TheSaffaGeek

My ramblings about all things technical

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All Things Virtual

I planned to get this post out last week but unfortunately time ran out before I had a chance. I thought I would put a quick post up of all the things virtual and linked to virtual that i have been doing/working with/learning/reading up on in the past week and a bit.

If you’ve been reading any of my previous postings you would know I have been fiddling fairly extensively and trying to grow my knowledge of powershell,powercli and all the things that can be done with these tools. A professional i follow on twitter who is a guru at all things powershell is Luc Dekens(@lucd22). He has many great scripts and tools for anyone interested and put up a very helpful script of how to search for all VMX files in all datastores and register them into VC.

Scott Lowe(@scott_lowe) did a great write up of  the book vSphere 4.0 Quick Start Guide.The book was written by many people Duncan Epping(@duncanyb) and Alan Renouf being two of them. It’s a book I’m planning to get myself in the new year and a great book for someone wanting to increase their knowledge in a short space of time as well as a brilliant reference book for people who have been in the industry for ages. The book has just been made available for those of us in Europe wishing to buy it.

For all my powershell and PowerCLI scripting and learning I have been using a brilliant tool called PowerGUI. Dmitry Sotnikov posted last week the new addition of the software and detailed all the new features. This tool is awesome and I would recommend it to anyone planning to use and currently using powershell scripting.

Simon Seagrave(@kiwi_si) wrote a very useful posting all about some great virtualization fundamentals videos from VMware. These are brilliant if you’re trying to learn about virtualisation and are even better for those of you who need to show the benefits of virtualisation to management to maybe get them to agree to converting to VMware.

Alan Renouf (@alanrenouf) has created an absolute life saver reference guide for all things PowerCLI. I printed this off straight away and will be using it extensively in my daily job and my continued learning of PowerCLI. Alan has been a MASSIVE help in my learning of PowerCLI. If you want to learn PowerCLI, his blog posting on PowerCLI where do i start is a great place to start and is the place I’ve recently started at. Also I would recommend keeping an eye on the PowerCLI page of the VMware communities as there are some very informative and interesting discussions on the topic.

Scott Lowe has put up two great posts explaining the differences and similarities of npiv and npv as well as what sr iov is in another posting. I love these kinds of posts as for someone like me who needs things explained in laymen terms to understand it fully it really helps and Scott does this in a great way in these two posts. For those out there who somehow don’t know Scott has a brilliant book called Mastering VMware VSphere 4. If you haven’t got this book already I would highly recommend it for the studying for your vcp4 exam and even more so as a brilliant reference book.

Duncan Epping of Yellow-Bricks.com fame has recently put up two great posts announcing ESX 3.5’s update 5 release and detailing what’s contained in it. As well as a posting of how to do the infamous kill –9 command of ESX in ESXi. If you haven’t had to restart your mgmt-VMware service before due to it hanging or had to use the kill –9 command as the service won’t stop/restart then either you have an environment all VMware admins dream of or you’ve been very very lucky so far. Simon Long (@simonlong_) has posted a great blog posting recently with videos from VMware  showing how to do these service restarts if you’ve never done them before.

Lastly is my blog roll on the right hand side of the page. All of these blogs are my favourites and are blogs I highly recommend to anyone wishing to learn and stay informed of everything happening in the virtual world. These are some of the best and the best in the industry so try take some time to get through them all and add rss feeds for the ones you find the most interesting.

Feel free to follow or even message me on twitter  on @greggrobertson5 and I would recommend following the people I have detailed above and in my previous blog postings.

Gregg Robertson

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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

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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

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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

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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.


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Powershell,PowerGUI,PowerCLI and vCheck

As i said in my last post I’ve decided to start brushing up my non existent knowledge of powershell and learn the applications that link into VMware Virtual Infrastructure and how they can make my daily job easier and more automated. I’ve found many great articles and actually registered myself for two on demand Microsoft live meetings on using powershell a number of months back which i still need to make my way through. The two live meetings I’m planning to go through are:

Introduction to Windows PowerShell: http://msevents.microsoft.com/CUI/WebCastEventDetails.aspx?EventID=1032314395&EventCategory=3&culture=en-US&CountryCode=US

Writing Scripts with Windows Powershell : http://msevents.microsoft.com/CUI/WebCastEventDetails.aspx?EventID=1032320637&EventCategory=3&culture=en-US&CountryCode=US

Hopefully these will give me a basic basic knowledge of standard commands i can use and how they work as I’m a very big point and click type of person. There are many brilliant resources out there to learn from and reference.

For PowerCLI there is obviously the administration guide. The administration guide has loads of examples and covers both basic and advanced cmdlet usage. I’m definitely going to be spending a fair amount of time reading through and learning everything in the guide.Obviously to do all the great commands in your VMware environment you’ll need to install the PowerCLI application from http://www.vmware.com/support/developer/windowstoolkit/index.html.

Alan Renouf(@alanrenouf) has written a great blog detailing some really helpful links and documents you can follow and use to learn and perfect your PowerCLI knowledge.I’ll be making my way through this list in the coming days. Alan also has a page on his site where he blogs about any new developments in powercli at http://www.virtu-al.net/category/powercli/

Microsoft has very handy PowerShell Quick Reference guide that has some very good examples for doing stuff in your environment.

Vinternal (@vinternals) has a really great blog page about learning all things powercli http://vinternals.com/powercli-mastery/ which is something I’m planning to get through once i have learnt all the basics from all the above resources. But a really great resource.

But my first port of call is a document detailed on both Alan and Simon Longs blogs that was made available at VMworld Europe last year. As it covers all the basics while teaching me about VMware specific commands.http://blogs.vmware.com/files/vi-toolkit-lab—-vmworld-europe-2009.pdf

If your on twitter and wish to follow me and hear about my progress on my learning of powershell,powercli etc then my username is @greggrobertson5

Gregg Robertson

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London VMware User Group

Last week Tuesday i attended my first VMware user group. I have to admit that i was sadly really excited to be attending it for learning about new things from my fellow peers and also about finally meeting some of the people i follow on twitter and whose blogs i read and receive so much information from. The event was help not far from EMC Consulting’s London offices at the Chambers of commerce and trade near Southwark bridge.

I confirmed my attendance to Jonathan Medd’s( @jonathanmedd) powershell session before the user group as  i knew my powershell skills are far from competent and what better way than to get a run through of the best tools and methods i should learn for administering my VMware environment. Jonathon covered a couple of very interesting applications the first one being the vCheck by Alan Renouf(@alanrenouf). I don’t know how i never learnt or heard about his tool but it is definitely something i am planning on rolling out for my VMware environment as soon as possible as it’s reporting of any problems and things you need to watch/resolve is a great tool for any VMware administrator wanting to keep his/her environment running smoothly.

Another topic which was covered by Jonathan which I’m definitely now planning to make a concerted effort of attempting to get through and learn is using powershell and powergui to automate and administer my environment. Fellow VMware user group attendee Simon Long @simonlong_) wrote a great blog about learning it which I’m definitely going to try and get through.

Jonathan also covered onyx alpha and VESI. New applications to me which look to be very helpful also in the maintenance of your VMware environment. I really do have a lot of reading a research to do on this scripting/powershell side!

Next was the sponsors chat who were Symantec. I was quite impressed with them as i have to be honest i had no idea they had so many tools and solutions geared towards virtualisation. Their next set of releases in 2010 are well worth looking out for especially if you have a number of their solutions in your environment already.

Then Simon Gallagher(@vinf_net) spoke about creating a white box environment for home testing/learning. His T.A.R.D.I.S. (no i can’t remember what exactly the acronym stands for) was a real eye opener especially the vmotioning of a machine from a virtual esx server in a virtual machine(yes this isn’t a typo) to a physical host was very impressive and definitely showed how well developed the VMware technology really is. Simon Seagrave(@kiwi_si) who was meant to co host this session but couldn’t because of work commitments has a really great page on his site about the equipment they used and deals on equipment you could use for your own white box lab environment.

The final session was by Mike Laverick(@mikelaverick) and Guy Chapman talking about their opinions and thoughts on cloud computing and the new vSphere features. This was a great session as really brought up a nice discussion from everyone. I’m definitely looking forward to going through his slides once they are published as he had some brilliant comments and references and his describing of the cloud was especially interesting to me as I’m also trying to understand what the cloud is and what it will do for me and my organisation.

A big thank you to Alaric and the rest of the guys for organising the user group. I thoroughly enjoyed it and hope to be able to make the next one. If you live in the south of England and wish to come to the next one i would recommend joining the community on http://communities.vmware.com/community/vmug/emea/london?view=discussions and subscribing to any new posting on the community or mailing londonvmug@yahoo.com and requesting to be added to the list for the next one early next year.

Gregg Robertson

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