There are so many tips and tricks that we could share to ensure you make the most out of VMworld. Whilst these tips differ slightly than if the event were in person (where we would be telling you to wear comfortable shoes), below we have included our top tips to ensure you make the most out of this year's virtual event (and fingers crossed the last virtual one we have to attend).

If you have not yet registered for VMworld 2021 VMware’s Premier Multi-Cloud event - register now!

Once you have registered, take a look at all the amazing sessions and build your schedule!

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Book the time out!

The problem with a virtual event can be the temptation to tune in whilst you are still trying to keep up with business as usual! So our advice would be to treat it like an in-person event, get permission from your boss to attend and dedicate the time to it!

Think about what you want to achieve by attending the conference

Before picking your sessions, think about what you want to achieve by attending the conference. What projects are coming up at work, or what skills gaps do you or your organisation have that you can use your time attending VMworld to achieve? Maybe write yourself a shortlist of questions to answer with your attendance!

Build your agenda

Taking the above in mind, take the time before the event to look at the session catalogue and add the sessions to your agenda using the session builder. Without doing this, it can be overwhelming selecting which sessions to watch during the event due to the pure amount of content to choose from (like a child in a sweet shop).

Filter sessions in the session catalogue

With so many sessions and fantastic content, it can sometimes be difficult to filter through to find relevant information. Therefore, in the session catalogue, we recommend using the filters on the left of the page to filter by session type, product, track, topic, level and more. This will help you find the sessions that are relevant to you.

Get involved in the community

One of the best bits of VMworld is the community engagement throughout every aspect of the event, whether during a keynote, walking around the exhibition hall or during the events in the evening. This is definitely one of the key elements that we miss with events being virtual at the moment, but that isn't to say that the community feel isn't there. So get involved in the conversation on Twitter using #VMworld2021 and engage with the community, share your thoughts, opinions and of course, share others content to help promote their content too!

We will be joining the conference and sharing our thoughts with the community on Twitter, so follow us at VirtualisedReal and BizTechMeg!

Get comfortable and avoid the distractions

When the time has come for your to tune in for VMworld 2021, get comfortable (maybe tune in from your TV in the lounge!), bring your snacks, set your out of office, turn on do not disturb in Teams and tune in! We recommend taking notes during the sessions, but if that doesn't suit you, reserve time in your agenda to reflect on what you have learnt and note the actions you wish to take with this newfound knowledge!

We hope you find these tips useful and enjoy your virtual trip to VMworld 2021!

Register for VMworld 2021 now and build your schedule!!@

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It's that time of year again where I start looking forward to conference season and at the top of my agenda is always VMworld, VMware’s multi-cloud event. Sadly with COVID still lingering on, I won't be making my usual pilgrimage to VMworld in Barcelona but enjoying it from the comfort of my own home.

VMworld this year will be the first VMworld since 2012 (I believe) where Pat Gelsinger is no longer CEO, but don't threat, VMware is in safe hands with Raghu Raghuram at the helm. Raghu Gaghuram isn't a new face at VMware, and those who have attended VMworld before like I will be very used to seeing him on stage. Nonetheless, it will be exciting to see Raghu take the stage and see what the future of VMware looks like under him.

If you haven’t already registered for VMworld, ensure to head over there now and get registered.

For me, there are three important things about attending VMworld 

1. Understand where our industry is going, how VMware is talking about their technologies, and the shifts we are seeing. For this, I look for strategic and high-level sessions.

2. Dive deep into the Technology so I understand how it works and how it will benefit my customers. For this, I look for architecture and deep-dive sessions.

3. Spend time with the vCommunity including, community members, VMware employees and partners. This is more difficult when the conference is virtual, but head over to Twitter, connect with the vCommunity and follow the hashtags! You can follow me @virtualisedreal

As Chief Technologist, I have a broad remit of technologies I follow and talk to customers about. So the list below represents some of the areas that are of interest to me. I have tried to link to all the sessions so you can easily find them and then add them to your schedule when the schedule builder is launched.

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Inspire Change

Accessibility with Productivity Apps - Design Studio [UX2553]

Join us as we dive into what accessibility is and how we are working towards a future that includes all people regardless of limitations in tech - Does your organization offer solutions that adhere to current accessibility standards? Learn and give us feedback on what is important to your organization when it comes to accessibility for your teams. VMware Design Studios are interactive sessions exploring technical previews and early design ideas. Participants will be asked to sign an NDA.

Ajayan Subramanian, UX Designer, VMware

 Any App, Any Cloud, Any Device Is Not Enough – We Need to Add Any User [IC1351]

VMware's solutions strive to achieve secure digital transformation without disruption for a digital foundation, and deliver any app, on any cloud, to any device. This is frequently summarized as the three anys in VMware's advertising. The missing any is any user. This talk will address what VMware is doing to add the fourth any—any user, including users with disabilities. It will also discuss what users need to do to integrate the fourth any in their organizations.

Sheri Byrne-Haber, Senior Staff Accessibility Architect, VMware

Security

Addressing Malware and Advanced Threats in the Network [SEC2027]

Today’s reality is that security breaches are a given. Sophisticated attackers are too numerous and too determined to get caught by perimeter defenses. Hear insights into how the adversaries are evading defenses and focuses on how the Network Detection and Response capabilities of NSX Advanced Threat Prevention provide the visibility, detection and prevention of advanced threats.

Chad Skipper, Global Security Technologist, VMware

Giovanni Vigna, Sr. Director Threat Intelligence, VMware

A Practical Approach for End-to-End Zero Trust [SEC2733]

Digital transformations around app modernization, multi-cloud infrastructure, and remote users has accelerated the need to move away from perimeter-only security to a more distributed security with tighter access controls to resources. Zero trust approach aims to address the security challenges but can seem complex - from where to start and what’s in scope. In this session, we will discuss specific capabilities that will enable you to achieve a zero trust architecture that’s aligned to the NIST guidance and covers secure access for users as well secure access to workloads. 

Shawn Bass, CTO End User Computing, VMware

A Practical Guide to Implementing Zero Trust [SEC1028]

What is Zero Trust, and how can you get started? A new model of working from anywhere on any device requires a new model of network security. Zero Trust, born from the concept of “never trust, always verify,” assumes that no device, person, network or packet can be trusted, and builds access privileges from there. Zero Trust network access moves from a network-centric security process to an identity- and context-based security approach. These modern concepts help leverage the security and benefits of a cloud-hosted solution, while easing IT deployment and maintenance of costly remote access services. In this session, we will take a practical approach on how to start on your Zero Trust journey using VMware Secure Access.

Peter Bjork, Principal Architect, VMware 

Better Secure Remote Workers with VMware Carbon Black Cloud [SEC2666]

The Anywhere Workspace brings together management and security for remote workers. Although this vision solves the challenge of remote work for IT and security teams, it begins with an innovative approach to security. This session will focus on how VMware Carbon Black Cloud can meet the endpoint security needs for your organization within the context of the VMware Anywhere Workspace vision.

Elizabeth Schultheisz, PMM, VMware

Simplified Security with VMware Carbon Black Cloud [SEC2490]

As network breaches become more prevalent, are you confident your network can fend them off? Does the complexity of network security seem like a daunting task? If so, you will want to join us for a conversation about how VMware Carbon Black Cloud can make security easier and more efficient. Join us for a discussion on tips and tricks to make managing your endpoint security a little more effortless.

Jamie Kaushik, Senior Technical Trainer, VMware 

Multi-Cloud

A Guide to Application Migration Nirvana [MCL1264]

Have you experienced application migration paralysis? We have. Join this session to learn how VMware vRealize Network Insight uses application discovery and migration planning to understand your applications before migrating them, and then uses an integration into VMware HCX to seamlessly start migrating. We will spill the beans on how VMware IT and our customers solved their migration headaches. Through mostly demos, we will show how to: • Discover your application workloads • Map out application dependencies • Analyze network traffic to make informed decisions • Seamlessly move the discovered applications into VMware HCX • Migrate the applications to VMware Cloud on AWS, Azure VMware Solution, and Google Cloud VMware Engine

Martijn Smit, Technical Marketing Architect, VMware

Azure VMware Solution Best Practices for Implementation and Migration [MCL3114S]

Join us for an interactive discussion on best practices when implementing, migrating and managing your Azure VMware Solution environment. Learn from our Azure VMware Solution experts and their experiences working closely with customers throughout deployment, including how to optimize for different scenarios and how to leverage the best of VMware and Azure services.

Jeramiah Dooley, Principal Cloud Advocate, Microsoft

Shannon Kuehn, Cloud Advocate, Microsoft 

Azure VMware Solution: Platform Deep Dive [MCL3078S]

Explore the latest releases from Azure VMware Solution, including technical overviews for new integrations of popular disaster recovery and backup solutions such as VMware Site Recovery Manager and Zerto. Learn more about how to take advantage of new connectivity between your Azure VMware Solution environment and other Azure services for storage, management, security and more.

Ramprasad Gowrishankar, Principal PM, Microsoft

Benefits of Azure Virtual Desktop and VMware Horizon Cloud Service [MCL3093S]

Learn about the latest product updates and benefits. Ask your critical questions to our panel of experts from Microsoft and VMware.

Gabe Knuth, Sr. Product Line Marketing Manager, VMware

John Jenner, Microsoft

Strategy and Vision to Accelerate Cloud Provider and MSP Growth [MCL2075]

The opportunity for cloud providers, MSPs and other partners continues to grow. VMware is committed to helping our world-class ecosystem of cloud providers, MSPs and solutions providers take advantage of the multi-cloud opportunity. In this session, you will hear from our product leaders and experts on our strategy and vision for cloud partners. You will learn about our latest products and solutions to help providers develop hyperscaler-class clouds, new services available through an asset-light model, and how we’re embracing the multi-cloud world to help partners grow and thrive with greater choice for their customers.

Rajeev Bhardwaj, VMware  

App Modernisation

Adopting Containers Through VMware Tanzu - The Benefits [MCL2874S]

Adopting agile and cloud-native development methods and tools is key to the future success of many businesses. Most businesses adopted virtualization many years ago to increase the efficiency and utilization of their IT estate and are now seeking ways to take that investment forward into the cloud-native world. For VMware customers, Tanzu provides a clear path towards that goal and the business benefits that it can yield. As one of VMware’s top partners and also a Gartner leader in Multicloud, helping customers adopt a more developer-centric approach to cloud-native development through the adoption of containers and Kubernetes is core to Rackspace Technology VMware services.

Amine El Badaoui, Product Architect, Rackspace

An End-to-End Demo of Day 0 to Day 2 VMware Tanzu Management with vRealize [APP1586]

In this session, we will take you through a Day 1 and beyond demonstration of how VMware vRealize Automation, vRealize Operations, vRealize Log Insight, and vRealize Network Insight can come together to deploy, manage and troubleshoot Kubernetes...

Matt Bradford, Sr. Technical Marketing Architect, VMware

Sam McGeown, Staff Technical Marketing Architect, VMware

 A Guide to vSphere with VMware Tanzu: Day 2 Operations for the VI Admin [APP1718]

This session will cover the basics of Kubernetes architecture, and day 2 operations when deployed on vSphere. As the Virtual Infrastructure administrator, the more you know about the software that runs on top of your platform, the better service...

Simon Conyard, Senior Solution Engineer, VMware

Dean Lewis, Senior Solutions Engineer – Cloud Management, VMware

What's New in vSphere [APP1205]

This is the anchor session for all VMworld attendees interested in VMware vSphere, and it is a VMworld staple. We will provide an overview of all that’s new in vSphere this year, discuss key technology trends and customer challenges, share how the latest capabilities in vSphere help customers meet the needs for key use cases, and highlight some real-world customer successes. We will also provide guidance on key sessions on related topics that attendees should not miss at VMworld. This session is where you want to start your VMworld 2021 journey.

Himanshu Singh, Group Manager, VMware

Ken Werneburg, Director of Technical Marketing, VMware

Application Migration Patterns [CODE2750]

Every organization is looking to migrate their applications to the cloud or cloud-native. I will share my learnings from the application modernisation/migration experience at VMware (for customer) and in enterprises (pre-VMWare). I begin where the 5R discussion ends. Answering the critical "How" part of the undertaking.

Yogi Rampuria, Advisory Platform Architect, VMware

End-User Services

Advanced Architectures for Deploying Horizon in the Cloud [EUS1129]

This session will dive into many of the advanced VMware Cloud on AWS design considerations and topologies that impact delivering VMware Horizon on VMware Cloud on AWS. These design considerations and topologies are not limited to Horizon. We will also dive deep into integration with AWS and connectivity options. We will review architectures deployed by VMware Professional Services to show real-life applications of how Horizon on VMware Cloud on AWS met desired business outcomes. We will review additional cloud offerings that can host Horizon, such as Azure VMware Solution and Google Cloud VMware Engine, and outline the similarities and differences of these solutions.

Bob Barna, Consulting Architect, VMware 

Architecting Multi-Cloud Horizon [EUS1547]

Learn how to architect multi-cloud VMware Horizon deployments. This technical session will cover the deployment options and platforms available, including Horizon, Horizon Cloud Service on Microsoft Azure, Horizon on VMware Cloud on AWS, Horizon on Azure VMware Solution, and Horizon on Google Cloud VMware Engine. Find out how Horizon Control Plane Services, such as Universal Broker and Image Management Service, aid in both administration and user access.

Chris Halstead, Senior Staff Architect, VMware

Hilko Lantinga, Staff Architect, VMware 

Ask Me Anything from the End-User Computing Experts [EUS2636]

Meet the End User Computing experts, bring your questions and ask us anything (as long as it is slightly related to EUC)! These experts are prepared to answer your toughest questions spanning from virtual desktops and apps, unified endpoint management, security, to practical tips and tricks, successful implementations...the list goes on.

Christopher Dayton, Director, VMware

Spencer Pitts, Chief Technologist, VMware 

Drop It Like It's Hot Reloaded: The Windows Dropship Session is Back [EUS1581]

A DeskCon experience session. With IT teams and employees working from home and offices facing extended closures, how are you provisioning and deploying new Windows desktops and laptops to new hires and employees due for a refresh? Planning a Windows 10 zero-touch device provisioning experience for your users? We will deep dive into everything you need to know about drop-ship provisioning, including factory and connected provisioning. Modernizing deployment can be challenging and overwhelming with many dependencies on other technologies. Come learn what it takes to make this a reality.

Ameya Jambavalikar, Senior Product Manager, VMware

Josh Burris, Staff Architect, VMware 

Now, Next, and Beyond: Innovation Showcase with VMware EUC CTO Shawn Bass [EUS2467]

Shawn Bass, CTO for VMware EUC, gives a closer look at the new innovations in Workspace ONE, Horizon, and Anywhere Workspace. Learn how VMware thinks about the future of technology for end-user computing, Zero Trust security, and distributed work. This session also serves as the introduction to our VDIscover track for Day 2 of VMworld.

Shawn Bass, CTO End User Computing, VMware 

The Accidental VDI Admin: Carl Webster’s Analysis of Horizon 8 [EUS2460]

He’s back. Last year, Carl Webster spent six weeks testing VMware Horizon 7.12, building and tearing down his lab 5 times and shared his findings in a wildly popular VDIscover session. This year, Carl will share his experiences with Horizon 8. Carl’s background includes independently working with VDI and app publishing products like Citrix for over 30 years. Whether you were or weren’t able to attend his session last year, this is going to be one you won’t want to miss.

Carl Webster, Owner, CarlWebster.com

Brian Madden, Distinguished Technologist, VMware 

Vision and Innovation

Fireside Chat with Michael J. Fox and VMware CMO Carol Carpenter [VI3148]

Emmy-award-winning actor, author and patient advocate Michael J. Fox sits down with VMware Chief Marketing Officer Carol Carpenter to discuss his life and his passion to help find a cure to Parkinson’s disease. Other topics include maintaining inherent optimism while managing many challenges, balancing a career, family and charity work and sharing how technology and research can help pave a path for a cure Michael J. Fox is an award-winning actor, best-selling author and patient advocate. Fox was diagnosed with young-onset Parkinson's disease and years later launched The Michael J. Fox Foundation for Parkinson’s Research in 2000. Since then, Fox has been a steadfast advocate for research and patients and through it all, has continued his acting career and written 4 books including his most recent memoir, No Time Like the Future: An Optimist Considers Mortality, published in November 2020.

Carol Carpenter, CMO, VMware

Michael J. Fox 

Accelerating Innovation: Strategies for Winning Across Clouds and Apps [GEN3103]

What’s the best way to speed up business innovation? How can you deliver apps and services faster to improve the customer experience? Is it possible to maximize cloud advantages while avoiding the slow-you-down trade-offs of the past? There’s no better way to open VMworld 2021 than with a look at strategies to accelerate your business. Join CEO Raghu Raghuram as he lays out his vision for the future of multi-cloud technology, providing a view into the innovations VMware is driving at the intersection of clouds and apps. He will explore how leading organizations are challenging the status quo to move fast, gain a competitive advantage and stay secure. VMware President Sumit Dhawan will share a perspective on how VMware is delivering the critical capabilities that every digital business needs, with a special focus on the first-hand experience of VMware customers around the world. In this must-see session, you can expect a mix of new insights, practical info and a good dose of inspiration for accelerating your own business and technology success.

Raghu Raghuram, CEO, VMware

Sumit Dhawan, President, VMware

If you have not yet registered for VMworld 2021, register now and start building your schedule!

With VMworld just around the corner and coming around before we know it, now is a great time to look at the schedule, understand what sessions will be included, and build your schedule for the event.

If you have not yet registered for VMworld 2021 - register now!

Once you have registered, take a look at all the fantastic sessions and build your schedule!

This year I am taking a keen interest in security and employee experience. With so much changing throughout 2020, I perceive these two areas as the biggest impacted and needed to adapt quickly. Furthermore, these changes need to be future proof for the world of 'new normal'. Below are the top sessions I recommend you add to your schedule for VMworld 2021!

Achieving Happiness: The Quest for something new [IC1484] – Amanda Belvins & Steve Athanas

After 2020 and 2021, not the years we had planned, it has changed our view on many things. Ensuring I always put my happiness first is crucial, and the pandemic highlighted the importance of this for me. I think the fact that VMware are including sessions around wellbeing, happiness and people in the agenda is incredible and speaks volumes.

Digital Employee Experience: The Key to a Successful Anywhere Workspace [EUS2069] – Amit Sharma

With a large percentage of the workforce now working remotely, employee experience from day 1 has changed drastically. Not only has the technology needed to adapt to accommodate this for onboarding, but the people, processes and culture have needed to adapt also. Technologies such as Workspace ONE enable businesses to monitor and automate employee engagement to allow businesses to proactively remediate actions to improve employee experience and further engage their workforce.

Another session related to this subject is: How to support a remote workforce with Workspace ONE [EUS1723] – Pooja Chengappa & Dany Leclerc

Next Year's News: EUC's Vision and Announcements with CTO Shawn Bass [EUS2470]

I always find that Shawn Bass’ EUC keynote session is one of my favourites at VMworld and one that I have always ensured I attend when I am at VMworld. It is not only great to hear the latest announcements about new features from VMware, but it is also always insightful to hear from Shawn about the reason behind the new features and bring it into context for businesses.

How to Improve Your Endpoint Security and Simplify Your Workflows [SEC2662] – Justin Flack

With data being completely segregated and dispersed due to the pandemic, businesses have to manage and secure data in new ways. This session will be engaging to understand VMware’s vision for security in terms of protection, detection and response.

Becoming a Force for Good: A Panel on Adapting to a Changing Tech Community [IC1352]

After the ex-CTO of VMware, Pat Gelsinger announced that Technology needs to be used for a force for good at VMworld 2019; it will be great to hear from the panellists about how VMware and their employees have been innovating and working to constantly deliver upon this vision.

The Time Is Now – Align Your Cybersecurity Needs and Objectives [SEC2390] – Martin Redler

With the cyber-security landscape constantly changing, businesses are having to change how they manage and secure data. This session will cover building a secure strategy to meet your businesses security objectives and protect data.

Multi-Cloud: Can It Solve Future Business Challenges? [MCL3016S]

With many organisations beginning to look at moving to the cloud, this session will inform and interesting to understand from real-life experiences how multi-cloud can solve business challenges. This session will deliver a large amount of advice for people looking to move to multi-cloud and hopefully answer some questions about it.

Register for VMworld 2021 now and build your schedule!

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My sketchnote below covers Bear Grylls inspirational presentation from VMworld 2019 in Barcelona

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My doodle from VMworld 2019 in Barcelona can be seen below covering

• Building and managing modern apps

• NSX Intelligence

• Wavefront

• CloudHealth

• and more

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Here is my doodle covering the day 1 general session from VMworld in Barcelona, VMware further executing on their vision of any device, any application on any cloud with intrinsic security.

VMworld is taking place in San Francisco, California this week, here are my thoughts from Mondays general session by VMware’s CEO Pat Gelsinger and COO Sanjay Poonen.

The initial general session of VMworld 2019 was used to further build upon the delivery of VMware’s vision of Any Cloud, Any Application, Any Device with Intrinsic Security. We saw big announcements and updates in terms of Any Cloud, Any Application, and Intrinsic Security but maybe short of details regarding the traditonal EUC business in the initial general session.

Further commentary to come shortly at DefineTomorrow.co.uk

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The second general session at VMworld 2018 in Barcelona focused on great conversations with VMware customers who have been using VMware technologies to meet their business needs. Most importantly their was an inspiring theme of how technology can and should be used for good. Martha Lane Fox founder of LastMinute.com closed the general session with the inspirational story of her life founding lastminute.com at 25 during the dot com boom before being involved in a life changing crash that involved her spending 2 years in hospital. Martha now dedicates her time to technology projects where she can drive change for good. 

My doodle is below.  

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You can watch this general session at the following link =>  https://www.vmworld.com/en/europe/learning/general-sessions.html

The first general session at VMworld 2018 covered every aspect of VMware’s execution of their vision, from the application to the device on any cloud and most importantly with intrinsic security.

My doodle live from the general session is below  

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You can watch this general session back at the following link => 

https://www.vmworld.com/en/europe/learning/general-sessions.html

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Only half of the day two general session was live streamed, but above is my doodle covering what was featured. Sanjay Poonen VMware COO spoke about the engines that fuel VMware being innovation and the customer, VMware are the only company in NPS to be listed in the top 5 for customer satisfaction five years running. He also spoke about the growth of VMware and how every customer that has deployed VMware technologies has been able in turn been able to reduce costs, reduce complexity and reduce carbon. There were a number of customer references live on stage talking about how they are innovating with VMware tecnologies with a strong focus on the SDDC, VMware Cloud, PKS and NSX.

As ever the first day keynote at VMworld was packed with thought leadership, announcements and demonstrations. VMware CEO Pat Gelsinger took to the stage to discuss the super powers of technology, these were cloud, mobile, AI / ML and Edge / IOT. VMware have been slowly enhancing their long term vision of any device, any app, any cloud with intrinsic security and this years keynote further demonstrated that. 

We saw demonstrations and announcements in all areas with the release of vSphere 6.7 update 1 featuring updates for vSAN and more. We saw further demonstration of VMware's close relationship with AWS with AWS RDS (Relational Database Services) being made available on premises via vSphere in coming months. Close integration with vSphere, NSX and Kurbenetes with vSphere PKS and IoT edge infrastructures being treated as a first class citizenship bringing the IT to IoT with a demonstration of vSphere on ARM allowing for true enterprise class features such as FT, vMotion and HA being made available at the edge. 

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One of my favourite aspects of attending VMworld is attending the general sessions, whilst they are now all streamed live I don't think you can beat being there live to get the full experience. 

This year the focus was firmly on the software-defined data centre, bringing to the cloud and transforming the workspace. 

As ever it was great to hear from VMware CEO Pat Gelsinger and COO Sanjay Poonen

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