VMworld 2010 San Francisco is just a few weeks away now.  For those still looking for a way to get there, Head on over to Gestalt IT’s Get Away to VMworld Contest.

Zetta, Veeam, Xsigo, and Symantec have contributed resources to the contest allowing two lucky winners to attend the planet’s largest virtualization showcase.  Winners will be awarded Friday August 13th.

I hope to see you there!

Are you stuck trying to figure out how to convince management into sending you to VMworld?  A justification template has been made available on the VMworld website.  Download.  Fill in the blanks.  Submit to management.

Direct link to the letter (MS Word format)

This morning, I sat the VMware VCAP-DCA BETA exam at a VUE testing facility in Eau Claire, WI – a 110 mile drive from my normal area.  Today was the last day to take the exam and the Wisconsin location was the only available facility as of last week when I scheduled the exam.  This is the first time I had traveled extensively to take an exam.  Although it was not my first preference, I did so for the following reasons:

1. The exam price was discounted $300 off since it was beta.  For this price it was worth a shot to pass.
2. Declining the location would have meant declining the exam since today was the deadline; hence I’d have to wait a few months when the exam went live.
3. I wanted to get the exam out of the way (hopefully) and help others prep once I had the experience.
4. I’d never written a beta exam before.
5. This was my 1st beta invitation from VMware.  I probably wouldn’t receive a 2nd if I had refused the 1st.  <– Godfather reference

I used the exam blueprint as a guide for what to study.  I was a bothered by a few of the technologies on the exam blueprint which I didn’t have much experience with:  vShield Zones, Orchestrator, and vCenter Heartbeat.  Might as well add PVLANs to the list too.  I was also a bit bothered by lack of study time.  VMware had just scheduled this exam for me late last week.  Thursday or Friday.

The VCAP is an Advanced Professional certification.  As such, I came into the exam expecting it to be similar to the VI3 Enterprise Administration exam and tougher than the VCP exam.  From a challenge aspect, the VCAP-DCA exam did not disappoint.  It covered several features which were new to vSphere leaving little room for overlap from previous exams.  Obviously, I cannot go into details on specific questions due to the standard NDA policy around certification exams.  Suffice to say, the exam blueprint mentioned earlier is a good resource.  The blueprint covers broad objectives.  Expect to dig deeper for each objective listed.  Those who complain about the VCP exam being “too easy” should enjoy the VCAP series of exams if the beta exam is a relevant indicator.

Like the Enterprise Administration exam, the VCAP-DCA exam has a live lab environment which is used to accumulate points for questions asked.  Unlike the EA exam which had 11 lab questions and the remainder written/multiple choice, the DCA exam is 100% lab and no multiple choice.  The exam tests working knowledge of the products and not as much memorization.  The beta exam was 41 questions in length with an alotted time of 4 1/2 hours.  I liked the EA exam from the perspective that the lab questions quickly made sense to me and I think I scored a lot of points in the lab.  For this reason, I felt the DCA exam would be right up my alley, being 100% lab.  I was half right.  The DCA exam is very challenging.  If there is something in the lab you don’t understand or did not study for, there’s no multiple choice correct answer staring you in the face so you at least have a statistical chance of getting the answer correct.  To use a made up example, you either know how to enable root SSH access on a Service Console, or you don’t.  If you had to guess, you’d never get it right, thus you lose points on the question.  Working in the lab was a fun approach, but the flip side is not knowing enough of the content will kill you for lack of multiple choice guess.  Some of the community laughed at the VCP exam.  VMware has answered with the VCAP.

Now for the bad news.  The lab testing environment, in my experience, was riddled with issues.  Most notably, “glyphs” painted randomly about the screen due to screen refresh/repaint issues.  They are an incredible distraction and in many cases, they covered up buttons and hyperlinks in the vSphere client such that if you didn’t know the buttons were supposed to be there, you’d never find them to complete your task.  Since I know the vSphere Client fairly well, I knew where to blindly click in an area to force a repaint of the screen.  I had other issues as well which prohibited me from answering questions.  I notified the proctor who called support while I continued with the exam.  About 30 minutes later, someone rudely took remote control over my screen and logged me out while I was in the middle of a lab.  I was then logged back in and told to continue, problem solved.  Problem was not solved as it had nothing to do with the VUE equipment, rather it was internal to the remote lab.  I had the proctors open an incident case with VMware.  At one point later I was pulled out of the testing room and put on the phone with VMware support.  Suffice to say, the problem didn’t get resolved and several questions will have been impacted.  In addition, for the time spent troubleshooting the lab, the clock was ticking.  I’m not sure if I was losing time while on the phone with VMware.

The combination of struggling with the previously mentioned issues, coupled with poor time management on some other questions, resulted in me running out of exam time before completing the last question. I wasn’t even close to finishing.  I needed about another hour.  Part of the key to this exam, other than obviously knowing the content, is to be able to digest the information in the questions quickly and accurately.  This is good because it’s a fundamental core competency in the VCDX process as well as in the life of an Architect.  The anal person that I am, I found myself going back and forth between test question and lab to be sure I was doing everything PERFECTLY.  In the long run, I think it cost me.  I noted in a few of my previous exam blog posts that I found myself struggling with time issues on certification exams lately.  This was no exception.  I need to move faster, but not at the expense of accuracy.

I left the exam facility in a stunned zombie state.  I wasn’t pissed.  I was disappointed in my own self on several questions – like any exam, it revealed my weaknesses.  The exam was a lot more challenging than I expected.  Lab issues aside, I think VMware did a good job with the difficulty of the questions.  Now I just need to wait a few weeks for the results.  Nothing I’ve experienced compares to the drama and anxiety created by the VCDX defense process and grading period.  If by chance I do not pass the DCA exam, it will be an ego crush but I will survive, retake, and the result will be a sharper skillset – which is my primary reason for certification in the first place.  Retaking an electronic exam after a 10 day wait is not a big deal compared to the consequence, wait, and expense of not passing the VCDX defense process.  Knowing this consoles me.  Now that the beta period is over for the DCA exam, others will get their chance at this exam hopefully in a month or two, and perhaps I will  again as well.  I haven’t felt positive about my last few exams and I passed.  We’ll see about this one.

Update 6/22/10:  I failed to mention William Lam and Chris Dearden also have great summaries of their VCAP-DCA BETA exam experiences.  Be sure to check them out.

The VMware SRM team is conducting a formal survey on the SRM product and they’d like to hear your feedback.  VMware values your time and suggestions - in return for completing the survey, VMware will donate $10 to UNICEF (for the first 1,000 respondants) and you’ll be eligible to download an electronic copy of Mike Laverick’s Administring VMware Site Recoveyr Manager 4.0 book.

You can read more about this event here.

Complete the survey here.

VMware has announced the details of their new VMware Certified Advanced Professional (VCAP)certification.  I scribbled some notes from this morning’s VCAP conference call but after visiting VMware’s official announcement page, I see they have detailed out the certification path details nicely in the exhibit I’ve borrowed and posted below:

The VCAP in and of itself is a level of certification that fits technically between the VCP and VCDX levels of certification.  Somewhat similar to the MCSE where an individual can bolt on a specialized designation to their letters, the VCAP was launched with two designations (one or the other is required to earn the base VCAP level of certification):

• Datacenter Administrator
• Datacenter Design

The VCAP is directly related to VCDX4 certification in that both exams are required for candidates which are not already VCDX3 certified (also note that VCP4 is required to sit either of the two new VCAP exams).  In other words, the DCA and DCD exams are the VCDX4 version of written exams which map respectively to the Enterprise Administration and the Design exam which VCDX3 candidates would have sat.

The 41 individuals who are already VCDX3 certified must only sit the DCD exam to both upgrade to VCDX4 as well as achieve VCAP-DCD certification.  If this same person would also like the VCAP-DCA designation, he (so far the current VCDX3 pool is all fellas) must pass the DCA exam.  As a VCDX3 myself, I understand and appreciate the requirement to sit the new Design exam to upgrade to VCDX4, but I feel the additional exam requirement for a VCDX3 or VCDX4 to achieve DCA doesn’t make sense.  I see it as additional exam revenue for VMware.  Yes, technically I don’t need to become a VCAP-DCA but if that is something I’d like to add to my resume, the exam and the payment is required.  I guess I was banking too much on the rumors that individuals who already passed the Enterprise Admin exam for VCDX3 would have been grandfathered in to the new certification.  I’d write more but I need to board a plane.  Comments welcome of course.

Update 5/26/10:  According to the VMTN Roundtable podcast today, the VCAP-DCA exam will be available in July and the VCAP-DCD exam will be available in August.

VCAP Benefits:

• Industry/Peer recognition
• New certification logos
• VMworld discounts
• Allowed entry in VCAP community site (sounds like nothing more than a VMTN forum)
• Value-add live lab content which cannot be compromised by brain dump sites

VMware Education Services has unveiled a new site called Meet the VMware Certified Design Experts.  The site serves as a directory of individuals who have achieved VMware VCDX certification, currently VMware’s premier level achievement.  Here you’ll find a short profile and a photo of each of the 39 existing VMware Certified Design Experts around the world.

VMware Education describes the site as follows: 

VMware Certified Design Experts have achieved the VMware Certified Design Expert (VCDX) certification by building on their VMware Certified Professional (VCP) certification. Each expert has taken the extra steps of passing both the Enterprise Administration Exam and the Design Exam, as well as successfully defending a VMware infrastructure design and implementation plan.

VMware Certified Design Experts are part of an elite group of architects leading virtualization implementations around the world. Join this community of experts by earning your VCDX certification.

VCDX’s can use the site to meet others around the world who have been through the process.  Pursuant to VCDX Tip #38, customers, employers, or recruiters can use the site to validate a candidate’s credentials for a project or employment.  For verification purposes, keep in mind that the site is not automated or updated the moment a candidate is minted.  There could be a delay of a few weeks before a certified individual appears on the site.

VMware is working hard to expand the pool of VCDX certified Architects and Engineers.  Many candidates have already satisfied the three written exam requirements and are waiting for their shot at a design submission and defense panel.  VMware typically holds defense panels at major VMware events in the US and Europe.  Just last week, VMware held VCDX defense panels in Munich, Germany, breaking the mold of holding the panels around major VMware events.  Design submissions and defense panels are proctored by existing VCDX’s in the pool.  As the pool grows, VMware should be able to handle larger volumes of candidates.  At that point the system will be pretty well primed and hopefully efficient from a candidate’s perspective.

The VMware Certified Professional Program is designed for individuals who want to demonstrate their expertise in virtual infrastructure and increase the potential for career advancement.  For additional information, you can learn more about the process here.

Last Sunday I wrote about my VCDX Defense experience. This evening I am fortunate enough to share the news that I have passed the final board review and have achieved VCDX certification. I was awarded VCDX #34.  For the others who defended last week in Las Vegas, I offer my congratulations to you all on a job which I’m sure was well done.  Without a doubt, it was a journey which I’m sure will benefit me for many years to come.  I’m proud to have walked down a path paved by so much collective brilliance before me. I am inspired and driven by the knowledge shared in the virtualization community. I hope that I can continue provide the best I have to offer in return.

It is not my intent to turn this into the Acadamy Awards, but I would be extremely negligent if I didn’t thank key people who devoted their time to ensure my success by reviewing my design, challenging me with questions, as well as those who provided tips and encouragement for the defense.  I had several weaknesses exposed and with your help I was able to strengthen in those areas prior to my defense.

Amy (I didn’t receive your note until after the defense, but I was really touched. Your support, patience, and understanding is nothing short of amazing)
Gary Bowman (old guy… mock defense was very helpful!)
Gabrie Van Zanten (seriously, with the questions, you had too much fun…)
Roger Lund (great questions from you, thank you for taking the time)
David Davis (tremendous help from a CCIE… I’m not even worthy)
Scott Lowe (thank you for the offer and last minute design tips)
Michael Cardinal (Wednesday morning shot of confidence at Starbucks)
Rick Scherer (tips on calming nerves were great – I followed to a T)
John Arrasjid (so many great VCDX tips, invaluable!)
Duncan Epping (I got a lot more than breakfast out of you Tuesday morning, you don’t even know)
Frank Denneman (thank you for the help, confidence, & for not making faces at me)
Rich Brambley (UGG who told me Tuesday evening I can do this)
Andrew Hald (Tuesday dinner.. thank you for letting me join you)
Spencer Critchlow (your tips were invaluable!)
Doug Hazelman (Veeam played a helpful role in my design)
Dawn Theirl (thank you for the encouragement)

Tips for the Defense:
1) Know your design, I mean really know it.
2) Refer to tip #1

Good luck.

Last Wednesday morning in Las Vegas, I participated in my VMware Certified Design Expert (VCDX) Defense.  A successful Defense is the last in a series of required steps to obtain VCDX certification.  Defense experiences have been shared by others such as Rick Scherer, Dave Convery, and Duncan Epping.  I found my own Defense experience to be similar to theirs.

Prior to the Defense, I submitted an application and a design for the panelists to review.  As Dave Convery pointed out, this may be the hardest part of the entire process as far as the volume of work goes.  The design is a complete set of documentation that must meet key requirements outlined in the application.  There is not a lot of time to complete the application and design once you are invited for that step.  My best advice would be to clear your schedule as much as possible to crank out quality documentation.  Also, be sure the application is filled out completely and the design covers all requirements.  Missing information risks outright rejection and you’ll likely miss the opportunity for the upcoming defense.  It is absolutely critical that all fields in the application are completed.  This cannot be stressed enough. The panelists will spend up to 8 hours reviewing the design.  The submitted documentation is more about quality than quantity. Be sure the documentation submitted is relavant to the design.  Any information the panelists cannot pull from the submitted design will need to be clarified during the defense which is then a pressure situation for the candidate.

Once the application and design is accepted, the defense date is scheduled around a major VMware event.  Typically VMworld or Partner Exchange (PEX).  My defense was scheduled at PEX in Las Vegas.  As I am not a partner nor do I work for a partner, I did not attend PEX or any of its sessions.  I flew in on a Tuesday morning and left a day later, merely for the defense. This strategy is fine with me as I would rather stay focused on the defense and my design, and not face daily distractions and new information released at a conference.

During the days leading up to my defense, I felt very confident.  I had been studying my design and going over all the Enterprise Admin and Design exam study material on a daily basis.  I had been brushing up on white papers and blog articles for areas which I felt I was weak on or had forgotten details of.  I brought a 3 ring binder filled with about 400 pages of documentation as well as every VI3 published .pdf known to mankind on my thumb drive.  While I didn’t read all the .pdf files, they were with me if I needed them for reference.  As it turned out, a few of the documents I crammed on the night before my panel would play a nice role during part of my defense.

After arriving in Las Vegas Tuesday morning, my confidence level remained as high as ever.  I had spent the entire 3 hours on the plane reading out of my 3 ring binder.  Outside of having breakfast with a friend, I spent a good portion of Tuesday studying which was my intent in booking a Tuesday morning arrival.  Early Tuesday afternoon, exhaustion hit me like a ton of bricks. I decided to try to take a nap. I laid in bed for close to an hour and couldn’t fall asleep. I decided to try a long bath in my swanky bathroom with a TV in it (my favorite part of the trip I think). I got my second wind and attended a meeting Tuesday evening for about an hour where I met up with fellow vExperts.  Asked how I felt about the following morning’s defense, again my answer was mostly confident, cool, and collected.  I just wanted to get it over with.  The anxiety of the approaching defense date was starting to mount.  I found myself calculating the hours remaining in my head. “In 15 hours I will have started my defense.  In 17 hours I will have finished the first defense section.  In 18 hours it will all be over with.”  After the meeting, some of the guys were going out on the strip for a nice dinner.  I really wanted to go but knew had no time for this social event.  I hung back and had a quick buffet dinner with a guy who I would find out was a VCDX himself and a panelist from VMware.  I was back to my room by 8:30pm and studied until about 10:15pm.  At that point, I was getting tired and decided to take the wise advice of Rick Scherer and John Arrisjid by getting a good night’s sleep.

I was getting good sleep until… I woke up at 3:30am and couldn’t fall back asleep.  I laid in bed for a full 2.5 hours thinking about my upcoming defense, points I wanted to make, design choices, etc. It’s a long time to dwell on these items but it was quiet and peaceful and I was well rested. I shot out of bed at my 6am wake up call, got ready, packed, and headed out.  I stopped by the hotel business center to print 4 copies of a presentation slide update I had made the night before. I forgot to print current slide only and instead printed 4 copies of the entire deck. Expensive lesson printing 60 pages which couldn’t be cancelled (how convenient for the hotel). At least they were in B&W and not color. The plan was to get a good breakfast to calm any nerves that may develop (advice from Rick Scherer).  Unfortunately, there was no breakfast open at 6:30am. The restaurants didn’t open until 7am.  I headed to Starbucks to start getting caffienated. While having coffee and going through my slides, I decided to create 3 new slides right then and there.  I felt they would be beneficial for the executive presentation but a small part of me challenged “is this really wise throwing these in at the last second?”  Why not.  SEs do it all the time prior to arriving at customer sites.  At this point I still felt pretty confident and didn’t really have any nerves.

At 7:30 I finished my coffee and headed to breakfast. Last minute cramming at the breakfast buffet table downing coffee and some food. As the clock passed 8am, I had less than an hour left to head upstairs for my defense panel.  I could start to feel the nervousness set in. I continued to study until I realized it was 8:50am and I had less than 10 minutes to get through the casino over to 2nd level of the convention center. Whoops.  I arrived at Breakers L with maybe 2 minutes to spare and Melissa greeted me.  The panelists were waiting inside and not quite ready for me yet. In the mean time, I walked across the hall and poked my head in a large auditorium to see who was speaking. It was Steve Herrod talking about a technology which I cannot repeat at this point in time. I told myself repeatedly that I am not nervous but I was only lying to myself. It’s inevitible. When the exam room doors open and you see the panel of experts in there, you feel it. I surmise it may be a bit like meeting the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost for the first time. People who spend a lot of time in front of customers are still nervous for these defense panels. It’s unavoidable. One candidate who finished his defense Tuesday evening likened the experience to having “a proctology exam”.

The first 75 minutes is spent “defending” my design.  I’ve got about a 15 slide deck to get through and to use as reference throughout the design defense.  I recommend putting as much reference as you can in the slide deck which you can yourself refer to during the defense.  It will help illustrate design choices and jog your memory for design elements which you’ve forgotten due to nervousness. The first 5-10 minutes I was pretty nervous and stuttered once or twice during my presentation. After that, I warmed up and it felt more like a good technical discussion with co-workers which I enjoyed. As the questions started coming in, I made good use of some of the slides to help explain decisions.  Good slides to have here are architecture diagrams, network, storage, etc.  I felt my performance during this section of the defense was passable based on the questioning I received, but the honest truth is it’s too hard to tell with the scoring method that is used.  It’s about accumulating points.  What’s unknown is how many points were left to accumulate and areas to talk about which we did not get to due to the 75 minutes of time expiring? Afterwards, I can’t help but think about 1 technical question I knew I jumped the gun on and answered incorrectly, failing to correct myself. I’m told by a current VCDX to not worry about it, nobody is perfect in the defense – that is to say, the scoring of the defense will allow for X number of mistakes. I’ve also spent time playing back other areas of the defense, wondering if I clarified my points clear enough? Trying to remember if the panelists understood that one of the points I was making was in the context of a specific circumstance and it would be important that they would understand that for it to be technically correct.  Did they understand the physical network topology well enough between sites or draw a harmful conclusion that I was contradicting myself during explanation?  I can’t stress enough how fast the time elapses in front of the panel.  At least it did for me.

After the 75 minute defense, we took a short break and proceeded with the 30 minute mock design.  In retrospect, the scenario which was thrown at me wasn’t too bad.  Unfortunately I didn’t get through nearly as much of it as I wanted to.  I spent a lot of time digging in areas where there were probably no more points to be had I should have just moved on.  I wish I had another shot at it and I would have moved faster.  The idea in this section is to ask a lot of intelligent questions to frame out a design in 30 minutes.  But don’t spend too much time in one area.  This section is more about “the journey” than the final design.  Questions need to be asked of the “customers” during the design process so they can see how you think on your feet.  They may also not provide all of the needed information for the design which is, again, where asking questions comes in.  Once again, time flies.  Be quick but be as thorough as possible.  Think out loud.

After completing the 30 minute mock design section, we moved right into the last section which is a 15 minute troubleshooting scenario.  The three panelists are once again the customers in this scenario and they came to me with a VMware Infrastructure 3 problem they are experiencing.  Once again, this process is more about “the journey” than the final result.  It’s about thinking out loud, asking questions of the customer, and showing them the throught process to isolate root cause of a problem. I feel I did well in this section and will go so far as to say that I found the root cause. Before I could get acknowledgement, however, the 15 minute timer expired.  I do not know how each section is weighted, if it is, but hopefully I did do well enough on the last section to help carry me through the two previous sections.  A common occurrance through the Enterprise Admin and Design written exams was that I felt I did poorly in one section, but stellar in another, which carried me through to a passing score on each written exam.

The panelists and observers were a good group of people and I can honestly say that once I got beyond that first 5-10 minutes of nerves, the pressure wasn’t nearly as bad as I thought it would be.  I think it all depends on how prepared one is for the experience.  You may have heard other people say “Know your design inside and out”. This could not be closer to the truth. Know it up, down, sideways, back, and front. Be prepared for any question relating to your design, including upstream and downstream impacts. Know the infrastructure components well such as storage and hardware platforms. Anything you list in your design you need to be able to speak to. If you cannot speak to everything in your design, then how do you know it is appropriate for your design? “Because”, and “Best Practice” are not complete answers.  I’ve collected a ton of tips along the way (like these) and each of them contributed to getting me as far as I’ve gotten at this point.  Social networking tools have helped immensely.  I can’t imagine going this alone in a vacuum.  I would have been totally unprepared for the design defense, if I even made it that far.

So after my defense, I was told “7 days” in regard to getting my results. I was hoping to be pleasantly surprised with results late Friday after the defenses at Mandalay Bay wrapped up.  However, having not received them yet and tomorrow is a holiday, it looks like it will take the full week (and hopefully not longer) to get the results.  It has been difficult waiting this long.  Anxiety is building and I’ve been watching email like a man possessed.  I’ve been replaying the scenarios in my head, both good and bad.  It’s unhealthy for sure. Although no formal statistics have been released by VMware, I gather through word of mouth that about 50% of the candidates pass their defense attempt, while the other 50% do not.  With two individuals from this past week already pronounced as having passed and becoming VCDX certified, the odds are starting to stack up against those like me who still wait for their results.  I’m trying to keep my mind occupied on other things but it is difficult.  I periodically take comfort in thinking about things far more important, like smiles on my childrens’ faces. For those that pass, I’m sure they look back upon the efforts as well spent and the reward of passing as well deserved.  I know that I have already benefited from what I have learned through the process. It has taught me to be more of a thinker which maps directly to my Design and Engineering role at work. I would love nothing more at this point than to have the VCDX certificate to go along with it.  I look at the VCDX as a highly coveted certification with a lot of integrity built into the program and process which is sure to last a long time. There is no possibility of a “paper VCDX” as far as I’m concerned. That means value for cert holders and businesses for many years to come.

Oh I almost forgot, I brought my own whiteboard dry erase marker on the trip and used it during my defense. I had been using it for practice on my whiteboard at home and thought it may bring me good luck in the defense. Shabby dry erase markers can be a distraction.  In addition, it has a fine eraser on the opposite end which comes in handy and can save time wiping away small details instead of using the huge brick eraser.  The panel didn’t seem to have any reservations with me using it.  Click the image to view a larger version.