WHAT. A. WEEK! I can’t put it any other way. This past week, I was in St. Louis to attend the VMUG Leader Summit and the inaugural VMUG Connect together with my co-VMUG leader, Kristof Asaert.

VMUG Leader Summit

When the submission form for the leader summit opened late last year, I jumped on it immediately. Kristof had attended the previous one in Lissbon and has been consistently saying how great it was. Naturally, I wanted to experience that first hand. He wasn’t lying…

Leader Summit kicked off on Tuesday with presentations by Brad and the rest of the crew. They were very honest and open about the state of VMUG, what the board is planning and how they look to the future. During the presentations we could ask any and all questions we had. It was very refreshing to be able to just have these conversations in person and get answers to all of our burning questions.

We ended the night with a reception at Bush Stadium, home of the St Louis Cardinals. There was a high school game going on so we got the chance to get familiar with baseball and get a tour of the stadium, it was really fun!

The second day of leader summit was filled with excercises to get to know our groups at the table better. We learned what worked for them, what didn’t and what else they have planned. That part really opened up my eyes and I have so many ideas brewing in my head now for the Belgian VMUG!

VMUG Connect

The pre-conference started at the Anheuser Busch brewery, it was nice to see a Belgian brewery in the US! :D The tour guides really did a good job heckling the 2 Cubs fans we had with us, another highlight!

Day 1

The conference really kicked off on Thursday with a keynote by Frank Denneman. As usual, Frank gave a really good talk about AI in which he shared a lot of good insights.

After that it was time for my first session. Together with Dave Simpson and Matt Heldstab we gave a talk about the VCP-VCF certification. We shared a lot of tips on how to pass and had a fun Kahoot quiz at the end, to get people an idea of what to expect. The VCP-VCF exams were free for VMUG Advantage members, and a lot of attendees took this opportunity to take the exam. A fair amount passed, which was great to hear. The others who didn’t pass now know what to expect, and what they need to brush up on. I’d call that a win!

The rest of the day was filled with sessions and great conversation, followed by a networking reception in the expo hall, which was filled with cheers for our vice president, Matt!

Day 2

I kicked off day 2 with my second session, the one I usually deliver with Evert Amssoms, Managing NSX with Terraform. Before I started, I figured nobody would attend my session because I was in the same slot as William Lam and Dave Morera. Thankfully, I had about 15 attendees. The session went well and I got a lot of good feedback and conversations after the session, this is why I love VMUG so much!

If you haven’t had the chance to watch our session yet, our Las Vegas and Barcelona sessions were recorded, you can watch them on YouTube

The conference ended with a fireside chat with Hock Tan and Chris McCain. Hock shared his vision for VMware and took questions from the audience. He did not shy away from some of the tougher questions and gave real and honest answers. After the fireside chat, Matt got on stage again for a panel discussion about VCF with other VMUG leaders. It was good hearing stories from people who have deployed VCF or are planning to do so in the near future.

That was the end of the official conference program. We went to see the Cardinals v Brewers game in the evening to really close the conference with a bang! My first MLB game was really interesting, thanks to Matt and Brad for sharing their knowledge about the game so a complete newbie could follow along. VMUG is all about sharing knowledge, both technical and non-technical!

This week flew by, it feels like yesterday that I landed in St. Louis but what a blast it was! A lot has been written and said about the death of VMUG this past year and a half. But let me tell you, these statements could not be further from the truth! The community is very much alive and vibrant as ever. It’s events like this, where people come together from all over the world, that you really feel it!