144 Bottles of Water, 48 Cans of Monster Lo-Carb, 50 Bags of Single Serve Chips, 270 Peanut Butter Sandwich Crackers, 144 Bottles of 5-Hour Energy and 300 Oreo Cookies (unfortunately there has been no accurate count of alcoholic beverage)… that is how VMworld started for some of the members of the vSpecialist Organization within EMC on Thursday.

Actually, Über teams within the vSpecialist organization at EMC started months ago with a strategic plan to cause peoples minds to literally explode from all of the awesome-sauce VMware and EMC will jointly deliver the week of VMworld 2011. This includes a huge EMC core booth with 13 VDI enabled workstations showing the latest and great products, there is also a separate EMC vLabs booth that will have 15 workstations that will allow attendees to use and abuse 11 different products within the EMC family. This is all in addition to the EMC focused lab, which is located within the official VMworld Hands on Labs (which by the way are powered by EMC technology) inside the Solutions Exchange.

Needless to say, there have been endless hours already spent by the team (of absolute rockstars) to ensure the best experience possible for the attendees of VMworld 2011. The sessions, labs, solutions exchange, TweetUps, parties and ability to network with your vPeers makes this show undoubtedly the best information technology show of the year.

There are about 20 of us here, from around the global, working diligently on getting everything up and running as well as testing for usability/stress and for an overall great experience. The countdown officially started yesterday afternoon and we have until Sunday afternoon (3 full days) to make sure everything is 100%. So, what about after Sunday? Will we get to just sit by the pool, sipping on some tasty margaritas? Well, I’m hoping to have at least 30 minutes of that sometime this trip, but what about the other 107.5 hours of VMworld?

So here is my schedule, full of great sessions, fun networking opportunities, awesome parties and completely slammed….boy I love VMworld!

Legend
	VMworld Session
	VMworld General Session
	Party/Event
	vTweetUp

</tbody> </table>

So there you go… A week full of events, sessions, general sessions, parties, vTweetUps and more. This is going to be an amazing week.  I can’t wait to see some old vFriends and to meet some new ones!

Be sure to find me while at the show, I may even give you a special gift :)  There is a scavenger hunt we’re doing while at VMworld called the #vHunt, so be sure to keep an eye out on Twitter for the details.

Sunday, August 28th
7:00pm	EMC Charity v0dgeball 2011
	Sport Center of Las Vegas 121 East Sunset Road Las Vegas, NV 89119
	If you can dodge a wrench, you can dodge a ball!</p> This event should be great fun for a great cause. Come see teams from EMC, Juniper, NetApp, VMware, VCE, Dell, HP and Cisco come battle it out. A $5 donation fee is suggested and appreciated. All proceeds go to The Wounded Warriors Project. If you cannot attend but would still like to donate, click here to donate.</td> </tr>
7:00pm	VMunderground Party 2011
	Nine Fine Irishmen New York/New York Hotel and Casino 3790 Las Vegas Boulevard South Las Vegas, NV 89109
	In its fifth year of existance, the VMunderground Party is the fastest party out of all of the festivities all week. Put together by guys who love virtualization and some great sponsors that are down for the cause. This is the Mother of All vBeers, a party not to be missed.
10:00pm	vTweetUp
	In and Out Burger 4888 Dean Martin Drive Las Vegas, NV 89103
	Quite possibly the first official vTweetUp will be on Sunday night at In and Out Burger. For those of your from the East Coast you may not want to miss this opportunity for some dericious [sic] burgers!
Monday, August 29th
11:00am	VSP3205 – Technology Preview: VMware vStorage APIs for VM and Application Granular Data Management
	Lando 4201
1:00pm	VSP1956 – VMworld ESXi Quiz Show
	Unknown Room
2:00pm	BCO3420 – Avoiding the 16 Biggest High-Availability and Distributed Resource Scheduler….
	Venetian Ballroom G
3:00pm	General Session
	Paul Maritz’s opening keynote for VMworld 2011
5:00pm	Welcome Reception
	Food, Drinks and Networking….all inside the Solutions Exchange. Be sure to check out the EMC Booth (#1101) and the EMC vLabs Booth!
7:30pm	VMworld Official vTweetUp
	V-Bar inside The Venetian Hotel and Casino
8:00pm	vGeekfest Party
	Moon inside the Palms Hotel and Casino 4321 West Flamingo Road Las Vegas, NV 89103
	Awesome party hosted by Chad Sakac and the vSpecialist Team, meet the team at a party you will not want to miss.
11:00pm	VMwareTips.com vTweetUp
	Vesper inside The Cosmopolitan Hotel of Las Vegas 3708 Las Vegas Boulevard South Las Vegas, NV 89109
	This is my official vTweetUp, the Vesper is an amazing bar inside of The Cosmopolitan. Come meet up with some other vNuts and perhaps you may get a special gift!
Tuesday, August 30th
8:00am	General Session
	Steve Herrod, CTO of VMware, will be presenting his keynote to the VMworld 2011 audience.
10:00am	SUP1006 – Accelerate the Journey to Your Cloud
	Palazzo Ballroom D
	Come see President and COO of EMC, Pat Gelsinger, deliver his keynote during this VMworld Super Session. Also come for Chad’s World Live, where Chad Sakac will be showing some awesome things EMC has been working on.
12:00pm	VSP1425 – Ask the Expert vBloggers
	Lido 3004
	Come to this panel session where you’re the focus point of discussion! You ask the questions and the experts answer them, live on stage. Come have @frankdenneman, @duncan_yb, @scott_lowe, @sakacc and @rick_vmwaretips answer your questions!
1:30pm	vTweetUp with Chad Sakac
	EMC Booth #1101
2:30pm	SPO3977 – Next-Generation Storage and Backup for Your Cloud
	San Polo 3501
4:00pm	CIM2452 – VMware vCenter Operations Technical Deepdive
	Venetian Ballroom E
5:30pm	vTweetUp with VCE
	Double Helix Wine & Whiskey Bar Palazzo Hotel and Casino
7:00pm	EMC Party
	Surrender inside the Wynn Hotel and Casino 3131 Las Vegas Boulevard South Las Vegas, NV 89109
9:00pm	Wyse Party
	Marquee inside The Cosmopolitan Hotel of Las Vegas 3708 Las Vegas Boulevard South Las Vegas, NV 89109
Wednesday, August 31st
8:00am	VSP2376 – Performance and Scalability Enhancements in vStorage VMFS 5
	Venetian Ballroom E
9:30am	VSP2227 – VMware vCenter Database Architecture, Performance and Troubleshooting
	Delfino 4001
11:00am	VSP3867 – Top 10 Virtualization Support Issues
	Marcello 4504
1:30pm	vTweetUp with Chuck Hollis of EMC
	EMC Booth #1101
2:30pm	LAS4014 – EMC Partner Hands-on Lab Design, Development and Implementation
	Marcello 4504
	Come learn how EMC designed their portion of the VMworld Hands on Labs
4:00pm	VSP2384 – Distributed Datacenters with Multiple vCenter Deployments: Best Practices
	Venetian Ballroom G
7:00pm	VMworld 2011 Party
	The party of the year! This year VMware brings The Killers to rock-out VMworld 2011
11:00pm	vStogies
	Rhumbar inside The Mirage Hotel and Casino 3400 Las Vegas Boulevard South Las Vegas, NV 89109
	vTweetUp event at the Rhumbar, where you can get your stogie and a smooth cognac.
Thursday, September 1st
9:00am	General Session
	VMware CMO, Rick Jackson, presents his keynote along with some special guests.
11:00am	EUC2692 – Rethinking Storage for Virtual Desktops
	San Polo 3404
12:30pm	SEC1747 – Desktop Security Zones with VMware View and vShield App
	Murano 3203