TheSaffaGeek

My ramblings about all things technical

Category Archives: Virtualisation


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VCDX Spotlight: Todd Simmons

Name: Todd Simmons

Twitter Handle: @trainingrev

Blog URL: http://nsxinsight.wordpress.com

Current Employer : VMware

VCDX #: 184

How did you get into using VMware?

Worked for Collective Technologies who partnered with Dell to deliver Infrastructure Consolidation Readiness Assessments – the goal was to help customers consolidate old hardware onto new Dell servers running VMware Virtual Infrastructure 3.

What made you decide to do the VCDX?

True story, I did it on a dare. See https://nsxinsight.wordpress.com/2014/10/21/preparing-for-the-vcdx-defense-panel-time-requirements/

How long did it take you to complete the whole VCDX journey?

10-weeks. See https://nsxinsight.wordpress.com/2014/10/21/preparing-for-the-vcdx-defense-panel-time-requirements/

What advice would you give to people thinking of pursuing the VCDX accreditation?

When someone tells me that they are going to pursue the VCDX accreditation my immediate response is, Go for it! You can do it! Today is a great time to defend, there is a lot of support for VCDX candidates. This is not a task I would advise you to go at alone however. I secured a mentor from VMware, immediately established a VCDX Success Study Group, participated in several VCDX Mock Study sessions, and had 11 colleagues peer review my work.

If you could do the whole VCDX journey again what would you do differently?

Nothing. Honestly. After being a consultant for 15-years and working with VMware products for the last 8-years (including attending 686.75 hours of VMware training) I was well prepared.

Life after the VCDX?  How did your company respond?  Was it worth it?

 

First thing you do after you become a VCDX is sleep 🙂 .I pulled far too many all-nighters preparing for the VCDX. I guess I could tell you that my company was incredibly excited about my achievement, but since I was self-employed, the reality is I gave myself a pat on the back. Was it worth it? Absolutely! I met a lot of great people during the journey that I probably wouldn’t have met otherwise.


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VCDX-Cloud and DT VCAP Requirements Waiver Extended

A quick posting for those who may have missed it that the waiver of the VCAP requirements to submit for VCDX-Cloud or VCDX-DT has been extended to the October defences. This means if you are thinking of defending VCDX in either of these paths you have until August 25th to build a design and submit it as long as you have the VCP in the track.

waived

 

I know a number of people who were working tirelessly to get their submissions created before the April 1st submission delaine for June defences and this will certainly relieve some pressure there and will also mean a second shot opportunity for those who submit in either of the tracks for June using the waiver and don’t achieve the certification.

 

Good luck to all of those looking to submit for June and those now thinking of submitting for October.


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VMware Knowledge Nuggets – Percentage of Host Resources Admission Control

As started and introduced in my introductory posting around the VMware Knowledge Nuggets I am posting compact VMware knowledge nuggets which I hope will show people some unknown features or things they need to think about around choosing features and maybe even get some good discussions going via the comments section.

 

Using Percentage Based Admission Control and the usage of das.vmMemoryMinMB and das.vmCpuMinMHz.

This discussion stemmed  from the twitter discussion I had with Ed Grigson a few weeks back as mentioned in my first posting (albeit a tangent off of it) . I commented that even if you use percentage based admission control it is still a good idea to configure the das.vmMemoryMinMB and das.vmCpuMinMHz advanced settings to provide a better idea when HA is doing the math for admission control and prevent overcommitment with a specified minimal amount of resources for each virtual machine.

 

Rather than re-cover what has been done and explained so well,  the following two postings from Duncan Epping and Josh Odgers respectively cover it perfectly

 

– Using das.vmmemoryminmb with Percentage Based admission control

– Example Architectural Decision – VMware HA – Percentage of Cluster resources reserved for HA

 

Certainly something to keep in mind when doing designs and even something that you may determine is good to add to your existing environment. Although remember that admission control is not about resource management as described really well by Duncan Epping in his article here. Funnily enough I think a discussion I had with Duncan at the 2011 Europe VMworld around a customer using reservations with percentage based admission control for resource management caused him to create the posting.


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VMware Knowledge Nuggets

Over the past few weeks I have had several discussions around VMware features and technologies via twitter where someone asked a question or made statement around a VMware vSphere feature and the subsequent discussions seemed to shed some light on things people either didn’t know or had forgotten.

 

So my idea is to create a series of blog postings trying to cover compact VMware knowledge nuggets which I hope will show people some unknown features or things they need to think about around choosing features and maybe even get some good discussions going via the comments section.

nuggets

Does excluding VMs from HA exclude them from admission control calculations?

This question was posted by fellow London VMUG attendee Ed Grigson a few weeks back via twitter as shown below

 

image

 

Due to my aiming to reattempt my VCDX defence soon I have been reading and learning as much as is possible and had come across the answer to this during my reading of Duncan Epping and Frank Denneman’s vSphere 5.1 Clustering Deepdive book and responded to Ed with the answer which is No. Even if it is disabled within HA, it is still included in admission control calculations. So be mindful of leaving machines lying around in your cluster as depending of your admission control policy this could have varying impacts on your ability to power on machines.


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#vBrownbag #VCDX Series Follow Up

As people may or may not be aware the EMEA vBrownbag of which I am a co-host have been doing a VCDX series covering a number of topics around the VCDX and preparations for attempting it. We have done three sessions and all three recordings are below:

Next week we will have John Arrasjid and Mark Gabryjelski continuing the delivery of additional infrastructure architecture design advice and recommendations from a recent presentation John delivered at the Singapore vForum where he stated all three sessions of the presentation were full.

Also a special shout out and thanks to Rene van Den Bedem aka VCDX133 for co-hosting with me and supplying so many questions as well as answers on the VCDX Panel session. Go check out his VCDX series of postings if you want some of the best VCDX material available.

Koala can't believe it - Over VCDX 50 postings Still maintains a day job and wife?

Gregg


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#VCDX Mentor Rallying Call

First off let me give you a bit of background as it does apply to this posting and my reason as to me posting this.

As you may or may not be aware the VCDX certification team decided to remind people of the current policy (even though it seems some people only have heard about it recently) that VCDX panellists are not allowed to help potential candidates with reviews, mocks or mentoring. For this I have had numerous heated discussions with Chris Colotti who I must apologise to as my frustration at some of it he received and he is honestly trying to make it better and in actual fact my frustration is grossly misdirected.

rage

It is in fact directed at the lack of mentors who are willing to help grow the VCDX community and help out people who are at varying stages of the process. Now I do want to say there are  VCDX who are amazing at giving back ( good friend VCDX133 is one of these but there are MANY like him who have also been doing it for years) but like I know this community has proven so many times before I am asking current VCDX to give back even if you didn’t have it during your preparations and am sending out a rallying call to all VCDX to become a mentor.

mentoring

There are currently 186 VCDX holders with some even being double VCDX, but at my last count there are only 32 people listed on the VCDX directory who are open to being a mentor for those looking to obtain this illustrious  certification. Yet there are at my last count 53 people listed as panellists and this is where I am asking current VCDX to think about becoming a mentor. Disclaimer I am fully aware VCDX holders also have full time jobs, family and it is something you have to realistically be honest if you have the time to help that person you are mentoring to help them think about their design and open their mind to see their design in a whole new holistic way /Disclaimer

matrix

I was asked by Chris that when I get my VCDX will I try help build the VCDX community and I certainly will by not becoming a panellist (if I was asked, although at present they are trying to keep it to VMware employees) and becoming a mentor to help people looking to obtain the accreditation. Now there have been a few blog postings about the fact that just because you got the VCDX it doesn’t mean you’ll get that promotion or mean you’ll instantly get an architect role which I think is really valid but the amount I have learnt and continue to learn in my second attempt at the VCDX is certainly preparing me in my role as a senior consultant and on other projects as an architect (Ray come join Xtravirt and I’m sure we have architect roles for a double VCDX Smile ). Also from the number of people i have spoken to who have been mentors or helped people with reviews that have said it has helped them become a better architect it really can be a win win situation.

So if there are any VCDX reading this or you know of a VCDX who isn’t listed as a mentor nor a panellist then please think about becoming a mentor/get them to think about being a mentor and let us disprove those who say the VCDX can’t have a large community structure around it like Matt Cowger rightly feels it should.

vcdx mentor

Lastly Chris is talking about a “cool off” period for those who don’t want to be a panellist anymore and would rather give back to the community and be a mentor to keep the community strong. So keep an eye/ear out for that if you do want to answer my battle cry and be a mentor.

Gregg


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Win 3 vSphere Home Labs from VMTurbo

5.1(250x250)As part of the release of VMTurbo’s Operations Manager v5.1 product they are giving away not one not two but three home labs to winners (one each) who sign up for their 5.1 release in-depth webinar on the 19th of February! I was fortunate enough to join a bloggers webinar about the announcement which I will be posting a blog posting about soon. But I bet if you are like me you want to know the specs of the home labs! Well here it is:

  • Intel NUC with Intel Core i5-4250U
  • G.SKILL Ripjaws Series 16GB (2x8G) 204-Pin DDR3 Memory
  • SAMSUNG 840 EVO 250GB SATA III TLC Internal Solid State Drive
  • Synology DS415+ Diskless System DiskStation 4-Bay NAS
  • 2x Dell 1TB 7200 RPM SATA 3.0Gb/s 3.5″ Hard Drive
  • Cisco SG300-10 10-port Gigabit Managed Switch
  • Rosewill 7ft. Cat 6 Network Cable

I could certainly do with that in my home lab  and if you aren’t a customer of VMTurbo and you want a free 30-day trial then sign up here.

Gregg


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vExpert 2015 – Honoured

Late yesterday (well in the UK it was late) the 2015 vExpert list was released. I am truly honoured to have obtained it for the fifth year running (2011-2015).

For those who don’t know what this means and think it is just another certification I have done (I admit I do sit a large amount of exams) below is a brief description of the award and what it is for:

The VMware vExpert Award is given to individuals who have significantly contributed to the community of VMware users over the past year. vExperts are book authors, bloggers, VMUG leaders, tool builders, and other IT professionals who share their knowledge and passion with others. These vExperts have gone above and beyond their day jobs to share their technical expertise and communicate the value of VMware and virtualization to their colleagues and community.

What did you do last year to get it?

As the vExpert designation is given for the work you did in the previous year, when people ask how they can become one or what did I do to be selected it is always around half a year behind what people should have been trying do to be in contention to be selected. For me I did some of the following:

–  VMware Communities Moderator

–  Co-hosts of the EMEA vBrownbag podcast

–  Co-host of the vBrownbag VMworld TechTalks and the Opening Acts.

–  Blog often from this blog on VMware matters and announcements. Specifically around VMware exams and study resources for the exams and my attempt at VCDX.

–  Beta tester of numerous VMware products

–  Active member of the VMware Communities

–  Active member of the London VMUG

I did all these things I love doing them and I’m passionate about the technology not because I wanted to become a vExpert though and I would recommend doing it for the right reasons and not because you want to get something out of it.

Massive Thanks

A massive amount of thanks to Corey Romero and his team who run the vExpert program and for feeling I was worthy of the designation. Also congratulations to all the other  vExperts!! There are a number of newcomers and as many returning vExperts so it is great to share this designation with so many passionate and amazingly friendly people.

 Xtravirt Taking the Lions Share

Lastly I would like to congratulate all my Xtravirt colleagues who obtained the vExpert designation this year for a total of twelve of us namely:

  • Curtis Brown
  • Jason Meers
  • Jim Griffiths
  • Jonathan Medd
  • Michael Poore
  • Michael Rudloff
  • Paul Davey
  • Sam McGeown
  • Sean Duffy
  • Simon Eady
  • Steve Dunne
  • Me Smile

Even though we sadly had Darren Woollard, Seb Hakiel and Ather Beg all decide to try something new we still kept out high numbers and for a company of under 50 people with under thirty being consultants this is certainly something i’m impressed with and proud to be a part of and should earn us the highest percentage per number of employees accolade again. If you want to join Xtravirt and work with 12 vExperts doing cutting edge virtualisation work then drop me a dm on twitter on @greggrobertson5 and I can put you in contact with the right people.

Gregg


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Four Ways a BC/DR Plan Can Help Your SMB

A very quick blog posting about a series of posts I have been doing for VMware SMB around four ways a BC/DR plan can help your SMB. It is a four part blog series as the name obviously suggests and the first three postings have now been published which I have linked to below:

I’ve also written a whitepaper for VMware SMB around the need for SMBs to rethink their virtualization infrastructure and to elaborate on a number of the features and solutions that are now available to SMB customers. Download the whitepaper to learn how these solutions can help your business and your customers.

Also keep an eye out on the VMware SMB blog for the fourth part of the series.

Gregg


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VCDX Defences 2015

A very quick posting to alert people that the defence dates additional to PEX for 2015 have been released.

https://communities.vmware.com/thread/494802

Defences will be held simultaneously at Frimley (UK), Palo Alto (US) and Singapore (Asia) in June and October with more dates possibly created if there is additional demand.

I am personally looking at doing my second attempt for the June defences in Frimley and listed all the resources I’m using for my second attempt which I have been making my way through since late November 2014.

The EMEA #vBrownbag are also running a VCDX series which should be beneficial for those people thinking of defending or just wanting to know more about the certification.

Good luck to all of those looking to defend this year and let me know if you are defending as there is a VCDX study group running already for PEX and one slowly starting for the June defences.

Gregg