Due to my decision to aim for my VCDX6-CMA this year and thereby to get it in in time for the only VCDX-CMA defence of the year (so far) I have signed up for the VCAP6-CMA Design beta exam. I’ve been working on a very large-scale vRA 6.2 project for the past 14 months and so I hope this experience of designing and building it as well as my preparations via these objectives breakdown (plus my study resources) and using some of my VCDX5-DCV knowledge will help me. So I thought I would slowly post up each objective for my own benefit but also hopefully help other people looking to pass the VCAP6-CMA Design exam (beta or GA).I will be consolidating all the objectives on my blog page here.

Knowledge

Evaluate the customer-s current capacity requirements.

• This can be done by a few methods, the most common two is via capacity planner which is a tool open to VMware partners and VMware themselves which evaluates the current customers environment for a number of weeks and the gives you an output of what is being consumed. The other which I’m certain they will be using for the exam especially seeing as it is one of the study tools recommended for this objective is vRealize Operations. vRealize Operations will give you great indications their current capacity and if it is enough for the solution you are looking to design or not. There is also a management pack for vRealize Operations for vRA so knowing about this and a good base understanding of how vRealize operations works is highly beneficial. The following resources should give you that base knowledge around vROps as well as vRealize Business/ITBM:
  • vRealize Operations Manager User Guide
  • vRealize Business Standard User-s Guide
  • HOL-SDC-1401 – Cloud Management with vRealize Operations
  • VMware vCenter Operations Manager Implementation
  • HOL-SDC-1411 – IT Cost Transparency with ITBM
  • HOL-SDC-1421 – Brokering IT Services and Applications with vCloud Automation Center
  • HOL-SDC-1426 – Log Insight in the Real World

Categorize existing workloads.

• Again this can be done via vROps and via the usage of dashboards or just via the built in categories provided by vROps. Apart from this I personally can’t see any other ways to cover this piece so if you think of anything then please do let me know.

Recognize organizational structure and governance requirements.

• Governance for companies is a major design challenge but is also one of the biggest requirements you have to meet during a project. There are a wide range of governance policies out there from PCI to security hardening to HIPAA. For this piece I am taking it that during a design scenario the customer will mention some kind of governance they need to keep to and this decision will obviously impact how the solution is designed.
• Organisational structure is understanding different departments and their possible requirments for separation and seeing as vRealize Business is mentioned in the study tools in the exam blueprint then the ability of vRB to do show-back and chargeback on different departments/Business Groups within vRA.

Analyze application architecture.

• This is a lot like a previous sections requirements where you need to understand how an application is architected to meet the requirements of the application. As I mentioned this can be done via your design workshops with the application owners and via vRealize Infrastructure Navigator. Once you have an understanding this can then be mapped out in Application services or via the usage of multi-machine blueprints to name but two options. What they are going to test you on here is most likely diagrams of applications and then understanding how they are configured. Or possibly even a Visio style diagram where you have to take their text information and design the applications architecture in “AS”. Practicing doing this kind of design in Visio is a great way of practicing this skill.

VMware Recommended Tools

The VMware recommended study tools for this objective are:

• vRealize Operations Manager User Guide
• vRealize Business Standard User-s Guide
• The Forrester Total Economic Impact of VMware Automated Application Deployment
• Cloud Automation Savings Calculator
• A Guide to Hybrid Cloud

If you disagree with anything I’ve said above then please let me know and if I agree (I’m always open to learning) then I will update the posting. Now onto objective 2.1.

Gregg