VirtualPro

I’m currently revising for an EMC exam and part of the course material involves doing some training on the Navisphere simulator. No problems, except where on earth do you download the simulator software? I searched for ages before finding out that you only get access to it on EMC PowerLink if you are an EMC employee, partner or you have bought the relevant training.  I had done the latter but still couldn’t get it downloaded for some reason,  that’s when a google search turned up a link to the following page which required no credentials, EMC Education Services product simulators.

I managed to download the latest version for EMC Flare release 28 without issue.  I was however asked for my EMC PowerLink credentials when I first opened the simulator so perhaps that’s how it’s authenticated against the training purchased. It’s a really good learning aid and I’ve been able to find out how to do things on it that I wouldn’t have dared to attempt on our actual CLARiiON implementation. Hope this link helps someone who’s searching for this,  took me ages to find it.

Certifications, Storage Certification, EMC, Navisphere

Following the completion of my post last night about the potential paths that the VMware certification was going to take,  VMware have made an official announcement on the vSphere VCP.

To see the official VMware VCP certification path diagram click the link

For more information check out the following VMware education services page. This confirms that existing VCP’s can sit the exam without sitting the “what’s new in vSphere” course, which is great news !!

Certifications, VMware, vSphere Certifications, VMware, VSphere

I’ve been trying to find out a bit more information on what is going to happen to the VCP qualification now that vSphere has been launched. Way back in January this year I blogged about the impending changes to the VCP exam and since then there have been a number of posts speculating as to what will be involved in retaining or obtaining vSphere VCP status.

The best post by far,  which I admit I only stumbled upon today, is by a gentleman by the name of Arnim van lieshout .  This was originally published back at the beginning of March and refers to vSphere as NGen4 (Next Generation 4). Now, it’s very detailed and official looking,  I’m not sure he did this himself and I have actually seen a few blog posts suggesting that this material is covered by the VMware NDA.  However the cat is out of the bag so I’m going to share it with you anyway,  luckily I’m not covered by any NDA agreement because I’m not a VMware beta tester (though I would like to be one).

What Arnim’s diagram tells us is that there will be a new vSphere Install, Configure and manage course exactly like there was for VI3.  There will also be a what’s new course,  this designed for existing VCP’s who want to upgrade to the new vSphere VCP.  It would also appear that VMWare is keen to maintain the quality of their certification and will continue enforcing the courses as part of the certification path. This is something I am happy to see as it protects my own personal investment in gaining VCP status and makes it mean something.

What’s most interesting is that Arnim’s then describe’s the differences between the coloured lines in the diagram.  Orange lines relate to shortcuts available in the first 9 months from the general release of vSphere and the black lines relate to the mandatory path you must take after 9 months when the shortcuts have been removed. Seeing as it’s been a long day I’ve included out takes from Arnim’s blog post which describe it better than I do.

The options (black arrows):

Everybody new to VMware MUST attend the NGen4 ICM training

Everybody who attended the VI3 training (I&C or DSA only), but didn’t passed the exam MUST  attend the NGen4 ICM training again

If you are a VCP on ESX 2.x you MUST attend the NGen4 training

If you are a VCP on VI3 you MUST attend the NGen4 What’s New training

The shortcut options (orange arrows):

From the date of general release VMware will offer the shortcut paths for 9 months

If you are VCP on VI3 than you are allowed to take the new NGen4 exam WITHOUT attending the NGen4 “What’s New” training

If you are VCP on ESX 2.x you are still allowed to take the VI3 exam in order to become VCP on VI3 and then take the NGen4 exam

If you attended the VI3 training (I&C or DSA only) but didn’t passed the VI3 exam, you are offered 2 options:

Take the VI3 exam, and become VCP on VI3 and then take the NGen4 exam

Attend the NGen4 “What’s New” training and take the NGen4 exam

I wonder how much of this will materialise into hard fact,  we obviously await the official VMware announcements regarding certification.

Another post that I found quite interesting and one that is quite recent was from VMware certified instructor Scott Vessey.  He kindly informs us that once the vSphere launch is done VMware will start beta testing the exam in preperation for wider distribution.  He estimates that Pearson Vue will be offering the exam within 6-8 weeks of the product release.  Personally I will be trying to sit the upgrade exam without the course as my work won’t pay for it this year and I can’t afford it myself. Better get studying hadn’t I !!!!

Certifications, VMware, vSphere Certification, VCP, VMware

It would appear that with the upcoming release of VMware vSphere (VI4) there will be an update to the VMware Certified Professional (VCP) certification.

Eric Sloof over at NTPRO.NL has posted an article on his site about this news.  He references a post on the vmware communities site which has the following comments from John Hall (Technical Certification Developer)

There is no time limit between when you take the class and when you take the exam. The only thing I will say is that at some point this year we will announce a new VCP certification that will apply to the new release of our datacenter product. The training you took will apply to the VCP on VI3 certification exam, but there may be some additional requirements in order to apply your training to the newer certification. Even after we announce the new certification, you can still achieve the VCP on VI3 certification using your existing training.

Jon C. Hall
Technical Certification Developer

Certifications, VMware, vSphere VCP, VMware, VSphere

Mark Wilson over at Markwilson.it has posted a great post on free Microsoft virtualisation training and a discount for the exam.

Go to the following page on the eLearning website and enter the code 9350-Y2W6-3676. This will give you access to 10 hours of free training worth approximately £100. 

I used this as part of my studying for the 70-652 exam,  what I didn’t get though was a discount when i booked the exam.  When booking the 70-652 exam you can use the promotional code USHYPERV to recieve a discount (apologies I don’t know what the discount percentage rate actually is)

See my previous post on 70-652 study tips,  which will give you some other pointers and resources to look at when studying for the exam. 

Certifications, Hyper-V, Microsoft Certification, hyper-v

I’ve just this afternoon passed the Microsoft 70-652 exam, making me an MCTS for Windows Server Virtualisation.

I didn’t get a lot of time to study and basically spent the best part of yesterday and this morning using the exam preperation guide, technet and google to piece together everything I needed to know. There is not a lot of published material out there at the moment,  most of the books on amazon, etc appear to be due out later this month, so it was a bit of a struggle.

With this in mind I thought it would beneficial to publish some of the websites that I used for studying and clarifying specific points.

• As mentioned above the MS 70-652 Exam Preperation Guide was a great starting point.
• The Microsoft free E-Learning course 5935 - Introducing Hyper-V in Windows 2008.
• The Microsoft free E-Learning course 6334 - Exploring SCVMM 2008.
• The Technet page for Hyper-V , Work through each section it doesn’t take to long.
• The Technet page for SCVMM 2008, again work through each section.
• The Microsoft Assessment and Planning Toolkit, read the server consolodation scenarios.
• Robert Larson’s building a host cluster with Hyper-V, essential reading.
• Scott Lowe’s article on SCVMM 2008,  insight into SCOM and SCVMM integration.
• Ben Armstrong’s article on Allowing non-administrators to control Hyper-V.
• MS Server Team article on configuring pass-through disks in Hyper-V.
• The Technet how to Videos on SCVMM 2007 great material if you have no lab.
• This article on Emulated and Synthetic drivers,  now your IDE and SCSI VM Controller.

Other pointers I can give you,  well brush up on the following especially

• Disks - know the different types and how they work, IDE and SCSI controllers
• Snapshots - really know this, even snapshots for deployment?
• Networking - know the different types and how they work.
• Larger Networks - Think of ISCSI host connections and cluster heartbeats.
• Failover Clustering - It’s key to Hyper-V availability so make sure you know it.
• SVCMM - SCOM integration and migrating VMs between hosts.
• Hyper-V - know how to install both full and server core versions.

I’m glad I took the time and did the exam, unfortunately I won’t get much of a chance to use the skills in the day job as we currently utilise VMWare.  However I have seen enough during my revision and lab testing to see that Microsoft have got themselves a very good base product.  With the Windows 2008 R2 release being worked on I can only imagine it will get better.  Enjoy studying…. (if that’s possible!!)

Certifications, Microsoft 70-652, Certification, hyper-v, MCTS