My focus and top tips for VMware Explore 2022

This year I am extremely lucky enough to be heading out to Barcelona for VMware Explore! After three years since VMworld 2019, I am excited to immerse myself in the event, to connect with the community and learn more about VMware!

If VMware Explore is anything like VMworld, there will be a lot to absorb and enjoy. From general session announcements, breakout sessions, the solution exchange, meeting the community and more, it is set to be a great week.

My focus

But with so much to do, I want to get the most out of the event and therefore have given myself a clear objective to learn more about the workspace.

Considering the major change we have gone through in the past two years, I am interested to see how VMware are enabling users to work in a flexible and hybrid way whilst IT still maintain security and remain in control.  

Some of the sessions I am excited to attend are:

Microsoft Keynote: Transform your VMware workloads with Microsoft Azure [CEIB3189EUR]

Jeff Woolsey, Program Manager, Microsoft will share how customers transform their on-prem VMware environments using Microsoft Azure. Topics to be addressed include: - Address end of support for vSphere, Windows Server, and SQL Server - Use familiar VMware skills to migrate or extend your VMware environment to the cloud, including hybrid cloud options with Azure VMware Solution and Azure Arc - Modernize hybrid work with AVD and Horizon Cloud - Give your developers the tools they need with Azure Spring Apps.

Setting the North Star for a Hybrid Work World [EUSK2299EUR]

The journey to hybrid has not been easy, and although it is now the default, it will take work. Join Shankar Iyer, SVP and GM of End-User Computing at VMware, as he discusses the ever-evolving hybrid model and how technology can be used to rebuild culture, address employee experience gaps, and optimize security. Hear how data science and automation are also at the forefront in enabling the new paradigm of hybrid. Understand from key customers how they are adopting and adjusting technologies in the quest for a more secure medium to connect, engage and build a culture of resilience.

Elevating Employee Experience and Security for your Hybrid Workforce [EUSB4004EUR]

Hybrid work is here to stay, no matter if you are working from home, the office, a coffee shop, airport or anywhere else. In such cases, it becomes imperative that you provide the best user experience for your employees to be efficient and productive, while ensuring that corporate data is kept secure. Security and experience don't have to be at odds with each other. If you have a digital workspace platform in place, both security and experience are improved for employees. Come and join us to hear from our customers how VMware Workspace ONE empowers employees to be productive and work securely from anywhere.

Create the Future of Candidate & Employee Experience in the Digital Space [EUSB1936EUR]

Navigating a challenging job market requires meeting job candidates, new hires, and employees in the digital space with a more engaging, informative, and consistent experience. Learn from a Fortune 50 customer’s HR Team on how they re-imagined deployment of VMware Workspace ONE with ActionLogics to impact recruiting, onboarding, and retention while achieving truly transformative results.

How Can Great User Experience Improve Security? [EUS1350EUR]

In this 'must-attend' session, we'll show you how you can improve both your employees' IT user experience and security. It'll be fully interactive session with a stellar panel of legendary industry experts: VMware's Ron Oglesby, Peter Björk, and Reinhart Nell, with Maarten Caus from VMware Partner, ITQ. Looking forward to seeing you there for some lively discussion!

My Top Tips

There are a lot of tips and tricks that I can share to help you get the most out of the event, however my top three tips are:

Build out your agenda – There are over 500 sessions across the 3 days and lots of content to absorb. Make sure you use the content catalog online to build out your agenda before you head out to Barcelona. If you don’t build out your agenda before the event, it can be easy to miss key sessions and lose track!

Get involved in community – One of the best bits about the VMware events is the community. Whether that is meeting up with peers at the event or on Twitter, make sure you do everything you can to get involved, share your content, thoughts, opinions and of course share content from the wider community too!  

Wear comfortable shoes – Over the past two years, we have all got used to joining these events from the comfort of our own home. However, with the live event, you need to be prepared to hit your 10k step goal walking between sessions. So whilst it sounds obvious, make sure you wear comfortable shoes!

I will be updating live throughout the week on Twitter @BizTechMeg and will hopefully be blogging regularly here, so watch this space!

If you’re also going to be at VMware Explore this year, make sure you say hi!