TheSaffaGeek

My ramblings about all things technical

Category Archives: Certifications


by 2 Comments

VCAP-DCA & DCD Resources Page Updated

Just a very quick posting to alert people that I have now updated my VCAP-DCA and DCD resources page. The page is a list of resources that I have been constantly updating as I  have come across new resources and I have made my way through the  required amount of studying to be prepared (which is still on-going).So either click the “VCAP-DCA & DCD” link at the top of the page or click here if you can’t be bothered going to the top of the page and if you know of any other great resources please do comment so that I can add them and it can benefit the whole community.

Also a reminder that Kendrick Coleman is doing a VCAP-DCA Live Lab on Cody Bunch’s Brownbag tonight so go to his site and register as it’s sure to be a brilliant one

Gregg


by 3 Comments

VMware vSphere: Manage for Performance Course Experience

Last week I was fortunate enough to be able to attend the VMware vSphere: Manage For Performance course. I did the lab related to this course at VMworld Europe last year and in my now increasing preparations for the VCAP-DCA exam I knew I needed to strengthen my troubleshooting skills and more importantly fine tuning my ESXTOP/RESXTOP skills. Quite a few people commented that they really liked my VMware vSphere: Manage and Design for Security Course Experience posting so I thought i would try do the same for this one for anyone interested or thinking about booking the course.

  1. Day one covered the first three and a half modules Course Introduction, Performance in a Virtualized Environment, Virtual Machine Monitor and part of CPU Performance. It introduced you to all the monitoring tools you can use with an introduction to the performance graphs in Virtual Centre and ESXTOP,how to utilise these tools to work out possible problems and what to look for that may be good indicators of problems. Probably the thing I enjoyed the most about this course was that there was loads of labs for you to learn how to do it all yourself rather than learning it off a PowerPoint sheet or your course guide. If you are a regular reader of this blog then you’ll know I’ve been trying to perfect my knowledge of ESXTOP/RESXTOP and wrote a blog about it too “Understanding and using ESXTOP/RESXTOP”. This learning of it was a great stepping stone for the skills they covered in the course and for a few parts the links and resources in my blog gave me an even deeper knowledge of ESXTOP. For the virtual machine monitor module it covered Software and hardware virtualisation techniques which i knew fairly well from my studying for my VCP exams and the labs for it were really great in covering how the usage of these varying techniques can really help with the performance of your virtual machines/environment. Next we got into a bit of the CPU Performance module which introduced the CPU scheduler, CPU Cache contention and the NUMA. As with the hardware/software virtualisation techniques i had a good bit of knowledge about the CPU scheduler and NUMA from my VCP studies but it was a great refresher on the NUMA particularly and allowed me to better understand how it works and how the misallocation of resources can impact your virtual machines due to NUMA. Frank Denneman has done two brilliant postings all about the sizing of VM’s and NUMA Nodes and ESX 4.1 NUMA Scheduling which covers pretty much everything you need to know about this feature and how to use it correctly in your environment.
  2. Day 2 we finished off CPU Performance by learning how to use ESXTOP and the performance metrics in vCentre to find and recognise possible cpu problems and how to fix them. Next we covered Memory Performance which was fairly straight forward in my opinion but did give great recommendations on how to utilise your memory effectively and how ballooning and memory swapping works and what the increase of these values means to the performance of your environment. Yet again Frank Denneman has covered these topics brilliantly in two blog postings Memory reclamation, when and how? and Disable ballooning? which I’ll personally be rereading through myself so as to better my understanding of how it can help/impact my virtual machines. Next we did the Network Performance module which covered all the varying network card options you can select,what each allows you to do,what additional features each one gives and how these features work. This was also a refresher for me due to my VCP studies but it did seem to alert a lot of the people on the course with me to the benefits of upgrading all your virtual machines to hardware version 7 and changing their network cards to VMXNET3. VMware have a great KB article on this Choosing a network adapter for your virtual machine. For the rest of the module it was yet again teaching you how to find and troubleshoot possible network problems using the performance charts and ESXTOP.
  3. Day 3 finished off the last three modules Storage Performance,Virtual Machine Performance and Application Performance. Storage performance was good and was very interesting to hear how many people don’t use thin provisioning due to their belief that it impacts performance in certain ways. I’m not going to get into it on here and I agree it does in certain instances but like I said to the people on the course with me I would recommend reading  the VMware white paper on it first and make your own decisions from there. There are also loads of top blog postings on the subject so I would also recommend reading a few of those (Duncan Epping’s and Eric Gray’s in particular). For the last two modules of Virtual Machine Performance and Application performance these were essentially just applying what you learn for cpu,memory and network to your virtual machines and what to consider for the virtualising of differing applications.

Funnily enough whilst on the course the latest release of the vSphere performance troubleshooting guide for 4.1 came out which is perfect post course reading material for me. Duncan Epping’s posting alerted me to the release so only right to point to his posting here.

Well that’s a high level review of what I learnt/was covered in the course. As with any course though what you get out of the course is very dependant on your knowledge of the product/s and even though I have a fairly good amount of knowledge on the product and features I did still learn a fair amount and it was a really great refresher on certain features in preparation for my VCAP: DCA exam sitting.

Gregg


by Leave a comment

All Things Virtual 15

It has been a crazy couple of weeks lately due to a data centre relocation I’ve been working on and due to this I haven’t had as much time to post new information and hence the delay of this next “instalment” of All Things Virtual.

  • Firstly a massive thank you to Simon Long for adding my blog posting to his “Recommended Reads” section of his blog. It’s a true honour to be mentioned on his blog for something I posted. I would highly recommend looking through his recommended reads as he’s added some really great postings from some of the top blogs. Also a thank you to Troy Clavell on the VMware forums for linking back to my posting on the Active Directory Web Services encountered an error while reading the settings for the specified Active Directory Lightweight Directory Services instance error and solution. It’s been the most read posting on my blog for the past week because of his reference.
  • Alessandro Perilli posted about VMware officially announcing the ESX end of life.  So for those of you out there like myself who are still trying to perfect your PowerCLi,VMA and vCLI skills, we now have a date that those skills need to be perfected. I still don’t fully buy into the whole reason for the removal of the COS but no point moaning over something that has already been decided.
  • Next is something Darren Woollard ,who I follow on twitter tweeted about, which is a list of all the VMware twitter accounts. There was quite a few mentioned that I wasn’t following. As I’ve said before I believe the amount of knowledge to be gained from following people and organisation related to your field is priceless and it has certainly helped me gain better knowledge of virtualisation products and practices. I’m on twitter at @greggrobertson5 or http://twitter.com/greggrobertson5 if you want to follow me.
  • Mentioning social media there is now a document on the VMworld website for anyone who is attending and plans to use social media during their visit to talk about VMworld and their experiences. I’ve already added my information to the document. *NB* Edit the document as far too many people aren’t reading the steps mentioned at the top and posting comments instead of editing the document. VMworld have also created their own channel on YouTube for all the news and videos of the events here
  • Talking of VMworld ,Gestalt IT are doing a competition in which they’ll  pay airfare, hotel, and registration for VMworld for two lucky winners. It’s a great idea as the winners aren’t just picked at random but rather have to motivate how they are going to “pay it forward” by describing how they are going to give back to the virtualisation community by them going to VMworld.Good luck if you have or are going to enter
  • Scott Drummonds posting a very interesting article on the idea of Designing VMs with Performance SLAs. The article is a very good one and is one that will encourage a very good debate on the positives and negatives of using limits which is one of the techniques Scott mentions in his posting to allow for Performance SLA’s.
  • Tom Howarth has posted all about the session himself and Cody Bunch are doing at VMworld this year and is asking for some questions in preparation for the sessions from the community. Adam Carter of HP,Vaughn Stewart of NetApp and Chad Sakac of EMC are three of his speakers so if you you can think of any I’m sure Tom will be very grateful for your help.
  • Duncan Epping of yellow bricks fame posted all about the ability now with vSphere 4 using ADAM to store the roles and permissions to have a standby vCentre Server in case of a disaster. I’m definitely going to get one of these built up having had the experience of a virtual centre server going awry and having to rebuild it all.
  • With the release of vSphere 4.1 one of the new features is memory management and compression. Gabrie van Zanten has posted all about this feature, how it all works and how it will bring benefits to your VMware environments. A must read!
  • If you are planning to upgrade any of your machines to vSphere 4.1 then I would highly recommend looking through and watching the video from the KB article all about…you guessed it vSphere 4.1 upgrade pre-installation requirements and considerations. I love finding and watching these kinds of things as it always feels as if I’ve actually been shown and taught it from a mentor or work colleague like you would in your daily jobs knowledge transfer. Vladan Seget has posted all about the Best practices KB on how-to install ESX 4.1 and vCenter which is another brilliant bit of information and reference if you are installing ESX4.1 and vCentre.
  • The Malaysia VMware communities has done a very interesting posting all about the VSI plug-in from EMC. The plug-in is a brilliant tool and is a very good example of the VAAI that ESX 4.1 is enabling storage vendors to create for people to utilise in their VMware environments. Chad Sakac has done a great YouTube video on vSphere4.1 and EMC VAAI capabilities. Richard Brambley has done a brilliant posting a while back all about what VAAI is and what it means for virtualisation here.
  • Talking of VMware and EMC Alan Renouf and Simon Seagrave of Virtu-al and Techhead respectively did a session at the last London VMUG all about Why EMC for VMware. Unfortunately even though the day was sponsored by EMC i wasn’t able to make it due to there being a mandatory quarterly results presentation on the same day, so as to not say the wrong information and because Alan covered it so well I encourage you to read his post 🙂
  • Elasticsky have posted a very helpful video on YouTube on how to reset a forgotten or lost root password on vSphere 4. I have posted these steps before but the video is a very helpful addition to this if you ever have the problem.
  • Scott Vessey has posted all about the Changes to VCP exam due to the vSphere 4.1 release.A number of people have been talking about if there are any changes to the vcp4 exams since the release of vSphere4.1 and Scott has answered it perfectly.
  • Kendrick Coleman has done a brilliant resource page for all the resources you may need in your preparations for the VCAP DCA exam. I’m hoping to start building up my own list of resources that I’ll be using in my preparations for my VCAP exam/s once I get it under way :).
  • Lastly is one for anyone going to a convention or conference this year who will get themselves one of the customary backpacks. As Kevin Houston posted, if you aren’t planning to actively use the backpack why not donate it to a local school and fill it with some basic supplies. Great idea Kevin!

Gregg Robertson


by Leave a comment

VMware Certified Advanced Professional Datacentre Administration –Blueprint Released

Just a very fast posting to notify that the blueprint for the VMware Certified Advanced Professional Datacentre Administration blueprint has been released. As I’ve said I’m really looking forward to this exam as hopefully it will enable me to differentiate myself from the multitude of vcp’s that qualified recently and hopefully also teach me and hone my skills for preparation for my VCDX someday in the future.

The Blueprint is here and it looks like a very good exam and loads of really interesting and testing things in it. I look forward to learning more about it in the coming weeks and months.

Gregg Robertson


by Leave a comment

New VMware Exams Released

 

Just a very quick posting as so many of the top bloggers out there have covered it so well that VMware have released their new Exam set the VMware Certified Advanced Professional – VCAP.

Simon Long has posted a blog all about the VCAP side and what will be required for the administrator and design exams here

Duncan Epping has posted all about the VCDX 4 (VCDX4-DCD) side of things here and details the steps now to become a VCDX4-DCD. Quite disappointed they had to add the DCD part personally as all it’s doing is adding to the long winded acronyms some of us carry at the end of our mail signatures/business cards.

Eric Sloof also posted all about the VCDX4-DCD here and gives a brilliantly detailed break down of the VCAP here. I’ve already signed up to receive an email alert when registration opens (yes I’m seemingly that sad)

I plan to update this blog in the coming days/weeks as more information becomes available. Hopefully to the person who came across my blog a week back by searching “I’m a vcp4. Now what” has an answer 🙂

Gregg Robertson

VMW_09Q3_LGO_VMwareCertifiedProfessional_K

MCSES(rgb)MCTS(rgb)_1079_1080_1078image


by 2 Comments

MCSE upgrade to MCITP Server Administrator

This morning on twitter i saw Scott Lowe(@scott_lowe) and Jason Boche(@jasonboche) talking about the upgrading of their MCSE credentials to MCITP and though i would repost the blog postings I wrote on my Corporate blog and thought i would repost them here for people who are interested.

Microsoft Certified Technology Specialist(MCTS) 2008 (posted 05 August 2008)

As I’ve said in previous blog postings before, I have a bit of a problem, I love doing Microsoft exams. So feeding my addiction I was very happy to hear of the new windows 2008 exams that were coming out which I spoke of fairly extensively in a previous posting. My aim is still to get my mcitp credentials and along this path I needed to upgrade my MCSE 2003 to Server 2008 and this entailed me needing to write the exam 70-649 : Upgrading Your MCSE on Windows Server 2003 to Windows Server 2008, Technology Specialist. So last Friday after many nights of studying, weekends spent inside going over material and the massive book the Conchango training department kindly got for me to use called The Real MCTS/MCITP Exam 70-649 Prep Kit: Independent and Complete Self-Paced Solutions which I would highly highly recommend ,I wrote the exam.

I did the upgrade exams from MCSE 2000 to MCSE 2003 so was very weary of this exam as like many other people I know and have spoken to who have done or attempted the 2000 to 2003 exams the two exams were a nightmare and a true challenge of your knowledge. But I have to admit that this exam thankfully wasn’t as insane as those previous upgrade exams and was fairly straight forward in the answering. Now obviously I am not going to divulge any information of the exam as I don’t need Microsoft bringing a lawsuit on me for breaking the rules of the exams, but as I said earlier the book I used was spot on in covering absolutely every bit of information I needed to prepare me for the exam and my test score of 962 is definitely as testament to that(especially because I know the question I got wrong that denied me my full number of points).

So now I am a Microsoft Certified Technology Specialist in three different fields after passing my exam which definitely makes my Transcript look pretty mean if I do say so myself with the new four credentials being:

Microsoft Certified Technology Specialist

Windows Server 2008 Active Directory: Configuration

Windows Server 2008 Applications Infrastructure: Configuration

Windows Server 2008 Network Infrastructure: Configuration

Now I jusAt need to do my 70-646 for my MCITP:server administrator credential

MCITP Server Administrator (posted 02 April 2009)

On the 19th of march i finally got myself into gear and wrote my second mcse upgrade exam to server 2008 exam 070-646. With the passing of this exam i also acquired the new certification MCITP Server Administrator.

As stated in previous blog postings i  did the upgrade exams for the upgrading of my MCSE 2000 to 2003 and the exams were very challenging, so much so i actually failed one at my first attempt. Sadly both of the upgrade exams for server 2008 were much much easier in comparison. I can possibly attribute some of that to my using of the technology far more than i did for 2003 when i wrote the upgrade exam but they were definitely made a lot easier and most of the answers i felt could have been guessed by someone just based on the answer being the new technology in 2008.

So now i am now an MCITP: Server Administrator

image

I’m still a bit puzzled why they took away the well known MCSE certification but they claim these new certifications prove your skills more effectively on specific technologies. I still feel the MCSE covered a much broader base which proved your skills much better whereas this new way waters down the exams and doesn’t prove a candidates skills as well. Mark Wilson explains this in a lot more and better detail in one of his blog postings.

I waited to post this blog till my confirmation finally came through and showed in my transcript which happened last night as now i have the MCITP exam at the top of my transcript(which has extended quite nicely with the mcts credentials i obtained from my 70-649 exam)

If anyone is planning to write this exam wants a good book to study for the exam i would firmly recommend the MCITP Self-Paced Training Kit (Exam 70-646): Windows Server Administration http://www.amazon.com/MCITP-Self-Paced-Training-Exam-70-646/dp/0735625107. It covered all the topics very well and is a third off so well worth the buy.

Good luck to anyone writing this exam and hope the above rambling helps you in some way. Now i need to decide if i do my Hyper-V exam or do the exam for me to acquire the MCITP: Enterprise administrator credential.(Funnily enough i did neither and still haven’t. I started my VMware path but I plan to write and blog about my upgrading to MCITP Enterprise Administrator later this year)

Gregg Robertson

VMW_09Q3_LGO_VMwareCertifiedProfessional_K

MCSES(rgb)MCTS(rgb)_1079_1080_1078image


by 3 Comments

VMware Certified Professional vSphere passed

Below is my posting about my passing of the VMware Certified Professional vSphere exam that i passed almost a month ago now on  my company blog site http://consultingblogs.emc.com/greggrobertson/.

For anyone that has read my previous blog postings or is a follower of my random ramblings on twitter you would know i have been preparing for my VCP4 exam for the past couple of weeks/months. I wrote it last Friday being filled with an unbelievable amount of nerves due to a lot of people saying this exam was much harder than the vcp3 exam which i found very challenging.

Obviously by the title of this post i passed the exam and with an unexpectedly high score of 444 with the required pass mark being 300 (I’m more shocked by this score than anyone else as for a couple of the really hard three answer questions i had to make educated guesses ,which obviously i seem to have got right ) . I didn’t feel the exam was harder than the vcp3 exam but i did study a large amount more for this exam, had a much stronger base of knowledge this time due to my working with the technology for quite a while now, having built almost a dozen vSphere esx servers, several large environments ,having studied for and done my vcp3 recently as well as having attended the “what’s new” course for vSphere .  So the exam may be much harder for people.

As I’ve detailed in my past two blogs on the VCP subject I used and tried to cover a very large amount of resources in my studying which definitely kept me very busy in trying to get it all done/covered and understood before the exam.The reasons I took on such a large amount is firstly I obviously wanted to pass the exam but also I wanted to make sure of my knowledge so that I can do my job effectively, really make sure I understand everything I was learning and got experience in the certain things I haven’t had to use before which therefore I didn’t fully understand how they worked.

Many people have spoken and detailed the layout etc of the exam so i don’t see any point in repeating what they have said already in that respect.

I do agree though with the people saying this exam definitely tests you more on things you only really know about/how to do if you have worked with/played around with all the technologies in the vSphere suite of products which i think is a much better thing as i think it proves you haven’t just regurgitated information and also keep the accreditations status quite high.

A massive thank you has to go out to all the people i follow and chat with on twitter. They were more than happy to answer any questions i might have on things i couldn’t get my head around and also were a great help in giving examples from their real world experience of using the products. I would definitely recommend following the list created by @ericsiebert of the top 100 virtualisation people to follow on twitter. Sadly I’m not on it , but my aim is to keep working and learning so as to prove my inclusion on the list soon.

Good luck to anyone writing the exam, hopefully if you have to make educated guesses for some questions ,they will work out as well for you as they did for me.

Gregg Robertson

Cert_Prof_Logo_B

MCSES(rgb)MCTS(rgb)_1079_1080_1078image


by 5 Comments

VCP4 Learning resources Part 2

As i stated in my last posting I am busy preparing for my sitting of the VCP4 exam and now that my studying is pretty much into full speed I thought I should add the additional resources I have found that I am busy getting through. For this one though I thought I would point also put up links to some of the blogs and webpage’s I have been using that are proving highly helpful and will hopefully prepare me for the exam.

  • First is a brilliant list of Top 10 things you must read about VMware vSphere compiled by Eric Siebert(@ericsiebert). I am busy getting through the resources he details as from all the blog postings and community chats on the vcp4 exam there seems to be a fair amount of version comparison and feature understanding needed for the exam. His VMware “Cheat Sheet” is helping me greatly with my retaining of what version has what features.
  • A brilliant blog for VMware training that I read and a person I follow on twitter is Scott Vessey (@vmtraining) who has written a great blog posting about what he feels you need to know and understand to pass the exam.
  • Another great webpage i have come across is the Professional VMware blog VCP page where they are currently making their way through the vcp4 objectives which is something you definitely need to do to pass the exam I am told.
  • Simon Long has also compiled a brilliant list of all the resources he has found for the vcp4 exam which has proven great help to me in finding resources and is part of reason I wanted to write this as hopefully I can help someone like his has helped me.
  • Lastly(as i don’t want to repeat the links in the lists i have pointed to above) is one that not many people might try but I would recommend not just for the vcp4 exam but virtualisation in general is following the top people in the industry on twitter. The ability to have some of the top and the top people in the industry at your finger tips who are more than happy to discuss any problems or queries you might have and also is a brilliant way of staying on the cusp of new developments in the industry. Eric Siebert has complied a list of the top 100 people to follow for virtualisation and should get you right in there. Unfortunately I didn’t make the cut but it’s definitely my goal to be there.
  • *UPDATE* Scott Vessey has posted all about the Changes to VCP exam due to the vSphere 4.1 release.A number of people have been talking about if there are any changes to the vcp4 exams since the release of vSphere4.1 and Scott has answered it perfectly.

Good luck if you’re writing and if you wish to follow me on twitter, my name is @greggrobertson5.

Gregg Robertson

Cert_Prof_Logo_B

MCSES(rgb)MCTS(rgb)_1079_1080_1078image

Technorati Tags: ,,,
del.icio.us Tags: ,,,


by 9 Comments

VCP4 Learning resources

For the past few weeks I have been ramping up my studying for my VCP4 exam and therefore have been collecting (what i believe is) all the best resources and links that hopefully will help me pass my exam in the coming weeks. I will definitely write a detailed blog of what really helped me etc and how the exam went but I thought I would write up a quick list of all the resources i have found/will be using as to maybe help someone who is also planning on writing soon.

  • Simon Longs practice tests are becoming a globally recommended resource by VMware instructors to their students for being a great resource to test your VMware knowledge. I used his questions for my VI3 exam and have started testing myself with his next vcp4 questions now due to them being so good last timehttp://www.simonlong.co.uk/blog/vcp-vsphere-4-practice-exam/
  • The exam blueprint is a definite must read when preparing as it was for the VI3 exam alsohttp://mylearn.vmware.com/lcms/mL_faq/2726/VMware%20Certified%20Professional%20on%20vSphere%204%20Blueprint%208.13.09.pdf *UPDATE*The new version of the blueprint is now available here
  • A new resource I found via twitter was Forbes Guthrie’s v reference cards which are a great resource of all the information you will need to be certain of/be confident in your understanding of before the exam http://www.vreference.com/public/vReference-vSphere4card1.0.pdf
  • One of the resources I plan to spend a large amount of time using is the mock exam off the VMware website which is brilliant in making sure of your knowledge and also getting used to the exam timings and layout http://mylearn.vmware.com/quiz.cfm?item=15211
  • A set of new study materials I am currently learning from is train signals vsphere videos.http://www.trainsignal.com/VMware-vSphere-Training-P76.aspx These are great if your a beginner and need to learn from a very low level up or even a pro and just need to clarify some concepts you may be rusty on. I went through the videos this past weekend and they have been a great help in clarifying a lot of things I wasn’t sure of and showing me how to do things that i haven’t had the experience in doing in my environment.
  • Last but not least is Scott Lowes mastering VMware vSphere book. I am busy making my way through it and would firmly recommend it to anyone studying for the exam as the explanations,examples and amount of detail and resources laid out in the book means this book is one of the best books on the market if the the best for not even just studying for the exam but a great resource guide for administrators.

Hope these help someone.

Feel free to follow or even message me on twitter  on @greggrobertson5 and good luck for your exam if your writing soon hope both you and I do well in it =0)

Gregg Robertson

Cert_Prof_Logo_B

MCSES(rgb)MCTS(rgb)_1079_1080_1078image

Technorati Tags: ,,
del.icio.us Tags: ,,

Disclaimer: Train signal didn’t pay me or give me the study material for free for me to recommend them , my opinion on their study notes is from my own personal experience.