Thursday was another day of meetings, including a great meeting with part of our VMware partner team where we got into a deep discussion about our cloud strategy.  There was also a great deal of work completed toward the VMWorld 2011 VMUnderground party.  It is going to be a great party!  More to come on that.

The Partner Appreciation party occurred at the conference center Thursday night.  They had a Circe de Sole style performance, but otherwise wasn’t terribly exciting.

On Friday, I managed to attend a couple of sessions after an early morning meeting.  The first of the day was “Troubleshooting ThinApp” where we discussed the scientific method and some guidelines for troubleshooting.

The final session I attended was Mike DiPetrello’s “How to build a cloud in the real world” session.  It was a very engaging and well laid out presentation, where he described some of the approaches his cloud architect team uses.  He provided several definitions of the cloud, provided us three steps to a successful implementation, a few keys to success and some basic best practices.

Before heading for the airport, Theron Conrey and I did a little bit of souvenir shopping for our family and concluded a great week of planning for the VMWorld 2011 VMUnderground party.  If you’re going to be attending VMWorld 2011 in Las Vegas this fall, keep an eye out for upcoming announcements.  You won’t regret it.

Partner Exchange was another great VMware conference.  It had a very different feeling for me not having the ability to attend the Partner Technical Advisory Board, but no less worthwhile.  I met many new people, hung out with plenty of old friends and participated in a few hijinks, but in the end I feel like I’m a better VMware engineer and better equipped to help my customers succeed.