VCDX Prep Round 2

April 28, 2014 by Gregg Robertson 14 Comments

As some people may or may not know I attempted to defend my VCDX design two and a half weeks ago at the Frimley UK defences. Unfortunately I was lacking in certain areas as well as I let stress cloud my mind temporarily in my design scenario but I really enjoyed the experience and blogged about this in my Extra VCDX Experience achievement unlocked posting which received an unexpected amount of attention and even caused current VCDX Michael Webster to put out a blog posting around VCDX Candidate Tips.

As a child of the 80’s and 90’s I spent untold amounts of my time playing street fighter two, honing my skills and continually getting killed in the second round by M Bison. Now this posting isn’t about my misspent youth but very much like then, after loads of practice and hours spent in front of a screen I became quite the fighter on SF2 so I see how my VCDX prep has been battle hardening me for my second round against my equal (in this analogy Ken) and all those hours spent practicing will hopefully make me have the knowledge and skills to “defeat” the VCDX this time.

So I have started listing all the books,podcasts,videos and labs I feel I need to do to obtain it this time. I received a really good amount of feedback last week from my defence , although the “We urge all reapplying candidates either to submit a new design or to substantially enhance the previously submitted design” portion certainly needs a rewrite or review as it does make you question if you ever had a chance. Anyhow here is my list so far and my plan is to change my VCDX-DCV page to include these and it will allow me to continually update it very much like I did for my VCP and VCAP resources pages. *Warning* I am going all in this time so this is going to be a serious amount of stuff but it will be everything I think is necessary and hence why I’m also going to be doing this over time as I am taking this as a steep but very necessary learning curve and I don’t want to reach near burn out like I did a few times during my last attempt.

Reading:

Mastering VMware vSphere 5 and Mastering VMware vSphere 5.5 . I have read both of these already but i will be doing it again as even though my design is based on 5.0 you have to understand future compatibility and what features in the future may make your design even better or possibly impact it.
VMware vSphere Design and VMware vSphere Design 2nd Edition. This is the same as above, I’m going to go through both again to strengthen portions but also understand future impacts and hopefully be able to apply that to my reworked (should I say substantially enhanced rather?) design.
Storage Implementation in vSphere 5.0. I bought this book and read certain sections of it before my defence but I knew and it was also pointed out to me that my in depth knowledge of storage needs strengthening as 9/10 times in my work engagements the storage is done by a storage vendor who designs and delivers the physical storage so I don’t get to dive in depth into storage which is something that is required for the VCDX. I will list more physical storage resources in the sections below.
Networking for VMware Administrators. I’ve only bought this very recently due to it only being released recently. Very much like storage I felt I knew and understood the impacts of all the networking that was implemented in my VCDX design but when it came to it I felt and it was pointed out that my in depth knowledge of all the switching mechanisms and networking constructs wasn’t strong enough. I’ve never done any networking courses or exams either so I think learning more around this will certainly be beneficial and i will list more physical networking resources in the sections below.
vSphere 5 Clustering Tech Deepdive and VMware vSphere 5.1 Clustering Deepdive. I’ve read both of these books quite a few times and read them again before my defence as I needed a refresher on all the mechanisms and timings that you forget after some time. I plan to read these again and try apply more of it to my design as well.
VMware vSphere 5.x Datacenter Design Cookbook. I haven’t read this book as yet but I’m hoping it can add additional information into my head and hopefully cement some things that I keep forgetting.
Building a Virtual Datacenter. I read this book for my VCAP5-DCD and it was highly beneficial so I am going to read this again and hopefully learn even more from it.
Managing and Optimizing VMware vSphere Deployments. Another book I read for my VCAP-DCD prep and one that I will be reading again as it was a really great book and gave a different viewpoint around designing for ease of management and performance.
VMware VCloud Architecture Toolkit (vCAT): Technical and Operational Guidance for Cloud Success. I’ve read this before although it was for vCloud work as I’m sure you can imagine but it actually covers a substantial amount of really great tips for vSphere designs and due to it having been created by a team with a large amount of VCDX’s in it there are some really great portions in it.
Virtualizing Microsoft Business Critical Applications on VMware vSphere. This will be a first time read for me but is one I have been meaning to read for quite a while as not matter what your VCDX design is for there will always be business critical applications and if there are none in your design then I don’t think it will be accepted for VCDX.
VMware vSphere Resource Management Essentials. Another first time read that I have been meaning to read and now have a good reason to It is an essentials book so I’m not expecting massively in depth information all the time but i think it will still provide additional information for me.
vSphere High Performance Cookbook. A new book to me that I am hoping will cover off loads of the performance portions required from the VCDX blueprint. Prasenjit was on one of my mocks and asked loads of performance portions I was unsure of so i’m looking forward to learning these even deeper now.
Administering VMware Site Recovery Manager 5.0. This may be very specific to certain people who used or are looking to use SRM in their design
VMware vCenter Operations Manager Essentials. This is also very specific as it depends on if you are using vC Ops or not. It is an essentials book so if you have used Operations manager before then most of this should be known by you already.
Software Defined Storage for Dummies. An ebook by Nutanix.
White Papers. I read through quite a fair amount of guides when installing new products but I have to be honest I haven’t read as many as I probably should have so I’m going to try read through all of the below papers and then apply that knowledge to my defence

Podcasts

vBrownbag. I’m probably biased but the vBrownbag’s are amazing and we have covered all the VCAP-DCA and DCD objectives which I will be watching again to freshen my mind as well as having covered the VCDX with John Arrasjid. All of these have video so you can watch them on your tablet of choice or just listen to the audio on your way to work and back.
VMware Communities Roundtable. The roundtable runs every week and always has amazing information in it. I listened to loads around SIOC,SDRS,HA+DRS, vSphere networking and clustering to name but a few before my VCDX and i’m going to be listening to a lot more of them and also going to try stay up to date with them.
Packet Pushers. I have to be honest I have never listened to this podcast before but I recognise I need to strengthen my networking knowledge a fair amount and this podcast was recommended to me for this exact reason.

Videos

For videos I’m actually astounded how many there are and actually even more so how many have been added since I did my DCA and DCD. It looks like i’m going to get my full value out my vExpert access to the Pluralsight videos!

Pluralsight.
Pluralsight third-party videos
VMworld
- There are so many that I couldn’t possibly list all of the ones. What i’m going to do is for each section i feel weaker in, like i did for my VCDX attempt #1 I’m going to look for older VMworld sessions around the topic. Here’s a list of the 2013 sessions which just shows the amount of content you can use and which I will be using.
YouTube
- VMware have their own YouTube channel and they are continually adding more great content. Just like the VMworld sessions I will be watching videos off the channel around content I need more information around.

Well that’s my list so far and when i find the time i’ll update my VCDX page to have this listed. If you feel i’m missing things then do let me know please.

Gregg

TheSaffaGeek

My ramblings about all things technical

VCDX Prep Round 2

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