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VCDX Spotlight: Garrette Grouwstra

Name: Garrette Grouwstra

Twitter Handle: @VirtualCanadian

Blog URL: vCanadian.ca

Current Employer: Long View Systems

VCDX #: 127

How did you get into using VMware?

I was working for a small ISP in 2009, and began a consolidation project to go hand-in-hand with their upcoming infrastructure refresh. As soon as I started using ESXi 3.5, I thought that the whole idea of virtualization was something I needed to focus on professionally.

What made you decide to do the VCDX?

For the past 2.5 years, I have had the privilege of building and architecting a public cloud offering to help diversify the services that the company I work for offers to clients. VCDX-DCV had been on my mind at the time as I watched others in the organization (@vcloudmatt and @DavesRant) go through the process. Once the Cloud track was announced, I knew that would be my next goal.

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

That is a tough question, as the VCDX-Cloud certification is still brand spanking new. I had to complete all of the prerequisites first, I received the VCP-Cloud in August of 2012, followed by the Beta’s of the VCAP-CID, and VCAP-CIA, which I received in February 2013.

I started writing my design documentation in March of 2013, putting it aside while I planned a wedding and went on a honeymoon, and picked back up in August 2013. With the help of my design Co-author, Matt Vandenbeld (@vcloudmatt), I was able to complete the application by the end of December, and was fortunately invited to defend in February 2014.

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

1. Get support from your family, and work. I was lucky that both my husband and Long View Systems gave me time, and supported me on this journey. I could not have remained sane without them.

2. Set milestones to complete sections of your design doc, and within all supporting material. Keep to the deadlines.

3. Don’t work in a vacuum. There are many great resources out there, both blogs and people (Inside and outside of your organization). Use them

4. Know your design inside and out. Really, I mean it.

5. Accept that you may have submitted a design with mistakes. Own those mistakes and call them

6. Practice, practice, practice! Find others in the community that are able to assist you, and do mock defences, design and troubleshooting scenarios. Brad Christian (@BChristian21) organized mock defences between most of the candidates defending at PEX. The group ripped my design apart more so than they did in the room, and were amazing help preparing.

7. Breathe. Take a time out before the actual defence to compose yourself.

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

The only thing I would do differently is more mocks. I saw myself grow so much as a consultant and VCDX candidate during the weeks leading up to the defence, and the mocks were a LARGE part of that. I wish I would have done more troubleshooting and design mocks.

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

The VCDX is a certification I achieved for myself, not for my company. They have been supportive along the way, and all congratulated me, however I did not, and do not expect much to change from a company perspective.

The biggest change personally, is that I have free time again. I’m still trying to come to terms with that and debating how to fill the void that VCDX prep has left.


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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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vCAC 6.0 Resources

As most people who work with VMware will know vCloud Automation Center version 6 was released last week and with the plans for vCAC to become the route for non VSPP partners for cloud plus the added features and functionality of 6.0 the twitterverse is alive with people looking to learn more. I am one of those people and was even fortunate enough to be part of the beta for 6.o but there is loads to learn so I decided to start a list of really great resources around the product that I could use to skill up with and thought it would probably help other people as well and so this is what this blog posting is about. I am hoping to continually add more resources to this list and welcome any recommendations on good resources.

Product Landing Page:

Product Documentation:

Release Notes:

Compatibility Matrix:

Installation and configuration blogs:

Distributed Installation

Sam McGeown has done a series around the distributed installation of vCAC 6.0 which isn’t as simple as you would hope.

  1. VCAC 6.0 build-out to distributed model – Part 1: Certificates
  2. vCAC 6.0 build-out to distributed model – Part 2: vPostgres
  3. vCAC 6.0 build-out to distributed model – Part 3.1: Configure Load Balancing with vCNS
  4. vCAC 6.0 build-out to distributed model – Part 3.2: Configure load balancing with NSX
  5. vCAC 6.0 build-out to distributed model – Part 4: Deploying and clustering a secondary vCAC Appliance

Training

Automation of the Installation

Day 2 Automation

Jonathan Medd as created a brilliant series of postings around vCAC tenant creation

Automating vCAC Tenant Creation with vCO: Part 1 AD SSL
Automating vCAC Tenant Creation with vCO: Part 2 AD Users, Groups and OUs
Automating vCAC Tenant Creation with vCO: Part 3 Install the vCAC plugin for vCO
Automating vCAC Tenant Creation with vCO: Part 4 Creating a Tenant
Automating vCAC Tenant Creation with vCO: Part 5 Creating an Identity Store
Automating vCAC Tenant Creation with vCO: Part 6 Adding Administrators

 

Top orchestration blogs

http://vcoteam.info/

http://elasticskies.com/

http://cloudyautomation.com/

http://v-reality.info/

http://www.vcacteam.info/

http://www.vcoportal.de/

http://d-fens.ch/category/technology/

Orchestrator Videos

Intro to vCenter Orchestrator

vCenter Orchestrator Install and Configure

Using vCO to manage Active Directory and Exchange

Advanced vCO

Converting vCO Workflows to versionable code

FREE VMware vCenter Orchestrator Instructional Videos [Updated]

VMware Hands On Labs

Videos:

VMwareTV have now posted 30 videos covering vCAC features http://www.youtube.com/user/vmwaretv?feature=watch

vCAC 6.0 Extensibility Overview

#vBrownBag Automate ALL the things – vCAC 6.0 Installation with Jon Harris (@ThevCACGuy) from ProfessionalVMware on Vimeo.

#vBrownBag Automate ALL the things – vCAC 6.0 Getting Started with Jon Harris (@ThevCACGuy) from ProfessionalVMware on Vimeo.

Reference Architecture Guide:

http://www.vmware.com/files/pdf/techpaper/vmware-vcloud-automation-center-60-reference-architecture.pdf

Helpful vCAC 5.2 Resources

Just because some people will still be asked to do vCAC 5.2 . Also the installation notes only cover installing all the components on one server whereas Arnim has detailed how to do it when you have separated the components like you would in a production environment. I’ve used these notes on a 5.2 engagement and assure you these are correct compared to the actual VMware instillation notes

http://www.van-lieshout.com/2013/08/vcloud-automation-center-part-1-vcac-components-overview/

http://www.van-lieshout.com/2013/08/vcloud-automation-center-part-2-installation-preparation/


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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


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VCDX Spotlight: Jonathan Kohler

Name: Jon Kohler

Twitter Handle:  @JonKohler

Blog URL: vdoogle.wordpress.com

Current Employer : MSN Communications

VCDX #: 116

How did you get into using VMware?

I started using VMware ESX 3.x and Workstation in late 2008. The more I started to use VMware’s products, both personally and professionally, the more impressed I was with their functionality and direction. I worked at a VMware partner at the time vSphere 4.0 came out and deployed it internally for their production environment and externally for customers as part of PS engagements. I decided then that VMware virtualization is where I wanted to maintain my professional focus and haven’t let up since.

What made you decide to do the VCDX?

I decided to go after the VCDX after I changed jobs a few years ago. I moved from Vermont to Colorado after finding a VMware Infrastructure engineering job at a large national health system on Twitter. The person who got me in the door was Nate Raper, VCDX 85, though not a VCDX at the time. I had both of my VCAP4’s at the time, and hadn’t really given much thought to the VCDX. That changed when I saw what Nate brought me in to work on. The environment at this company was massive in both complexity and size. To give you an idea of the level of VMware engineering at this particular establishment, the enterprise both Nate and I worked in has produced 3 VCDX’s (Tom Ralph, Nate, and Myself). That scale, as well as Nate’s encouragement, is what got me hooked and on the right path.

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

I started with the VCP4 in January 2009 and finished up with the VCDX5-DCV in August 2013, so holistically the better part of five years. In terms of hours, I probably spent over 600 hours over the last year working on everything associated with the VCDX deliverables. This was over the course of three application attempts and one defense attempt.

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

Approach all of your work like it was going to be compared against the VCDX blueprint, this will get you in the right mind set to succeed on whatever design you choose. I know the blueprint can be kind of vague, but try to use it as a checklist when you think you are done with a project, and literally go down the list and point out where you have those items in your design. Also, get and read the VCDX boot camp book.

Have confidence in yourself and give yourself a LOT of time. No matter how good of an engineer or architect you are, trying to rush to put together a world class deliverable simply doesn’t work, which I learned the hard way when I didn’t allow myself enough time for proper decompression, peer review, etc and failed the application stage twice.

If you get invited to defend, no matter how confident you feel, get SEVERAL different peer reviews on your presentation, practice frequently, and KNOW YOUR DESIGN INSIDE AND OUT. This means know why you made choices (very specifically), what you didn’t choose to implement (alternative design choices), and why you did what you did.

Past that, keep your hands in the dirt, as you will need to be sharp for the troubleshooting and design sections. I got lucky on my troubleshooting piece, as it was a problem I had actually dealt with in the real world before, which made me much more confident when engaging the panellists.

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

I would have given myself much more time the first go around, so that I didn’t have to stress over this for the past year. Smile

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

Life has been much less stressful for sure. My employer MSN Communications and manager Colin were supportive throughout the entire journey, and have responded well. No change in positions or anything, but as fate would have it, Nate and I left our healthcare IT jobs last year when we got outsourced, and both went to MSN. He just left MSN to go to VMware’s Global CoE, so I am going to step up and fill some of that gap with our customers, which I don’t think I could have done without going through the VCDX process. Lastly, I do think this journey was worth it and I would do it again in a heartbeat.