Demitasse

If you didn’t already know, VMware made their biggest launch ever on Wednesday.  I got to spend some time discussing it with Michael Warrilow and posted that podcast on Wednesday night.

The blogosphere and twitterverse are full of discussion about what was launched, mostly about vRAM based licensing and whether it’s good or bad.  I suggest you do the math on your environment, total the memory allocated to every running VM and compare it to the entitled RAM you would have under the new model.  Remember to count every CPU license anywhere in your environment and multiply by the entitlement per CPU for the edition of vSphere.  Most customers will find that they have more than adequate vRAM entitlement, but those with huge ratios of RAM to CPU sockets may need to buy more licenses.

Don’t let the vRAM question be the only thing you think about, there are some huge benefits in vSphere 5.  Autodeploy, large LUN support and storage DRS are clear winners for larger customers, massive VM support will enable some holdout workloads to be virtualised.  The vSphere Storage Appliance will be very welcome in the medium business area and all vSphere Advanced S&S customers are getting Enterprise upgrades at no additional cost.

Next week the APAC Virtualisation Podcast will be hosted by Rodos who will have Jason Kiely from VMware on the line to discuss the new product versions an features.  You will have a week to digest and consider, then bring your best questions for clarification.

Last week I had the pleasure of interviewing Daniel, a past student, on what it was like to implement SRM for a large customer.  In this podcast we talked about some things that aren’t clearly spelled out in the product documentation and training that definitely require some planning.  We aimed for a 20 minute length, but ended up with 40 minutes of great information.

Thanks Daniel for sharing your experience.

This was the first offline recorded session for the podcast, I plan on doing a few more to get more end user experiences and technical insights.

The session is on Talkshoe in the usual place.

Also check out the podcast blog

And if you’re in Auckland next week come to the inaugural Auckland vBeers

Unfortunately Mike isn’t able to make it tonight so we will have to reschedule him, hopefully for the not too distant future.

Mike will be back, sharing the secrets of the next version of SRM.  All  the details on the podcast site as usual.

I’m very pleased to say that my efforts for community have been deemed worthy and I have been awarded vExpert for 2011.

Blogging and podcasting sometimes feels like sending things into a vacuum, so it’s nice to get the recognition.  Thanks John.

The first vBeers event will be at the Bluestone Room on Durham Street in Auckland on July 12th from 7-9pm.

Details on the vBeers web site I hope to see you there.

Craig Waters and Virgil from the Australian VMUG organisation will be my guests to talk about what VMUG is, who should attend and what they get from being part of VMUG.

Get all the details at the podcast blog

I sat and passed the VCP4-DT exam yesterday.

The exam was good, a 90 minute exam of 70 multiple choice questions.  I finished in my usual sort of time (1/3 of the time allowed) and got a good pass.  The questions were as usual in the VCP level exams, implementation through to operation without a lot of design.  Minima, Maxima and supporting version requirements were present, although not a large part of the question set I got.

Going through the exam blueprint and studying up any area you’re not comfortable with is essential.  I hadn’t implemented Kiosk mode so my last minute study of the product documentation paid off in the room.

Top tip to prepare for the exam, attend the View Install, Configure, Manage course.  It goes over most of the areas in the exam.  The course isn’t mandatory for the exam, just a well structure coverage of most of the material that will be in the exam.  Having taught the course four time so far this year I can tell you it’s a great course and well aligned to the exam, I didn’t need a lot more study time.

If you can’t get to a course then your own lab is a must, I did most of my product familiarisation on my main lab but I have run enough vSphere to have View on my laptop.

As a reminder, in order to achieve VCP4-DT you need to already hold VCP4 and VCA-DT certifications.

The other thing to know is that the Pearson VUE website currently lists the VCP4-DT exam as “Comming Soon”, it is here now and you can book it once you’re authorised by VMware.

This week Rodos will be interviewing Chris Akerberg, Quest software’s VP for Server Virtualization and Application Management.

Check out the details on the podcast blog.

The APAC Virtualisation podcast has a new home, visit apacvirtual.wordpress.com for the latest updates.

This week Roman Tarnavski will be joined by Scott Drummonds, I’m looking forward to it.

http://apacvirtual.wordpress.com/2011/05/20/apac-virtualization-roundtable-scott-drummonds-storage-magic-25-may/