I sat down a few days ago and counted. Twenty-six VMworld and VMware Explore sessions delivered since 2018 — from that first nerve-wracking co-presentation with a customer in Barcelona, all the way to what is shaping up to be the most technically compelling edition yet. If you are on the fence about registering for VMware Explore 2026, let me share why I am not.
Where it started — Barcelona, 2018
My first VMworld session was not a solo effort. A customer agreed to stand on stage with me, and that set the tone for everything that followed. There is a particular kind of trust involved when a customer puts their name alongside yours in a conference abstract — they are vouching for the work, the outcomes, and the relationship. Walking off that stage after our session was one of those career moments I genuinely did not expect to feel as significant as it did.
What I did not anticipate in 2018 was that I was stepping into something much larger than a conference. VMworld — now VMware Explore — is a community that keeps compounding. The people I met in that first year are still colleagues, collaborators, and friends. Eight vExpert cycles later, that network has shaped my thinking on private cloud operations more than any certification or documentation ever could.
“The real ROI of VMware Explore is not measured in session credits — it is measured in the conversations that happen between them.”
Twenty-six sessions later — what I have learned about showing up
Across those 26 sessions, the format has changed, the venue has evolved, and the technology stack has shifted dramatically. What hasn’t changed is the quality of attention in the room. People at VMware Explore are not passive attendees. They push back, they ask hard questions, and they share war stories from production environments that no documentation ever surfaces. That is irreplaceable.
A few things I have taken away from the journey:
The hallway track is not a bonus — it’s the point. Some of the most useful conversations I have had happened outside sessions entirely. A quick chat at the Solutions Exchange, a roundtable that ran over time, a dinner that turned into a three-hour white-boarding session. Explore is infrastructure for serendipity.
Customer voices change everything. That first co-presentation taught me that real-world validation shifts the entire energy of a session. Practitioners in the audience can tell immediately when a speaker has lived with a technology versus merely studied it. Bringing a customer voice into your session is always worth the extra coordination.
You get out what you put in. Sitting through sessions passively is table stakes. Submitting abstracts, volunteering at VMUG meet-ups, sharing your notes publicly afterward — that is where the community flywheel really starts spinning.
Why 2026 feels different: VCF 9.1 and the Private Cloud pivot
I have watched the narrative around private cloud go through several cycles — from “private cloud is dead” to “repatriation is real” — and right now we are in the most interesting chapter yet. VCF 9.1 reaching GA has moved the conversation from roadmap to reality, and VMware Explore 2026 will be the first major gathering where the field experience with 9.1 gets shared openly, publicly, and at scale.
From a Sustainability and GreenOps lens, this edition is particularly compelling. The memory tiering claims in 9.1 — and the associated reduction in server footprint for AI workloads — need to be stress-tested in real-world conditions. Explore’s breakout sessions are where those numbers get examined honestly. I’ll be paying close attention to what practitioners report versus what the product sheets say.
The 2026 event — what you need to know
August 31 – September 3, 2026 — VMware Explore Las Vegas at The Venetian Convention and Expo Center. Four full days of technical sessions, hands-on labs, certifications, and expert roundtables.
Early-bird pricing ends June 16 — Save $200 on the Full Event Pass. VMUG Advantage members save an additional $100 on top of that.
Explore on Tour — For those outside the US: Mumbai (Sep 29–30), Singapore (Oct 1–2), Frankfurt (Oct 13–14), Tokyo (Oct 20–21), London (Nov 18–19), and Washington D.C. (Dec 8) for the public sector.
VCF track depth — The agenda is being built around VCF 9.1 as the primary lens. For anyone operating VCF in production, the session density on this track alone justifies the trip.
My honest case for going
I am aware that enterprise travel budgets are under pressure. I am also aware that a lot of what Explore covers is accessible through recorded sessions and documentation post-event. So let me be direct about what you actually get by being there in person.
You get access to engineers who built the product you are running. Not product managers delivering keynotes — engineers in breakout rooms who will answer the question you have been Googling for three weeks. You get candid conversations with peers who have solved the exact problem sitting in your backlog. You get certification pathways that are accelerated in the Explore environment in ways that do not happen at your desk at home. And you get a renewed sense of the direction the industry is heading, which is genuinely difficult to synthesise from reading alone.
For anyone running VCF in production and looking at AI Workloads— or planning to — the 2026 edition has a specific gravity that I have not felt since the early VMworld years when the VMware stack itself was being fundamentally rearchitected. The private cloud narrative is being rewritten right now, and this is where that story gets told first-hand.
See you there
I will hope be at VMware Explore 2026 in Las Vegas. If you are going, or if you are on the fence, reach out — I am always happy to connect with fellow VCF practitioners, vExperts, and community members ahead of the event. And if you are attending one of the Explore on Tour stops, those are worth your time too.
To the community that has shown up in rooms with me across 26 sessions and across Vegas, San Francisco & Barcelona since 2018: thank you. To those who have not made it to an Explore yet: this is the year.