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The fantastic National UK VMUG is being held at the National Motorcycle Museum near Birmingham on Tuesday 18th November (note it’s a Tuesday, not the normal Thursday).

This isn’t just your run of the mill, normal VMUG (if there is such a thing!) and has been seriously enhanced over the already phenomenal 2013 version. What takes it to another level is the content that you can’t even get at VMworld…and remember, it’s free!

See the full agenda here. Sign up NOW!

The opening keynote is by VMware EMEA CTO, Joe Baguley who always delivers and as his talk is titled “CTO Rant-as-a-Service”, you can expect an inside look into what Joe sees out in the world and what gets under his skin! Of course he will be punting the VMware SDDC vision but as he talks to people day in and day out, he has a very good idea how the real world of IT works with invaluable insight into how your own company and its competitors actually do IT.

In addition, never before seen at a VMUG as far as I know, is a round table discussion with Joe called “Ask the CTO Anything”.  Seriously can you imagine having direct access to one of VMware’s most senior strategists and being able to ask him anything. Joe isn’t just your strategy marketer with a good stage presence, he’s seriously technical himself so make sure you take advantage of the opportunity.

Closing the day will be another keynote from Chris Wahl, blogger extraordinaire at Wahl Networks and one hell of a clever and also nice guy! In Stop Being a Minesweeper, he’ll be looking at how administrators and engineers are tackling issues in their data center, and advice on how to embrace automation and orchestration with various OSS tools and enterprise products. Not to be missed. Chris is also doing a Networking Deep-Dive Discussion Group, he’s written the book on it so sure knows his stuff!

In between you won’t believe the depth and breadth of content.

I will be kicking off the day by giving a community presentation all about everything announced at VMworld. This is no marketing blurb. No-one pays me to say anything good or bad so I will give you the honest low-down on everything that came out at VMworld including some secrets they didn’t intend to leak!

You will be able to hear more about EVO:Rail from the master of eloquence, Mike Laverick, as well as details of what’s coming in future releases of vSphere from none other than Duncan Epping. (Hint, I will be able to tell you some things he may not be allowed to so worth coming to both sessions!)

VMware Storage Don, Cormac Hogan, will be talking about VSAN and Paudie O’Riordan will be going through the biggest innovation in storage, VVols.

Jonathan Medd with be showing you how to design Real-World vCO Workflows for vRealize Automation Center (vCAC) and none other than VMware automation product manager, Alan Renouf, will be in attendance talking about PowerCLI

VDI gurus, Barry Coombs and Peter Von Oven will be doing “VMware Horizon Architecture and Design”

Sam McGeown will also give a community session on VMware NSX so expect to find out the non marketing-blushed version.

Perennial entertaining speaker, Ricky El-Qasem is doing 2 sessions, one on VM backups and another called “Clouds, Portals, Automation and DJs”, worth attending just for the title!

Using Virtual Appliances in Your Home/Work Lab will be discussed by Simon Seagrave.

David Hill who is one of the architects for VMware vCloud Air will be hosting an ask the experts session.

Matthew Steiner will be presenting on “vRealize Operations 6 – Everything You Need to Know!!” and Lee Dilworth will be giving you a sneak peak at the future of vSphere Availability.

There are plenty of other sessions too!

There will be also sponsor presentations from Veeam Software, Nimble Storage, Nutanix, Atlantic Computing, Tintri, SolidFire, PernixData (Frank Denneman no less!), Pure Storage, Cisco and Bitdefender so you can find out what’s new or compare products before you buy.

Oh, last to mention but awesomely cool. The fantastic VMware Global Support will be doing a Drop-in Clinic. These are the people that manage the most complex customer support calls and are there right at a VMUG for you to get answers to your most thorny problems.

There will be vCurry the night before which will also include a vQuiz which is always a laugh.

Seriously, the line-up is incredible. You will have far more access to people than you would ever have at VMworld, it’s completely free.

Well worth a day out to