Day two started off with the typical keynotes, this time featuring VMware COO Tod Nielsen and Intel General Manager for Server Platforms Boyd Davis.  Mr. Nielsen gave a great presentation showing the partner perspective of the typical VMware keynote talking points, which included a lot of market facts.  Mr. Davis discussed Intel’s contributions to VMware’s vision, focusing mainly on their enablement to VMware’s newer features (i.e. EVC, vCloud).

The sessions I attend, including a vSphere lab, were all pretty good.  So far, after two days of presentations, I think I have a record number notes (which is a big deal for me!).

Evening activities included the Welcome Reception, a Tweetup and a party put on by Avnet.  Met or reconnected with some great people and had awesome conversations at each step.

I now need to admit that it’s really hard practically starting my blog at a conference where most of what I hear is covered under NDA.  What I will say is that, fortunately, most of it will be sharable soon.

Some great quotes from yesterday:

– Regarding VDI deployments: “Consolidate Complexity – Distribute Simplicity”

– Regarding pilots: “Success in the core will spread”

– Regarding purpose of VDI: “Provision users, not desktops/devices”

A few hints I picked up:

– Make sure you know how to login to VMware’s licensing portal and that all licenses are there.

– There is a lot of new or updated stuff coming in the next year from VMware and it’s partners.  Take advantage of your trusted partner to at least help you figure it all out, even if don’t have them implement it.

Looking forward to another great day (unfortunately I’m not looking forward to the poor wireless, but I guess that’s not a critical success factor)…