VMTN and ITKE communities offer free support

VMTN, VMware’s support forums are an excellent resource: You will find a very high level of participation in the forums from users all over the world with many experienced and talented users who volunteer their time to help others, not unlike our own IT Knowledge Exchange.

The forums are a free resource for anyone to use with many users using the forums as an alternative to contacting VMware’s technical support. It’s not unusual to get an answer to your question or a solution to your problem within minutes of posting to the forums. Most new users are surprised by the speed, quality and number of answers that they receive to their posts. The forums are also a great place for users to share experiences, build relationships and strategize with other members. Many VMware employees also regularly participate in the forums by lending their expertise.

Like the IT Knowledge Exchange, the VMware forums tend to be a little competitive with users competing to collect points for posting responses to questions. Six points can be awarded by the person who asked the question for up to two helpful responses and ten points can be awarded to one response that is deemed correct. The point system allows people to gain status levels as their points increase. There are nine status levels ranging from Lurker (0-5 points) all the way up to the elite Guru level (20000+ points). As of today, there are currently 442,452 forum members with an average of about 20,000 new members being added each month. The chart below shows the breakdown of users by status level.

I would like to recognize a few of the talented VMTN members that consistently take time out of their day to help others with their only reward being recognition points and the satisfaction of knowing they helped out a fellow VMware user. Much thanks and appreciation to: Oliver Reeh (Oreeh), Dave Mishchenko (Dave.Mishchenko), Tom Howarth (Tom Howarth), Steve Beaver (Sbeaver), Edward Haletky (Texiwill) and Ken Cline (Ken.Cline).

Of course, these are just a few of the many forum members who help the VMware community. Judging from the numbers in the chart above, there are over 500 people at the Hot Shot level or above who answer the most posts from other forum users.

If you use any VMware product, I highly recommend that you check out the VMTN forums and check out the IT Knowledge Exchange. You’ll undoubtedly find that reading posts on the forums is a great way to expand your own knowledge.