VMware

Strategy Going into the VCAP6-DCV Deploy

As I prepare to take an advanced test on a version of VMware I had never touched prior to dropping my $100 I knew I needed a strategy. I searched the blueprint for what was new and hoped my notes from the DCA were enough to patch me through. Plenty of articles exist to study by. I used many of them to prepare myself. When the time comes for me to take my seat here is how I’ll prepare:

VCAP6-DCV Deploy Blueprint Changes from VCAP5-DCA

VMware recently announced a 2 week availability for the VCAP6-DCV Deploy beta. After some debate I signed up to sit the exam on June 28, 2016. They provide a beta version of the blueprint so I started there to see what had changed from my VCAP5-DCA 5.5 blueprint and notes. I made some quick notes and want to share them here. As a disclaimer my list is quick first pass.

My VCAP5-DCD Experience

On March 29th I posted about VMware’s announcement regarding the retirement of the VCAP5 exams. Passing these exams have always been a bucket list item for me. I feel that they confirm a technician’s ability to actually use and conceptualize VMware more beyond the typical multiple choice exam. The VCP has become required for many job so having the next level up should set me apart from the competition. So after my March 8th pass I started gathering material to sit the DCD.

How to Check Negotiated Speed on Fibre Channel HBAs

Fibre channel storage is great because it mostly “just works”. You provision storage, assign it to the WWPNs, rescan the adapters, and the luns are presented. There isn’t a lot of configuration in the GUI and, honestly, it can be hard to detect link speed or even if a link is up. In the Storage Adapter tab you can see if a path is down, but how do you detect the link speed?

VMware Announces VCAP5-DCA and VCAP5-DCD Exam Retirement

On March 23rd VMware officially announced the retirement of their VCAP5 Datacenter exams. Read the official information here: 4 Exam Retirements in June It’s an interesting move as the VCAP6-DCA and DCD exams aren’t even available to book right now. You can still book and sit the exam up until the expiration dates (June 4th for DCA, June 24th for the DCD). I expected this but am a little disappointed. I booked my DCD for May 27th with the backup plan of taking a second shot at VMworld should I need it.

Study Habits for Certification Success

I don’t have a degree in Information Technology or in Computer Science. I’ve occasionally entertained going back to school to formally cement my education but never taken that step. Since I don’t have that education I’ve always looked to certification as a way to “prove my worth.” Some people may argue that certifications are just paper and aren’t worth anything, however I strongly disagree. I feel having a focus and a goal to work toward sharpens my continued education.

Check and Configure Time Service Datacenter-wide

I once had an opportunity to improve and standardize ESXi host time synchronization in an environment with hundreds of hosts. There had been issues with time sync and drift that needed to be addressed. To fix this I turned to PowerCLI to do a quick and dirty dump of the configuredNTP settings on each of the hosts in the Datacenter. Get-VMHost | Get-VMHostService |Where-Object {$_.key -eq "ntpd"} This commandlet returns output which gets us part of the way to the solution, but we can refine it and make it better.

My VCAP5-DCA Experience

On March 3, 2016 I set the VCAP5-DCA exam. This was the most stressful and exciting test I had ever taken. Below are my thoughts and experiences on the exam. I originally posted them on the Techexams.net Virtualization Forum The blueprint is 100% on point for this test. Download it, download a checklist too and check off each point as you are reading and labbing them. I used the pluralsight Optimize and Scale course taught by Jason Nash, I had Staples print and bind the PDF study guide found at https://paulgrevink.

Investigating VM Configuration Changes

Tracking resource configuration is a common struggle for an enterprise level environment. Even SMBs can have trouble keeping track of how their memory is provisioned and when it changes. What’s worse, VMware’s vSphere Client doesn’t provide any insight as to what changes when someone edits the virtual machine settings. An event named"Reconfigure virtual machine" hits the task log but this isn’t a lot of information. If you open Edit Settings and click OK vCenter registers this event even if you didn’t change anything.

Detecting a Misconfigured vSwitch

Years ago I received a call for help from someone setting up a vSphere host. The install had never worked right and the clients were upset at the upgrade. It sometimes took 30 seconds to connect to a server and their SQL applications would crash daily. My intuition told me there was something strange going on with the network. It was a very basic install with one Standard vSwitch doing management and virtual machine network traffic.