As a VMware Certified Instructor, I am often asked by students for advice for preparing to take and pass the VMware Certified Advanced Professional – Datacenter Administration Exam on vSphere 5. One of my main objectives for maintaining this blog site (vloreblog) is to provide a great resource for preparing for all VMware Certified Professional exams, including the exams on vCloud and View.
Today, I have created a VCAP5-DCA Exam Preparation web page with specific advice for preparing for the VCAP5-DCA exam.
I hope you find it useful. I am interested in your feedback. Please feel free to provide comments via this blog or to tweet me @johnnyadavis.
I realize that a lot of great information has already been posted throughout the VMware community relating to upgrading to vSphere 5.1, but I expect that my students, customers, and colleagues may appreciate my advice on getting started. Here are some of the most important related items.
- What’s New: First get familiar with new features by examining the What’s New in ver 5.1 document. For vSphere 4.x users, here is the What’s New in ver 5.0 document.
- vCenter 5.1.0a: VMware already fixed some reported issues concerning vCenter 5.1 and has released vCenter 5.1.0a. So, when upgrading to vSphere 5.1, be sure to skip vCenter 5.1 and upgrade directly to vCenter 5.1.0a. Here is a list of Resolved Issues in vCenter 5.1.0a.
- Windows-based vCenter Upgrade: The Windows version of vCenter requires a 64 bit version of Windows. So, customers using vCenter 4.0 on a 32 bit Windows version should plan to use the Data Migration Tool to migrate vCenter to a 64 bit Windows server for upgrade.
- vSphere Web Client: VMware is motivating its customers to use the vSphere Web Client instead of the vSphere Client. Many new features in 5.1 require the Web Client. VMware announced that future releases will not include the vSphere Client. I recommend we begin to utilize the vSphere Web Client now, at least in some capacity, to be well prepared. Here is a link to begin learning about the vSphere Web Client, including an overview, architecture, and installation.
- Upgrade Process: Read the vSphere 5.1 Upgrade Guide closely, plan accordingly, and follow its steps. Like many technical people, it is against my nature to closely read and follow instructions, but I have great success in utilizing this Upgrade Guide to save me time and embarrassment. Of course, another great approach is to engage an expert, with a lot of vSphere upgrading experience.
- Gotchas: nothing is perfect, including vSphere 5.1. Be sure to review the list of known issues.
- Best Practices for Performance: To increase your chances of success, focus on ensuring that your virtual machines will run as well or better after the upgrade. To do so, review the Performance Best Practices for vSphere 5.1 Guide. If you have read the similar document for ver 5.0, then just focus on the areas that provides explanations and advice on new features, such as Single Root I/O Virtualization (SR-IOV) and SplitRX Mode. Otherwise, take time to read this entire document and use it as a tool to ensure that your vSphere environment is optimized. It covers hosts, network, storage, vMotion, DRS, etc. A lot of items in this document are covered in-depth in the vSphere 5: Optimize and Scale class.
I hope you find this useful. Please feel free to provide comments.
As a VMware Certified Instructor, I am often asked by students for advice for preparing to take and pass the VMware Certified Professional Exam on vSphere 5. One of my main objectives for maintaining this blog site (vloreblog) is to provide a great resource for preparing for all VMware Certified Professional exams, including the exams on vCloud and View.
Today, I have created a VCP510 Exam Recommendations web page with specific advice for preparing for the VCP510 exam.
I hope you find it useful. I am interested in your feedback. Feel free to tweet me: @johnnyadavis
If these recommendations are well received by the community, then I will go forward with my plan to eventually post recommendations for other VMware Certification Exams.
For several years, I have provided extra data to students, who attend the VMware vSphere Install Configure Manage classes that I teach. I used to provide the data via an e-mail to the students at the end of the class or as a web page on another blog site (virtualizationinformation.com). Now, it makes sense to publish the Supplemental Data page on vloreblog.com. The following URL takes the reader to the Supplemental Data page. Feel free to bookmark this link, if you find it useful. Going forward, as I update content on the Supplemental Data page, I plan to post a corresponding short statement summarizing the update and providing a link to the page.
Within a day or so, I plan to add a separate page to provide specific information for preparing the VCP-510 exam.
VMware has changed their Authorized Training program, so that it now offers four Solution Tracks: Datacenter Virtualization (vSphere), Cloud (vCloud Suite), End User Computing (View and Thinapp), and Cloud Application Platform (Spring, vFabric). Each track may offer four standard levels of Courses and Certifications, including Fundamentals, Professional, Advanced, and Expert. VMware has developed Learning Paths aimed at the roles performed by members of the VMware community, including Architect, Engineer, and Administrator.
VMware does not yet provide courses and certifications for all levels for all solution tracks, but it has defined the framework to do so in the future.
Eventually, the Cloud Solution Track may merge with the Datacenter Virtualization Track, but today, VMware provides certifications for both tracks. VMware has recently released two certifications in the Cloud Track, VCP-Cloud and VCAP-Cloud Infrastructure Design. VMware has announced more certifications for the Cloud Track to be released in the near future, including VCAP – Cloud Infrastructure Administration, VCAP – Cloud Governance, and VCDX Cloud.
I certainly recommend that IT professionals, who provide services focused on virtualization, should look closely at the VMware Certification Roadmap. We have the opportunity to become leaders and experts in emerging, popular technologies that I expect to be in high demand.
One of my objectives for the next six months is to engage with VMware Partners, VMUG members, and former students to identify their VMware Certification goals and to work with them to enable them to be the first to earn those certifications. I can align them with cost-effective VMware Authorized Training, including open-enrollment, privately run, and on-line classes. I plan to utilize this vLore Blog site to become a solid resource for preparing for Certification Exams.
I will be asking for input from the community on advice on how I can best help them achieve their Certification goals. Such advice may include:
- which courses and certifications have the most interest,
- whether providing workshops and labs would be useful tools,
- and what interest exists for Early Access courses. (VMware plans to begin offering Early Access to some new classes, giving VMware Partners the opportunity to attend classes on new product versions prior to software release, even if the course material has not completed the final Technical Review.)
I look forward to working with you and will begin formally asking for input soon.
After eight years of providing VMware Authorized Consulting services and delivering VMware Authorized Training, I determined today was the day to create my own blog site aimed at achieving the following goals:
- Provide information to my students to supplement the material we cover in class.
- Provide a forum, where my students and customers could share their experiences and advice.
- Share information with the virtualization community that is fresh and unique.
Over the next several days, I plan to add initial content to this website such as:
- Details on the recently announced VMware Certification Roadmap, including its tracks, levels, and courses.
- My perspective on some of the recently announced VMware products, such as vCloud Suite, VMware Horizon Suite, and VMware Data Protection.
- Recommendations for preparing for VCP Exam.
- Other items I learned at VMworld 2012.
I hope you find this blog useful and I look forward to your feedback.
– John A. Davis
VCP/ VCAP-DCA/ VCAP-DCD/ VCI
vLore Blog 