Demitasse

Today’s workshop was for the Datacenter Administration exam, the toughest VMware exam I’ve sat. Below are the links I used.

First of all the certification page www.vmware.com/certification

The vBrownBag home page www.professionalvmware.com/brownbags/

vBrownBag VCAP5-DCA Playlist on YouTube

Greg Robertson’s VCAP resource page www.thesaffageek.co.uk/vsphere-5-study-resources/vcap5-dca-dcd/

Chris Wahl’s study sheet http://wahlnetwork.com/2012/07/02/the-vcap5-dca-study-sheet/

Finally my own AutoLab www.labguides.com

One of the presentations I do a bit is about preparing for the VCAP certifications, I’ve done this at vForum Sydney and at the Sydney and Melbourne VMUGs and it always seems to be valuable to people. This week I’m doing the same material online for an international audience, which is interesting in itself. Below is a selection of links to VCAP5-DCD study resources that I used during the presentation.

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I’m a fan of the web site www.lifehacker.com and particularly enjoy their “this is how I work” articles. I originally wrote this as an audition piece for LifeHaker but decided to stay with writing about Enterprise tech for now.

Location: Small town New Zealand

Current gig: Freelance trainer and writer. I travel to cities in New Zealand and Australia to teach about server and desktop virtualization, my students work in IT at corporates or solution providers. I also write and host podcasts about enterprise tech, especially virtualization.

One word that best describes how you work: Compulsively. When I have an interesting project on it will consume all of my free time until it’s done. Some projects are for customers but a lot of the projects I work on are contributed to the very active community around the technology I teach about.

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In the AutoLab build we’re using a lot of PowerCLI, the whole DC and VC build is migrating into PowerShell and there are a few places where we use PowerCLI.

On big issue I have had with PowerCLI is the huge delay in loading the snap in, PowerShell itself loads in a few seconds but PowerCLI takes a couple of minutes to load.

A quick Google has brought relief in the form of a blog post from the every awesome Alan Renouf which helped me resolve the issue http://www.virtu-al.net/2010/07/05/speed-up-powercli/

If you aren’t familiar with Alan’s work spend a while looking around, I particularly recommend the vCheck script.

You probably know that VMware has been rationalising it’s product lines into Datacentre Virtualization (DV), Cloud and End User Compute (DT in the certification names but EUC everywhere else).  The certifications have also been aligned to the products, with VCP, VCAP and VCDX level certifications released or planned for each of these streams.

At the moment only the DV and Cloud streams have VCAP exams available, and the Cloud stream only has the Design exam so far. The Desktop Design VCAP exam has been through beta and should be released quite soon and the beta of the Cloud Admin VCAP has just finished so that exam should be available in a couple of months time.

One piece of news that came out at Partner Exchange last week was that the VCAP certifications can be used to cross from one stream to another. If you hold any current VCP level certification you can then take the VCAP exam in another stream and if you pass get that stream’s VCP as well as the VCAP. One exam to get two certifications is a great deal, also the VCP level is the only one that (to date) has a mandatory education requirement so a potential cost saving if you’re paying for your own prep.

I know I’m a bit biased as I make my living teaching the courses, but if you get the chance do attend the advanced courses that are suggested preparation for the VCAP exams. Particularly attend at least one Design Workshop if you are doing the design exams, knowing how VMware thinks about design is important for the exams.

The first Auckland vBeers for 2013 will be on March 20th at the Northern Steamship on Britomart from 5pm.

As always vBeers is a chance to talk with other virtualization professionals and enjoy a relaxing refreshment after a long days work.  All the details are on the vBeers site at the link below.

http://www.vbeers.org/2013/03/06/vbeers-auckland-new-zealand-wednesday-20th-march-2013/

I just had my memory refreshed about the playlists that Nick Marshall generated for some of the vBrownBag content that we generated last year.  These are playlists for specific VMware certifications, covering VCP5, VCAP5-DCD and VCAP5-DCA certifications there is a huge amount of certification preparation material on our YouTube feed at http://www.youtube.com/user/vBrownBag/videos?view=1&flow=grid

This week is going to be a busy week with Podcast hosting.

On Wednesday night I will again be hosting the APAC Virtualization podcast as we bring together some of the speakers who will be at the VMUG user summits in Sydney and Melbourne in two weeks. Craig Waters has been hosting the podcast for the last few months, but since he’s organising the Melbourne event I’ll be running this show.

Then on Thursday I restart the APAC edition of the vBrownBag as I embark on a journey to VCDX. Join me for the fun, or to laugh at the mistakes I make along the way.

Now that the summer holiday is over and I’m on my way to Perth for my first paying gig of the year it’s time to look forward.  The first big thing I’m looking forward to is the two Australian VMUG user summits.  I will be there as a speaker, my first time being a speaker at a conference. 

The Sydney Conference is on Tuesday 5th February, I think that I’ll be talking about AutoLab and maybe also something about certification preparation.

The Melbourne Conference is on Thursday 7th February, there I will be helping Craig Waters to run the user track. A little like the Tech Talks that we did with the vBrownBag crew at VMworld, this is an opportunity for community generated material.  If you use vSphere and have learned anything then you can share that experience by signing up using this form to present what you learned and to help others.

Other speakers that you may have heard of are Mike Laverick and Stephen Foskett who will be at both conferences and Michael Webster who I believe will only be in Melbourne.

If you will be in Sydney or Melbourne those weeks I’d recommend going to the conferences, lots of great free resources for the community.

I was lucky enough to finish work on the Wednesday before Christmas and make an extra day in Auckland. The extra day enabled me to catch up with Carl Hansen of HP, who bought me coffee and lent me a couple of thin clients to mess around with.

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