Visiting VMworld Europe in Barcelona 2018

It was our fourth time in Barcelona this year. We are so, so proud to have grown so much in that time. As always, it was a privilege and honour to visit our fantastic business partners and friends at the conference - to share everything we love about technology.

We spend much of our time contributing to the awesome VMware community. VMworld provided our team (including eight, yes EIGHT VMware #vExperts!) the ideal environment to absorb and discuss the incredible innovations and creativity happening in our industry. In the spirit of the conference tagline, we got fully involved and embraced the possibilities:

First stop, Hackathon!

The Hackathon has become a real event in itself, and makes for an inspiring precursor to the main conference. It’s when those technically adept VMware guys (and other mortals!) emerge from their labs, form a symphony of code, and build beautiful things together… all in the flash of a disk activity light! Two of our foremost technical ninjas, Constantine and Ivo, joined different teams in their mission to automate, orchestrate, and liberate VMware admins! With the help of a couple of beers their teams managed to finish first and second respectively. It was a proud day for Runecasters.  Here’s the second-placed team featuring Ivo:

After all that hacking into the early hours, a short sleep and then an early breakfast before the opening keynote...

The VMworld #vBreakfast has become the stuff of folklore. This year, we were again the event sponsors, and welcomed back the VMware legends of old and some cool new kids on the block. We were also pleased to see that the unique hospitality services lived up to our previous year’s expectations! :) It set us up for a VMworld full of great sessions, great networking, and some quality swag to boot!

The calibre of sessions at VMworld are second to none - whether it is Pat’s vision of the whole industry future, or if it’s a deep-dive about the advanced setting of a distributed virtual port group!

Our very own VCDX and CEO, Stan Markov was extremely honoured to be presenting alongside our renowned partner and vExpert, Kohei Matsumoto of Fujisoft.

Together they gave a penetrating low-down on the Runecast Analyzer product and why it is a #musthave for every Software-Defined (and now Self-Driving!) Data Center out there. They demonstrated the power and value of the application, delivered from real-World experience. 

Ivo was also making an impact at the conference by bringing his Hackathon-proven automation skills to the masses! He took the stage for his first VMworld power session to deliver tech-insights with a practical guide for VMware admins.

If you want to know how to choose the best APIs and tooling to orchestrate your admin life, and do more innovating, check out his session. A link will be provided here when the session becomes available online

As well as spreading the word of innovation in technology, we love to be creative when it comes to quality swag!… Do you know this guy?

That’s right - he’s the Purple Screen of Death (or PSOD as all Admins lovingly know him!).

At VMworld we decided to share with all VMware Admins a new card game to relieve the stresses from those bugs and demons that haunt us in Business as Usual(!)…  It’s “a unique chance to recognize them before they attack you and effectively fight back thanks to the knowledge you’ll gain.”

The cards were a real hit at our booth. If you’d like to see more of those fearsome foes, or get some for yourself or your team, just visit thekbhunt.com

Whilst the cards brought many of you to see us, we can also see our dedication to developing and delivering the Runecast Analyzer has generated a community in itself, and we feel that nowhere more than at VMworld. We know it is empowering admins and Ops departments across the planet to proactively protect their data centers and do more innovation. At VMworld we were so grateful to network with the best in the business, to get expert feedback, to learn, and give back to the community.

It was a true privilege for us to showcase our latest version, v2.1 which contains many great new features and (we’re told!) is slicker than ever. Now VMworld is over, why not give it a try?

Thanks to everyone who made VMworld so great in Barcelona. We’ll be back next year - and in San Fran too! Until then, keep Runecasting and see you next time :)

The Runecast Team