Passed the VCDX Design Exam!

It has been a while since I last posted on my blog and I hope that I will get some time to do some more blogging in the future… Just now I had a great news, that I wanted to share with you all

On 4th of April, I headed to London to participate in the VCDX Beta Design Exam and a couple of hours ago I received the results. I passed the exam!

Congratulations. You have successfully passed the VMware Design 3 beta exam. A formal score report will be sent to you via Pearson VUE in August. This was the third of five components that you will need to complete in order to achieve the VMware Certified Design Expert (VCDX3) Certification. Your participation in the beta exam and continued patience has been greatly appreciated

Next step is now to work on a design application that has to be sent to VMware. If the application get accepted, then I have to defend the design for a board of 2-3 other VMware Certified Design Experts.

For Europe there will be design defenses held in september and I hope that it will not fall in the week of my vacation.

Happy summer holiday!

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

Video from the VMworld Europe 2009 - Party

I participated in the VMworld party in Cannes last night. After a slow start the attendees got pretty enthusiastic when the band entertained at the stage. I didn’t caught the name of the band but they were doing a great job getting people in party mode.

Here’s a little short video from the VMworld Party:

A short chat with Paul Maritz

I got a hold of VMware CEO Paul Maritz on his way out from the VMware Unplugged session today. We had a good talk on Quality Assurance and how much focus VMware puts into this. Is it extremely important for a company as VMware, that positions itself as “the” DataCenter OS on the marked, to have a reputation as extremely stable. Paul Maritz told us that it is an extreme focus point for VMware NOT to repeat things like the August 12 time bomb and there has been laid out strict QA procedures within the R&D departments, but a culture change like that is not done over night.

I think it is an extremely cool thing that the CEO of such a large company actually takes the time to hear “the common man” out, with such an interest as he showed us today. It gives an impression of a man that is very dedicated to the success and reputation of his company. And him actually being a very nice guy also helps tremendously.

Now to catch some zzzzz before the big VMware Party tonight!

Demo of PC over IP with VMware View.

This is pretty awesome. During the key note on stage, VMware demoed which initiatives they are working on in the roadmap on VMware View which is set to go live in 2009.

The setup was a thin client running a Virtual Desktop on the VMware View broker on the PC over IP protocol from Teradici. The demo was showing Google map scrolling, zooming in an out without any glitching. It ran completely smoothly, Next he demoed a 3D rendering application, zooming in and out on the Eiffel Tower schematics.

VMworld Europe 2nd day keynote

Maurizio Carli, VMware’s Don Corleone, started out today by welcoming people back on the last day of the keynotes, then giving the word to VMware CTO Dr. Stephen Herrod.

Stephen went through some performance numbers telling the world what it already knows, VMware virtual machines rocks performance wise.

Going over some of the numbers that VMware has achieved on virtualizing Exchange and webservers, the overall message of breaking large servers down into more, but smaller, virtual machines will give you a significant better virtualization experience.

Going further on to quickly explaining the concept of vStorage and vNetwork. Opening the storage API for the vendors to be able to use stuff like the thin provisioning of the storage vendor when provisioning virtual machines, instead of the built-in VMware thin provisioning.

Of course going over the vNetwork he went….bla bla bla…Cisco Nexus v1000.

Apparently the notion of going back to a “virtual mainframe” is something that has taken hold of the VMware management. Does it make them feel young again?

Quickly touching down on the new Fault Tolerance feature, Stephen went further on to go over security with VMsafe ending with the new vShield.

VShield Zones is a firewall going in between the VM and its surroundings. You can do different zones having multiple VMs that are firewalled from other VM’s. Should be a nice thing for making DMZ…if we can get the network guys to eat it!

A quick demo of the vCenter Linked mode, showing a environment with 4 linked vCenters and the a new search function.

Going on the the next demo on host profiles, showing how easy it is to add a new host to your environment and getting it in compliance with you standard configuration. Having worked on a large installations of 60 ESXi hosts and the “wonders” that it gives, I just love this function.

Taking up where Paul Mauritz left yesterday we came to the inevitable….vCloud. Finally we got more than talk and slides about the cloud. A vCloud add-on for the vCenter client. This was really cool! The demo showed how to easily connecting to an external cloud for adding more power to your system.

More sweetness came up next when we went to the vClient initiative. We got another demo of what is coming for WAN and LAN support PcoIP using the Terradici protocol. An awsome demo using google earth fluently through VMware View, going over to a CAD like programme showing a full 3D drawing of the Eiffeltower, again fluently work experience. I guess i’ll be going to the Terradici stand having a closer look on that. This demo also gave us a new way of pronouncing the words LAAAAN and WAAAAN.

Thank to my fellow bloggers for a good laugh on that one!

Jerry Chan gave us a quick demo of the coming virtual mobile platform, installing a Windows CE and a Android virtual instance on a Nokia n800. Quite cool but can i actually make a phone call?

All in all a good, and SAP free, keynote!