Blogger profile updated on Nicolai Sandager

Hi All,

Back in december I introduced Nicolai Sandager as a new fellow blogger on this site. While he has been blogging some, he has just now finished up his own profile, which you can read here.

I work with Nicolai at a smaller IT Company in Denmark called BusinessMann A/S and have been doing so for over 2 years now. Nicolai has for the last year been working on a rather huge ESXi installation in Denmark initially containing 42 ESX hosts. Over time this installation has grown to 60+ ESXi hosts in two datacenters.

So once again, I’d like to welcome Nicolai and hopefully we will be seeing more blog post on this site in the future.

Study material for the VCDX Design Exam

I decided to start collecting a list of study materials for the VCDX Design Exam.

Remember that VMware will release a separate training course specific to this exam.

The Design Exam Blueprint is available here: http://mylearn.vmware.com/lcms/mL_faq/2256/DesignExamBlueprint.pdf

The following links to documents could be useful in the study for the VCDX Design Exam. It’s only suggestions and not a complete list of study material.

ESX Server 3 Configuration Guide
http://www.vmware.com/pdf/vi3_35/esx_3/r35u2/vi3_35_25_u2_3_server_config.pdf

Virtual Machine Backup Guide
http://www.vmware.com/pdf/vi3_35/esx_3/r35u2/vi3_35_25_u2_vm_backup.pdf

VMbook - Business Continuity and Disaster Recovery
http://www.vmware.com/files/pdf/practical_guide_bcdr_vmb.pdf

Setup for Microsoft Cluster Service
http://www.vmware.com/pdf/vi3_35/esx_3/r35u2/vi3_35_25_u2_mscs.pdf

VMware HA: Concepts and Best Practices
http://www.vmware.com/files/pdf/VMwareHA_twp.pdf

SAN System Design and Deployment Guide
http://www.vmware.com/pdf/vi3_san_design_deploy.pdf

Good article on SAN based replication:
http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m0BRZ/is_6_24/ai_n6145654/pg_1?tag=artBody;col1

Disaster Recovery Solutions from VMware
http://www.vmware.com/files/pdf/07Q2_dr_solution.pdf

Making Your Business Disaster Readywith Virtual Infrastructure
http://www.vmware.com/pdf/disaster_recovery.pdf

Using VMware® ESX Server System and VMware Virtual Infrastructure for Backup, Restoration, and Disaster Recovery
http://www.vmware.com/pdf/esx_backup_wp.pdf

If you have access to VAC Partner guides on Partnercentral, the following guides would be useful to read:

VMware Business Continuity Jumpstart
VMware Plan and Design
VMware Virtualization Assessment
VMware Operational Readiness Accelerator Kit

Some ITIL experience or studying would probably be helpful as well

Books:

VMware Infrastructure 3 - Advanced Tactical Design Guide and Advanced Operations Guide, by Ron Oglesby, Scott Herold and Mike Laverick 

http://www.amazon.com/VMware-Infrastructure-Advanced-Technical-Operations/dp/0971151083?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1213399444&sr=8-1

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Update 06/03-2009:

VI3.Blueprint Directory: http://viops.vmware.com/home/docs/DOC-1382 

VI3.Blueprint Requirements Specification: http://viops.vmware.com/home/docs/DOC-1384

VIOPS: VI3 Business Continuity and Disaster Recovery Workshop: http://viops.vmware.com/home/message/1989;jsessionid=D7584DF18C1AD92A7416FD814CAF0FE6#1989

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If you have any good links to material for the VCDX Design Exam please feel free to email me and I will update the list.

Hypervisor Competitive Differences – VMware in the lead

One of the sessions at VMworld that I missed was Chris Wolf’s: DC15 - Hypervisor Competitive Differences: Beyond the Data Sheet, looking back this really was one of the sessions that I really would have loved watching.

Chris Wolf is an analyst from Burton Group which together with a couple other analysts has spent 3 month in developing the Industry’s First Hypervisor Evaluation Criteria and Vendor Scorecards.

The Burton Group announcement can be read here.

They break up the evaluation criteria’s in three categories, which is:

• Required
• Preferred
• Optional

A short 15 minutes overview of which required features that Burton Group think should be available within the hypervisor product or ecosystem is available here

You have to register to watch it, and I would recommend doing so.

During VMworld a couple of other articles got posted with some comments of Chris’ VMworld presentation, about the results of the evaluation criteria’s and scorecard. These can be found here:

VMware outshines Hyper-V, et al. in hypervisor comparison
Hypervisors Compared: VMware Stands Alone

Now, Chris Wolf has responded to the two articles with a new blog post explaining some of the comments posted and the feedbacks that he got.
Hypervisor Competitive Differences - The Aftermath

I can’t wait to read the full report coming first week in April about the complete evaluation criteria’s and the justification for each. Burton Group will follow this report up by releasing product profiles on Citrix XenServer, Microsoft Windows Server 2008 Hyper-V, Virtual Iron, and VMware vSphere 4.0

I just want to thank Chris and Burton Group for this work. It will be really nice to have a full objective comparison that is vendor neutral. Of course in each virtualization case you will have to go over the requirements that is needed for the each case.

Video: Brian Madden breakout session on VDI vs TS

I had the pleasure of joining this session with Brian Madden. I have read a whole lot of Brian Madden blog posts, articles etc and it was finally nice to meet him live.

I used the Flip, that I got from VMware, and filmed the whole session. I had to split it up in multiple sessions because of the 10GB limit of youtube.. But the whole session is there.

Also I presession video with Brian Madden “chitchatting” on different topics. Fun to watch out.

Up front I’m going to warn you. This is amateur video and my arms was pretty tired after this hour of filming

Here they goes:

Brian Madden - Unplugged (Presession)

Brian Madden - VDI vs TS - 1:

Brian Madden - VDI vs TS - 2:

Brian Madden - VDI vs TS - 3:

Brian Madden - VDI vs TS - 4:

Brian Madden - VDI vs TS - 5:

Brian Madden - VDI vs TS - 6:

Brian Madded - VDI vs TS - 7:

Keynotes available from VMworld Europe 2009 conference

The keynotes from VMworld Europe 2009 conference is available at VMworld.com

Keynote day 1
Paul Maritz, President and CEO of VMware
Dr. Wolfgang Krips, Sr. VP, SAP Managed Services
http://www.vmworld.com/community/conferences/europe2009/agenda/keynotes/1

Keynote day 2
Dr. Stephen Herrod, CTO and Sr. VP of R&D of VMware
“The Future of Virtualization — From the Desktop to the Datacenter”
http://www.vmworld.com/community/conferences/europe2009/agenda/keynotes/2