We’re now a mere week away from the VMUG UK UserCon on 17th November, but there is still time to register ahead the day itself. You should also remember that you can simply turn up on the day, as always. We’ll be happy to see you either way. If you want to come to the vCurry the night before (7PM - 9PM, in the Premier Suite at the Motorcycle Museum) then it’s best to pre-register for that so we know how many people want feeding. There’s over 100 in for the vCurry so far and as an added bonus, you also get to pick up your badge here, avoiding the line the following morning.

As an addendum to my post last week around the UK UserCon as a whole, I want to focus a little more on the Community angle in this post.

First off, we have a Community track running alongside the sponsor and VMware sessions throughout the day, so you can pretty much go all in on the VMUG Community here alone.

• PaaS, Kick-starting the journey as a newbie | Ricky El-Qasem
• Going Hybrid - using vRealize Automation as a cloud broker for AWS, vCloud Air and Azure | Sam McGeown
• Self Healing Datacenter using vROps | Simon Eady
• Increasing security and minimizing risk for SMBs | Barry Coombs
• Automating vRealize Automation with PowervRA | Jonathan Medd & Craig Gumbley

Five cracking sessions there, from well, some of the usual suspects, all excellent contributors to the community and long term supporters of VMUG. I’ve had the pleasure of seeing some of this stuff already!

Secondly, we also have Community Discussion Groups running through day in the usual location, up on the mezzanine area within the Imperial Suite. (The Imperial Suite is where you will also find all of our sponsors situated, so please also take some time to visit them and see what they’ve got to say).

We have three tracks available here, on a range of topics, so there should be something to suit every visitor. This is not shown on the VMUG site (yet!) so here’s an exclusive look at what’s coming. I’ve also seen some of this content already, so again, I know that you are in for a treat. There is a diverse blend of topics evident here, delivered by some long term VMUG supporters (and leaders) alongside some of the up and coming new faces presenting at their first UserCon. This is great to see! The heart of the community, right here.

By this time next week, this should be on the main Agenda and also in the VMUG App, which will help you get to see what you want to see. You may have noticed that there’s also an opportunity here to Collar Joe Baguley, EMEA CTO and ask him anything you want. Within the bounds of decency of course. There is also a CTO Ambassadors table here all day, so not only can you talk to Joe, but some of VMware’s UK Ambassadors will be on hand to talk to you.

Finally, if that lot was not enough for you, we are delighted to be closing the days presentations with another Community Session as the Closing Keynote; Please join long time VMUG contributor Julian Wood for Demystifying the Future of IT - a practitioners guide;

There is a huge change underway in how we deliver IT. Public / Private / Hybrid / Multi / Cross Clouds in all shapes and sizes, IaaS, PaaS, SaaS, containers, DevOps, serverless, hyper-converged, SD? What the heck? Everything seems to be changing but how do you know where to start and how do you know where you should be heading. VMware also seems to be announcing a lot of different things recently. You want to take advantage of what’s to offer and avoid some of the pitfalls but are a little confused? You are not alone! Julian Wood will gaze into the crystal ball and give you some concrete practical advice on navigating the future of IT.

The UK VMUG UserCon - Putting the U firmly into VMUG, I think you’ll agree.

See you next week!