Last couple of days I stayed in Barcelona where as probably you know - VMworld Europe was organized. I missed the US edition but fortunately I could attend at the European edition which is the biggest event in EMEA. In this post I would like to write a summary of my stay as VMworld is not only sessions but also great events after sessions... 😉
I went to Barcelona on Saturday because I wanted to attend at the VCDX Workshop on Sunday. This is an event where you can find out a lot about VCDX certification and of course ask questions to VCDX certified people. I was on similar event organized by Andrew Mauro in Milan last year where I met John Arrasjid (VCDX001) and Mostafa Khalil (VCDX002). This time the workshop was led by Aidan Dalgleish (VCDX009) and Joe Silvagi (VCDX175) and it was a good starter of the day (8am). There are some VCDX tips:
- use the whiteboard (for example make notes)
- if you need to calculate sth, the panelists may help you if you provide them with the formula
- find other VCDX candidates and do mock defends, find a VCDX mentor
- know your design... so read, read and read it again. You can have your design printed with you...but use it only when really needed. Time is your oponent!
- during the VCDX Troubleshooting session, think loudly because the Panelists need to know that you are solving the problem. Usually, you have to work on more than just one problem so the most important is way to solve it, 15 min. may be not enough to find a solution.
- do not bring any gifts for the Panelists 😉
On Sunday, in the evening, there was a great party in Hard Rock Cafe 😉 Thanks to Patrick Redknap, Marco Broeken.
On Monday, there was a Partner Day and I attended at the following sessions:
- PAR6411 - PSE: SDDC Assess, Design and Deploy 2.0 - What's New?
- PAR6410 - Disaster Recovery with NSX SRM and vRO
- PAR6534 - The vSphere Optimization Assessment (VOA): Best Practices for Closing a Virtualization Deal in 30 Days or Less
In the evening I went to the vExpert party at the Elephant Restaurant & Lounge Club 
Thanks again to Corey Romero for organizing this nice event.
On Tuesday, I attended at the following sessions:
- INF5106 - Content Library
- NET4933 - vSphere Distributed Switch Best Practices for NSX
- INF4535 - 5 Functions of Software Defined Availability
- SDDC5440 - VMware Validated Designs – An Architecture for the SDDC
At the evening of course some parties possibilities as VMware EE and Veeam 😉
On Wednesday I took a NSX exam - VCIX-NV (after4 hours I received an email that I failed and it was not a surprise for me). I scheduled this exam some weeks ago but I didn't have time to prepare for it. However, in my opinion, the exam is not advanced.. I could do some lab activities just by clicking/checking here or there... 😉 I didn't "touch" at least 6 labs and I "almost passed" so it was the most irritated after all. I regret a little bit because I had almost 90min. yet but I decided to finish the exam earlier because I was hungry so much (VMworld dinner was till 2 pm). There are some conclusions as follows: Never give up, always fight to the end:
- the best, please take this exam when you well prepared 😉
- do not go to any parties a day before the exam 😉
- please eat sth before the exam 😉
Currently, there is no testing center in Poland where I can take this exam 
Probably I will take this exam in San Francisco next month and I will write my experience soon.
After taking exam and eating very delicious dinner, I attended at the following sessions:
- NET5082 - How to Deploy VMware NSX with Cisco Nexus and UCS
- STO5336 - VMware Virtual SAN - Architecture Deep Dive
And at the evening, I went to a great Catamaran Cruise with Zerto!
On Thursday (last day of VMworld) I attended at the following sessions:
- NET5836 - OpenStack with NSX Architecture Deep Dive
- STO6228 - Monitoring and Troubleshooting Virtual SAN, Current and Future - a great session led by Cormac Hogan and Christian Dickmann
- INF5898 - vSphere High Availability (HA) Best Practices - new features such as VM Component protection (APD and PDL), vSphere HA advanced options, and tech previews.
Conclusion
VMworld was a great time, learning new things in the morning/afternoon and meeting a lot of people whole the day and night As you could see, I focused on NSX and VSAN sessions as in my opinion those are the most interesting VMware products nowadays. What's next? Let's find a hotel for the next VMworld 2016 in US (Las Vegas)!