TheSaffaGeek

My ramblings about all things technical

Tag Archives: Virtualisation


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VCDX Preparation Special

On Thursday the 22nd May the EMEA #vBrownbag which I co-host weekly, ran a VCDX Special with Rene Van Den Bedem (VCDX 133) , Craig Kilborn ,  Bobby Stampfle and I. The special was an expansion of the London VMUG lightning talk that both Craig and I did on the 15th of May. The #vBrownbag session was recorded (after some early audio problems which meant we had to restart it) and the recording of the session is embedded below.

The session proved a major success and we may run another one as the amount of questions we received during and have been receiving post the session is really positive.

Gregg


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VCDX Prep Round 2

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:

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!

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

 

Pluralsight


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VCDX Spotlight : Rene Van Den Bedem

Name: Rene Van Den Bedem

Twitter Handle: @VCDX133

Blog URL: http://www.vcdx133.com

Current Employer: Bank AlBilad, Riyadh, KSA

VCDX #: 133

 

How did you get into using VMware?

When I joined Bank AlBilad in 2009, we had a fledgling ESX 4.0 environment that was running some test workloads. Our Data Center was bursting at the seams with 200+ physical servers and the CIO agreed on the strategy to virtualise all physical workloads where possible, instead of expanding the Data Center and continuing down the physical server path. So someone had to own it and that person was me.

 

What made you decide to do the VCDX?

In 2012, I convinced the Bank that a major investment in vSphere training (ICM, VSOS, Design Workshop) was required since vSphere was a critical platform for delivering infrastructure services. During that training sequence, I decided to lead by example and took the VCP and VCAP-DCA/DCD exams. From there I figured, “Is the design I implemented at the Bank good enough for VCDX? Let me find out.” Little did I know the time and effort it would take to get there, but I am glad I did it.

 

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

vSphere Training started in September 2012, final VCAP exam in December 2012 -> 18 months to VCDX.

 

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

Do it, but give yourself time to develop the skills necessary to succeed. If you want to evolve as an architect and be the best that you can be, DO IT. However, it is tougher for people who are non-native English speakers, use a fictitious design and have poor documentation skills. If you hate documentation, then VCDX may not be for you.

 

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

Yes, during my first attempt, the biggest mistake I made was to not join a study group of VCDX-level candidates. Join a study group to push yourself and convince a VCDX to mentor you. Otherwise your chances of success will diminish to zero.

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

Too soon to tell. But personally, it feels great. I have two years of blog posts that I have been saving up to distribute online.


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VCDX Spotlight: Derek Seaman

Name: Derek Seaman

Twitter Handle: @vDerekS

Blog URL: www.derekseaman.com

Current Employer: Nutanix

VCDX #: 125

 

How did you get into using VMware?

In 2006 I was a Sr. Unified Communications Consultant and used VMware Workstation on my home computer to try out various software products. By 2008 I had some customers wanting to virtualize Exchange and other services, but my exposure to the ESX platform was still limited. In 2009 I started a new job as a Lead Systems Engineer for a U.S. Government project and took my first vSphere 4.0 install/configure course. After that course I was truly fascinated with the technology, breadth of skills needed, and the wicked cool features like vMotion. Ever since then I’ve focused on virtualizing enterprise services and VDI.

 

What made you decide to do the VCDX?

Through my blog came to know several well-known bloggers and virtualization geeks. By 2013 nearly all of them were VCDXs and I told myself that I could do it. VMworld 2013 in San Francisco was a turning point and lit a fire to knock out my VCDX. I also figured it would professionally open up doors that might not otherwise be as open.

 

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

I took my first ever VCAP exam (VCAP5-DCD) the day before VMworld 2013 San Francisco, and passed. A few weeks later I took the VCAP5-DCA exam, and was also successful. All told it was a six month effort from starting the VCAP pre-reqs and getting my VCDX congratulations letter.

 

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

The certification takes a lot of time. How much time depends on the complexity of your design, and how much may already exist in terms of documentation that you can use. Not much existed for the project I chose, so I spent literally hundreds of hours writing everything to make sure it met the VCDX blueprint requirements. Also, get involved in a study group early on, so you can do peer reviews and support each other throughout the process.

 

 

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

Overall I wouldn’t change anything, except getting connected with more candidates prior to the initial application submission. I had connected with two others, but didn’t know there were a dozen more on the same track. Definitely get on Twitter and find your peers.

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

 

Social media blew up (in a good way) after getting my certification. After being accepted to defend for the VCDX but prior to my passing I had accepted an offer from Nutanix as a Sr. Solutions and Performance engineer. That team already has two VCDXs, and I couldn’t be more excited to join them and other VCDXs within the company.

The entire process was totally worth it. I feel that I’m a better architect, and made great professional connections with both existing VCDXs and those that went through the PEX 2014 process.


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VCDX Spotlight: Sean Howard

Name: Sean Howard

Twitter Handle: @showardvmware

Current Employer: VMware

VCDX #: 130

 

How did you get into using VMware?

I was working at a reseller in Seattle back in 2006 doing SAN implementations. The need to develop VMware skills was driven by fast growing customer demand for ESX. Once I had a couple of deployments under my belt, I was hired away by one of our customers where I was able to do it on a larger scale.

 

What made you decide to do the VCDX?

It was mostly a personal challenge, but also to help build credibility with customers in my pre-sales role at VMware.

 

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

3 years total. I did my VCP in 2011, VCAPs in 2012, then worked on my VCDX submission throughout 2013 on and off.

 

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

I am not in an architect role, and I know a lot of people thinking about the VCDX believe that is an absolute requirement. It certainly helps, but it’s not a necessity. Though I will say hands-on experience is.

I know everyone says this, but really, truly read the VCDX Boot Camp book, and try to fully digest what is being said in it. Also try to attend the VCDX Boot Camp in person before you put pen to paper.

Get in a study group that does mocks. I lucked into one that was organized by Brad Christian. I doubt I would have passed otherwise. Also, don’t neglect the troubleshooting and design scenarios either. Practice those.

Spend 30 minutes every day on the elliptical, going for a walk (or whatever) and listen to the brownbag sessions, VMworld sessions, VMware related podcasts, stuff like that. It’s a great way to slowly absorb information over a period of months rather than trying to cram.

Finally, create flash cards for yourself on a service like Quizlet. I made almost 500 and had my wife ask me them. This forces you to say the answer out loud and work on crisp delivery.

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

I made things a lot harder on myself than they had to be. For one thing, I could have just done a mostly real design, I had enough projects under my belt. However, I felt that the projects I had done weren’t “cool enough”. So I took a real project as a base, bumped the scale up, added in components from other projects, etc. So it was probably 90% “real”, but was a collage of designs.

Yes, this resulted in a more whiz-bang design, but was a far greater burden during my prep for the panel. I had to be able explain interactions between things that had never actually occurred in real life. Luckily, I had access to enough lab gear to mock things up so I could answer confidently, but this was a lot of work that could have been avoided.

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

I immediately received a lot of recognition inside my extended team and several layers of management up. Of course people outside the company take notice and my LinkedIn got red hot pretty quickly. It’s only been a couple of weeks, so who knows what the future holds.

For me, this was mostly about proving to myself that I could do it. To me, that is its own reward.


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VCDX Spotlight: Kalen Arndt

Name: Kalen Arndt

Twitter Handle: @KalenArndt

Blog URL: www.vmrage.com

Current Employer: World Wide Technology

VCDX #: 132

 

How did you get into using VMware?

When I was working as a customer I had to do a rip and replace of ESX 3.5 to ESXi 4.1 with new hardware. I learned a ton about virtualization and when I first vMotioned a VM I said “Wow this is awesome and I have to work there.” I moved across the country to work for VMware where I worked commercially in networking/storage/fault support for about a year. After that I moved onto the Federal team at VMware where I was a TSE , Research Engineer, and then Escalation Engineer. I finally decided that I wanted to architect environments and I left for WWT where I implement large scale environments that leverage VMware.

What made you decide to do the VCDX?

It was a challenge! I did the same thing with my VCP and then my VCAPs for DCV and View and finally hit the point where I felt I would be comfortable defending.

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

I initially planned for defending for 4.1 and then 5.0 came out and I switched teams. I would say the initial 4 submission was about 6 months. After I left VMware I spent about 8 months working on getting my VCAPs and submitting my defence for 5.5

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

Be honest and know your defence. I wrote an entire article about helpful things for future candidates can do here : http://www.vmrage.com/vcdx-dcv-overview/

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

I would have tried doing more mocks and additional proof reading of my design prior to my submission. I do plan on submitting for VCDX-DT with a totally new design from a previous implementation. So I guess you could say that I get to do over half of it over again Smile

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

A lot of people followed me on Twitter now which is pretty awesome. I am currently making a huge effort to mentor future VCDXs throughout the process. We had a few mentors and it was a HUGE help to the group.

My company was extremely excited that I had obtained it.

It was worth it to me because it was goal that I set and I finally did it. I loved the product enough to uproot my life to work on it and I am glad that I mastered one of their certification tracks. I plan on advocating it even further in the future


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VCDX Spotlight: Josh Coen

Name: Josh Coen

Twitter Handle: @joshcoen

Blog URL: valcolabs.com

VCDX #: 129

How did you get into using VMware?

In 2006, when I was active duty in the U.S. Air Force, we had a project to stand up a lab for testing patches and other projects. A server was bought and VMware Infrastructure 3 was purchased, but no one had training. I was brought into the project and sent to San Diego to take the VMware Infrastructure 3: Install and Configure course (coincidentally, Rawlinson Rivera was my instructor). I was immediately hooked and knew that my professional future had to include virtualization.

What made you decide to do the VCDX?

After I started doing the VCAP5-DCA I decided I wanted to go for VCDX. The two biggest drivers for me was the challenge it presented and the doors it might open; professionally and monetarily

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

It took me roughly 12 months from the time I completed the last of the VCDX prerequisites (VCAP5-DCD) to the time I defended

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

Don’t give up. There were plenty of times during the process that I questioned “why am I doing this” and even contemplated quitting. These questions came when I got stuck on a particular part or section in the process and was unsure how to move forward. If that sounds familiar, take a break, clear your head and keep at it. Eventually something will click and you will break through

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

I would have tried to complete it sooner. I had the potential to defend sooner than I did had I got off my butt and completed the required documentation. Don’t procrastinate.

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

I’m not sure what’s next professionally, but I’m keeping an open mind. Personally, I’m going to focus on continuing to learn Spanish as well as Python. My company didn’t support what I was doing. All time and money associated with VCDX were my own. It was definitely worth it. A very rewarding experience and I’m glad to have went through it.


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EMEA VCDX Study Group

As some people may be aware, I am looking to defend my VCDX design at Frimley in April (tech review pending) and so wanted to follow the great example the guys from PEX set and try get some study groups going for VCDX for those people looking to submit and for people like myself who have submitted and are looking for mock defences for my design but also for the design and troubleshooting scenario.

Brad Christian posted a blog posting covering what the US guys did here for their mock defences and how beneficial they were. Everyone is welcome to join the EMEA VCDX study group (Current VCDX’s are especially welcome!!) although if you don’t even have you VCP yet then possibly waiting until you are further down the line is a good idea. I am hoping to link people up who are on the same level and path and create a “circle of trust” so that these people can share their designs for review and after submission for mock defences. 

I have created a form for people to fill in (I admit i copied the idea of James Bowling and his US Study Group form) and have listed the VCDX-Cloud and VCDX-DT as if people are aiming for these then there isn’t likely to be loads of people able to review and help.

So if you are interested and very importantly feel you can make the time (4-8 hours for a review) to help people looking to submit and defend then the sign up form is below:

SIGN UP HERE FOR EMEA VCDX STUDY GROUP

Gregg


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VCAP-CID Objective 2.1 – Determine Catalog Requirements for a Logical Design

Knowledge

Identify what can be included in a published catalog.

  • A published catalog is one that is created in the administrative organisation with all the required components and  vApp templates published to all other organisations in the vCloud environment. Good design practice to only allow the administrative organisation to publish its catalog and deny this ability for all the standard organisations.
  • The components that can be included in a published catalog are:
    • Standardised gold master vApp that can consist of a single virtual machine all the way to 3 tiered offerings like a web service with a web front end, an application server and a database server. These are verified templates that meet regulatory and security standards which ensures consistency across the environment and provides the consumers with verified offerings that can be deployed with ease.Guest customisation changes the identity of the vApp and can be used for post-deployment steps, such as the joining of vApps to domains.
    • vApp Templates which can cannot be deployed but can be deployed (instantiated), creating a vApp that can be deployed and powered on.
    • Media like ISO files for software and applications. These are also verified and commonly customised to ensure standardisation and to provide specific capabilities.

Identify what can be included in a private catalog.

  • A private catalog can have the exact same components but it is controlled by the user/group assigned the Catalog Author vCloud role. This catalog is limited to a specific organisation and good design practice states you should limit the ability to publish this catalog thereby making it a private catalog.
  • This can still contain standardised vApp’s and ISO’s and if you are a service provider this is where the cloud consumer will place their standardised vApp’s and ISO’s so that the organisation can use them but other organisations cannot.

Identify permission controls for catalogs.

  • There are three Predefined roles in vCloud that have varying permissions and rights to make changes and create components in catalogs. A breakdown of the predefined roles and their rights are contained in this documentation centre link

Explain the functionality of a catalog.

    • This should be straight forward as this is VCP-IaaS level and I think all the previous sections define it pretty well also. But just in case i have pasted the VMware definition below:
      • VMware vCloud Director uses the concept of a catalog for storing content. Organizations have their own catalog that they can populate and and share the contents with other organizations and users.

All entities in the catalog are stored in a content repository system. The content repository, a component in the vCloud Director storage subsystem, provides an abstraction to the underlying datastores while offering features to store, search, retrieve, and remove both structured and unstructured data.

Skills and Abilities

Based on application requirements, determine appropriate vApp configuration.

  • As I mentioned for the published catalog and private catalog sections above you can configure vApp’s with multiple tiers to allow the organisations to provision these offerings in their vCloud organisation and maintain standardisation. If a customer asks for a web service offerings then you can provide them with a three tiered vApp with a web front end, an application server and a database server. There may even be a requirement for availability of the offering so you will created multiple front end, application servers and a clustered database back end.
  • Using the web service example this will also require different networking to ensure the security of the offering which will mean different servers connecting to different networks and vCNS endpoint devices being configured as part of the vApp. I am planning on creating a few of these as practice in visio so that I can visualise them and make sure I know what they should look like in case a visio style question comes up or i just need a good mental picture to make decisions for questions.

Determine appropriate storage configuration for a given vApp.

  • This follows closely to what I covered above but now you need to think of the storage offering the vApp components are going to be kept on and what storage you are going to allow the vApp to be deployed onto. Using my trusty web service example you wouldn’t want the database sitting on low end storage as this would severely impact the service.
  • This is what I think they are asking for so if you think i’m wrong then please do tell me as I’m also learning and sometimes it’s difficult to gleam what they mean as this could also relate to fast provisioning.

Given customer requirements, determine appropriate catalog design.

  • I think for this if you have created catalogs countless times and know what you can put in there and that they can be published to specific organisations from other organisations or published to all from the administrative organisation then designing it should be simple enough.

Determine the impact of given security requirements, on a catalog structure.

  • This may be numerous things but there are times when an organisation wants only certain vApp’s and ISO’s in a catalog to be available to certain people and so you can configure the catalog to have certain portions only available to certain people.
  • There are also many organisations who have very customised and important virtual machines which they have converted to vApp templates and they want these secured so that only a certain person can access them and only that person can provision them for people.

If you think I have totally missed something then please do tell me as I’m only learning and I’m certainly not perfect.

Gregg


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VCDX Defences Dates For 2014 Announced

 

Spongebob-Happy-spongebob-squarepants-154897_338_432As some people who know me may be aware I pushed for a UK VCDX defence this year as I along with numerous other people were looking to submit for the VCDX but couldn’t motivate and/or afford the costs to fly to the other defences released. Mark Brunstad was very helpful and put out a feedback form for people to submit their interest in a UK defence and sadly we fell a few people short of making it worth the expense and time for VMware. In all honesty it wasn’t a bad thing for me as with a very busy (but super exciting) work schedule and getting used to trying to study with a child under one in my house I wouldn’t have made a defence anyways.

But at VMworld Europe this year I rekindled the idea and Mark and John Arrasjid really liked it and again voting was opened. I knew for a fact there were at least 5-6 people who were interested to submit for it from the UK and numerous more in western Europe. Now I’m certainly not saying I had anything to do with it but it seems there were so many people interested that there are not one but TWO defences going to happen in Frimley UK next year. I’m hoping I wont need a second defence date but it is really great to have the option. The other dates are below which were released by Mark on the VMware Communities here.

February 10-14 2014: VMware Partner Exchange (PEX) – San Francisco CA US

VCDX Candidates wishing to defend at PEX 2014 may register by following this link:

http://mylearn.vmware.com/mgrSurvey/feedback.cfm?survey=49517

Applications for the PEX San Francisco 2014 VCDX Design Defense will be due on or before Midnight PST (UTC -8:00)  Friday December 20,  2013

April 2014:

April 7-9 2014 Frimley UK

April 7-9 2014 Sydney AU

Applications for April 2014 Frimley and Sydney VCDX Design Defense will be due on or before Midnight PDT (UTC -8:00) Friday 02 February 2014

July 2014:

July 7-9 2014 Cambridge MA US

July 7-9 2014 Frankfurt DE

July 7-9 2014 Singapore SG

Applications for July 2014 Cambridge, Frankfurt, and Singapore VCDX Design Defense will be due on or before Midnight PDT (UTC -8:00) Friday 09 May 2014

October 2014:

October 6-8 2014 Palo Alto CA USA                                   

October 6-8 2014 Frimley UK

October 6-8 2014 Kuala Lumpur MY

Applications for October 2014 Palo Alto, Frimley, and Kuala Lumpur VCDX Design Defense will be due on or before Midnight PDT (UTC -8:00) Friday 08 August 2014.

Good luck to all of those looking to submit next year and hopefully I’ll be posting this post next year this time as a VCDX Open-mouthed smile

Gregg