So the onslaught of "vote for my sessions" has begun.

I like numbers and the interesting information that can be interpreted from those numbers.
VMworld Call for Papers Voting is no exception.

So let's start.

But before that, I would like to stress something. These numbers are what I have extracted from what is publicly available - it could be that the numbers presented below do not make up a full picture (they probably don't) - because there are sessions that could already have been accepted and we know nothing about it.
My thoughts only…

The number of sessions currently up for public voting - 954. Last year there were 1222 - that is a drop of 28%.

My thoughts - either there were less submissions this year, or VMware weeded out more stuff before the voting started this year, or there are many other sessions that have content relating to upcoming features that they were not publicized in the voting process. In any event - it is still impossible to go through a list of ~1000 sessions.

Vendors

To which company do the potential speakers belong?  (and here I took only the Diamond sponsors)

 

My thoughts - very much expected - although I would have expected that Cisco would have put in more sessions (let the conspiracy theories begin..)

Tracks

The number of sessions in each sub-track of the Infrastructure track are as follows

My thoughts - Cloud and EUC will continue to be a major part of the conference this year and is every year...

Some other interesting little tidbits..

My thoughts - Automation has become a major concern as environments are growing bigger and more complex - you can see that from the numbers above.
Orchestrator - is at least on par if not starting to overtake PowerCLI as the preferred tool for automating - that is why there are so many sessions.
Puppet is still the tool of choice for most VMware professionals - strange though that Chef did not even submit anything - is this the direction for the future - maybe??
And of course vCAC, the new kid on the block - will have to prove itself.

What about Cloud?

My thoughts - Cloud cloud … cloud cloud cloud!! One of the terms that will be used too much at VMworld. But hey… it's VMworld people!!
Hybrid is definitely popular - and that also could be because that is what VMware has named their Public cloud offering. Are you confused yet???
Openstack - is something that VMware are trying to embrace - but is quite a different animal than what VMware is trying to sell as their management layer - it will be interesting to see how this evolves, still to early to say if you ask me.
And the AWS sessions - will be not be Amazon friendly..

Software Defined <insert your term here>..

My thoughts - Software Defined ..<blah>.. is the new buzzword, everyone wants it, everyone is trying to sell it and it will be present in full force at VMworld.
VMware is trying to push NSX - and it shows - just look at the number of sessions, SDS (software defined storage) is also in there - I just did not single it out

Others

My thoughts - Oracle and business critical applications - VMware are continuing to put the emphasis on how well these work on vSphere, an interesting fact though is that most of the presenters for the Business Critical Apps are not VMware people they are customers - which shows it is working and being used.
I would have expected more monitoring/vCOPS sessions.
Maybe finally there will be something new in the Active Directory sessions with the new virtualization features for domain controllers in Windows 2012 - because if not this topic has already been beaten to death….

I would say go out vote (and if you really want, I have a 3 sessions that you can click on) but I am skeptic about how much, if any influence your vote will actually have on which sessions will get in.

The FAQ states..

 

Influence how? By how much? As long as the process is not transparent - then we will never know.

As a wise man once said … "We are all influentials ! "

(Oops that was individuals - My bad! :) )

I mentioned last week on The Unofficial VMware Visio Stencils post that it is by far the most popular post on my blog.

We all have a most popular post - one that usually stand out amongst the rest.

I started thinking - why not compile a list of each of our most popular blog posts. It does not necessarily have to be Virtualization related, I think it should - but you can decide.

So this is how it will work.

If you are interested, and would like to add it to the list below…

Please leave a comment below [or send me a message on Twitter or contact me at
maishsk (at) gmail (dot) com] with the following  :

Name:
Your Twitter Name:
Post URL:
Screenshot of the number of all-time Pageviews for your post:

No number is too great or small - let me have it! Be it 100/1,000… /1,000,000 - It does not matter.

This is by no means a competition, just an opportunity to showcase your finest and shiniest piece of work. I will add the entries below (in the order they are received)

Name	Twitter	Post URL	All-time Number of PageViews
Maish Saidel-Keesing	@maishsk	The Unofficial VMware Visio Stencils
Luca Dell’Oca	@dellock6	About Me
William Lam	@lamw	How to Enable Support for Nested 64bit & Hyper-V VMs in vSphere 5
Ather Beg	@AtherBeg	HTC Peep issue resolved: “The account was forbidden to access the Twitter server”
Phillip Jones	@P2Vme	VMware vSphere 5.1 Known Issues : Updated 9/17/2012

Will you accept the challenge?

The VMware Visio Stencils I have created are by far the most popular post on my blog. Over the past few years I have posted a three versions over the years since they were released.

I decided last week that it was time to create a dedicated page that would hold the most up to date version and not to have them spread out all across my blog.
Therefore from now all the old versions will now redirect to this page.

Why "The Unofficial VMware Visio Stencils"?
That is because they are not prepared by VMware, but by me. On each occasion I have taken the icons and diagrams that VMware release every now and again and turn them into something that a large number of people have asked for, but VMware have yet to be able to supply, a re-usable Visio stencil that can be used in diagrams.

First the legal part:

This document was created using the official VMware icon and diagram library. Copyright © 2012 VMware, Inc. All rights reserved. This product is protected by U.S. and international copyright and intellectual property laws. VMware products are covered by one or more patents listed at http://www.vmware.com/go/patents.
VMware does not endorse or make any representations about  third party information included in this document, nor does the inclusion of any VMware icon or diagram in this document imply such an endorsement.

Today (April 8th, 2013) I am also releasing the final and last part of the v3 version of the Stencils.
To make it more user friendly and easier to find what you would like, you can find below a graphical inventory of what is in each of the parts of this version (v3).

Part 1

Box Shots

Icons

2D Icons

Shapes and Assets

Build your Own

Part 2

VMware Concepts

Additional Icons

Part 3

Product Groupings

Part 3 includes the following products:

• Orchestrator (x2)
• CapacityIQ
• Chargeback
• Appspeed
• Site Recovery Manager (x3)
• Studio
• vCloud Director
• VMware Server
• View (x6)
• ThinApp (x2)
• vCloud Director (x2)

Today August 24th, 2014 the first day of VMworld US, I am releasing the 4th part of the stencils.

Part 4

Icons

Each of the shapes above are laid out (as much as possible) in such a way to allow you to move the components within your Visio drawing, to suit your needs.
So where are the actual stencils already???
Here you can find all the Downloads (including the historical versions)

Version
v4 (2014)	(Full Package)	Part 1	Part 2	Part 3	Part 4
v3 (2012)	(Full package)	Part 1	Part 2	Part 3
v2 (2010)	(Full package)	Part 1	Part 2	Part 3
v1 (2009)	(Full package)	Part 1	Part 2

I hope this continues to be a valuable resource for you all!