and products catch up with very competitive offerings.
As a stand alone event of the VMworld web site not being very helpful doesn't mean much. However, pair that with memories of vRAM Tax (whether or not it actually affected you), the bugged mess that the 5.1.0 GA release was, the change in VMware leadership, the layoffs, etc. etc. etc., and all those little things eventually add up to something big enough to make customers consider whether VMware products are actually a good choice moving forward. At least in the case of the VMworld web page just a couple more hours of payroll could have easily added much needed information to the page.
My employer pays for conference travel if the traveler presents something or is part of some committee around the event. Attending VMworld would cost us ~$7k (registration/travel/payroll). Would I receive more than 7k value out of that event? Since I am an infrastructure administrator the answer to that question is a resounding NO.
Any knowledge gained there can be gained online, and as an admin there's no benefit in wheeling and dealing that makes sense for vendors or service providers.
If you can agree to that premise then it's really not too much to ask to at least have a decent web presence for the event.
It was!
And it really wasn't directed at Netjunkie but at VMware, which in hindsight really doesn't do anything at all. I just let some of my current workplace frustration spill over into the forum. I love my job, just dealing with a highly frustrating issue the last couple of days and it's starting to take a toll. Just snapped at my wife as well.
If you get accepted to present your pass for VMworld is free as is a night in the conference hotel. Customers may get 2 nights in the hotel...
Anywho. Mine are submitted. I submitted two of my own (one a repeat of last year but revised), one with Zerto, and one on an Ask the VCDXs panel I was asked to join. So we'll see!
Anywho. Mine are submitted. I submitted two of my own (one a repeat of last year but revised), one with Zerto, and one on an Ask the VCDXs panel I was asked to join. So we'll see!
Threw in 7 or so this year.
vSAN Architecture with Mostafa Khalil
Flash Storage Architecture (with violin memory)
Building the Pyramids - a beginners guide to storage fabrics
Just Because You Could, Doesn't Mean you Should, 2.0
Found by the Side of the Road - building a low cost yet effective DR site
and a couple of others
RESTfulADI
2[H]4U
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Threw in 7 or so this year.
vSAN Architecture with Mostafa Khalil
Flash Storage Architecture (with violin memory)
Building the Pyramids - a beginners guide to storage fabrics
Just Because You Could, Doesn't Mean you Should, 2.0
Found by the Side of the Road - building a low cost yet effective DR site
and a couple of others
vsan... cost effective dr site...
was that why you needed confirmation that vt-d worked for pci-e network cards on the UCS c240s?
I watched the vSAN video few days ago and thought about using them for our DR site cluster when the vSAN comes out, unless we go with vnx5300 and RecoverPoint.
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I went 2 years ago and found it to be one of the least useful conferences I've attended. It's great to stroke your e-peen if you're a VCX, but as a (relatively) small customer, hoping to learn (not be used-car-style sold on how rosey shit is)... it was extremely mediocre.
Some of the talks are all fine-and-dandy, but many of them are simply a sales pitch for brand X.
And it seemed that most people were there simply because it was a free vacation if they attended a few sessions and picked up a little show-floor schwag - not because they genuinely wanted to learn more/see other options (because to 99% of them, there are no other options).
Some of the talks are all fine-and-dandy, but many of them are simply a sales pitch for brand X.
And it seemed that most people were there simply because it was a free vacation if they attended a few sessions and picked up a little show-floor schwag - not because they genuinely wanted to learn more/see other options (because to 99% of them, there are no other options).
Hagrid
[H]F Junkie
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- Nov 23, 2006
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- 9,163
Same here, even though I am a complete noob to VMware. It still would be fun.
Nope
That's for another project, that has been delayed somewhat (to the point I won't present on it) doing HPC beowulf clustering/hadoop clustering with 40GbE / 56GFDR-IB for interconnects. Have to pass through the cards vSAN is going to be fun. I'll be able to talk about it soon.
There has been a lot of this complaint - we're trying to address it by making sure people pick the sessions that seem most relevant, regardless of presenter (Yes Thuleman, pure merit, not VMware) - it's starting to get better.
We had a 2-day tech conference internal to our organization not too long ago. It's a yearly event to bring the people from the 26 branch locations together to talk about what is happening with IT org wide.
I didn't go. They didn't have an agenda published before the conference and I couldn't justify spending my time and the payroll to go just to find out whether the event is any good.
I have calmed down since I made my AGU comparison post, but a lot of that still holds true. As attendee I need to find value in the event. So much value that it more than makes up for the cost, and the time lost not working on what I should be working on.
I am trying to look at this objectively but as a virtualization admin I just don't see where VMworld's value proposition is. What does VMworld get me that I cannot get somewhere else cheaper and more conveniently?
Hate to bring AGU up again, but (and I did get the stats for the Fall Meeting 2012: over 20K abstracts, nearly 7K oral sessions and over 23K attendees) there what I get is direct contact with people with whom I can collaborate to submit proposals to get funded to ultimately put food on the table. That is a very strong motivator and justification to go.
For VMworld I don't see something similar, mainly because virtualization is just different from grant funded research.
I am not dissing VMworld this time around, I am really trying to understand where VMware thinks that VMworld adds value to people's professional life (other than for those who present and thus become more credible professionals).
You get out of it what you want. Sessions were trending toward marketing heavy about two years ago and VMware got a lot of push back and are trying to change that. We'll see how it goes this year, but as you can see by lopoetve's submissions (and mine) there is very good technical content.
For me it's about networking and talking to people. I rarely get to go to sessions outside the ones I present or that I make a real effort to attend but I'd pay out of pocket to go just because of who I get to see during that week. I can get facetime to talk about things with people I only see at these events.
For my customers it's about the sessions and the expo floor to talk and see new products and technologies. Obviously they get something out of it as many go every year and every year I'm slammed after VMworld. They bring me in to talk about the things they saw, how it impacts their environment, and how it can help their projects.
I'm always amazed how people don't take advantage of some of the things at VMworld like the Group Discussions and the Ask the Experts 1-on-1 appointments. Usually Frank and Duncan from VMware do a Group Discussion on DRS/HA/Clustering and it's not full. How often do you get to sit in a room with a cap of 30 people and just ask questions and go as deep as you want on those topics? Hey lopoetve, have you done one of those on storage? I'd love to see that. You and Mostafa.
If you ever plan to defend for a VCDX go to one of the VCDX prep sessions. WELL worth your time.
For me it's about networking and talking to people. I rarely get to go to sessions outside the ones I present or that I make a real effort to attend but I'd pay out of pocket to go just because of who I get to see during that week. I can get facetime to talk about things with people I only see at these events.
For my customers it's about the sessions and the expo floor to talk and see new products and technologies. Obviously they get something out of it as many go every year and every year I'm slammed after VMworld. They bring me in to talk about the things they saw, how it impacts their environment, and how it can help their projects.
I'm always amazed how people don't take advantage of some of the things at VMworld like the Group Discussions and the Ask the Experts 1-on-1 appointments. Usually Frank and Duncan from VMware do a Group Discussion on DRS/HA/Clustering and it's not full. How often do you get to sit in a room with a cap of 30 people and just ask questions and go as deep as you want on those topics? Hey lopoetve, have you done one of those on storage? I'd love to see that. You and Mostafa.
If you ever plan to defend for a VCDX go to one of the VCDX prep sessions. WELL worth your time.
I did several of them with Cormac last year - GD10 on storage. I'm hoping to do more with Mostafa this year, but it all depends on what gets accepted (heaven forbid all mine do - I'll never get them written in time).
There is a metric-crapton of stuff happening at VMworld - the show floor is only a microscopic part of it. It's all about networking, meeting people and vendors to find new projects, to grow what you know, and get experience.
thuleman said:
From last year's VMworld, I've spun up 4 major projects with vendors and customers for proof-of-concepts, changed the direction of one internal product, and assisted about 2 dozen customers on plans they were working on, as well as interacting with several hundred more.
It's your chance to track down the best of the best in this field, engage them (if you so wish), and get their help on things you're doing and working on. Same as the Ph.D's at AGU (I've got a friend with W3 Prov that has done many AGU presos).
For us in the commercial field, VMworld/EMC World/etc represent the same chance as you get from AGU - it's how you get to interact with folks that can make things happen and put food on the table. If I was a customer, I'd be going to hit the group discussion panels, take notes on a couple of the big discussions, and camping at the expert bar all day. Lots of info to learn/glean there you won't get anywhere else, before anyone else.
The vSAN demo I saw at PEX has me very excited. I'm very interested in seeing more that type of tech as well as NSX, i'm curious too see where SDN and SDS goes...
Netjunkie, have you had the opportunity to play with NSX or see it in greater detail? I've seen some videos..but really want to see this fully integrated.
Netjunkie, have you had the opportunity to play with NSX or see it in greater detail? I've seen some videos..but really want to see this fully integrated.