vSphere Release Date

On April 21st, Paul Maritz of VMware will be officially unveiling vSphere:

http://www.vmware.com/landing_pages/nextgen.html

Finally, we'll get to find out the release date...

21st April UPDATE:
VMware's web site is full of press releases already today:
http://www.vmware.com/company/news/releases/

Pricing and packaging for vSphere has already been announced:
http://www.vmware.com/products/vsphere/buy/overview.html

And the official name is now confirmed as "VMware vSphere 4":
http://www.vmware.com/products/vsphere/

Is it worth doing the VI3 VCP when vSphere will be here soon?

Good question eh? The answer is yes, if you've either already attended a VI3 course, or will be attending a VI3 course soon.

The reason why? In my earlier post on the VCP on vSphere, I hinted that there would be a number of upgrade paths. Whilst nothing has been announced officially by VMware (yet), I can say that the path for an existing VCP on VI3 will be simpler than the path for those that have been trained on an official VI3 course but never took the VCP on VI3 exam.

Keep checking back here, or on the main Global Knowledge site, and all will be revealed as soon as we're allowed to say....

Scott.

VCP on VI3

Something that comes up in conversation an awful lot is the current VCP exam, so here's a list of some important points about the exam that may help any potential takers:

• You get asked 75 questions
• You have 90 minutes to answer the questions
• You have to get a score of 70 or better to pass
• The questions are weighted, so some score more points than others
• You have to go to a Pearson Vue testing centre to take the exam (such as all the Global Knowledge UK training centres!!)
• The Install & Configure course is the best match to the exam
• You do have to attend an official course to be a VCP
• You can take the exam without attending an official course, but you won't be a VCP
• Roughly 85% of takers pass first time

Here's a few other nuggets of information I've picked up from VMware:

• The UK has more VCPs than any other country in EMEA
• EMEA has more VCPs that any other region (including North America!!)
• There are more than 25000 VCPs worldwide

If you want some exam coaching, there is an Exam Preparation Workshop, delivered by one of the Global Knowledge VMware instructors - the biggest selling point is that we have to pass the exam with a score of at least 85!

If you want to know more, here's the link:

http://www.globalknowledge.co.uk/Default.aspx?page=461&coursecode=VMEXP

Scott.

VCP on vSphere

VMware have yet to formally announce the details of the new VCP for the vSphere (4.0) version of VMware Infrastructure, but I do have some information about it that I can share:

1. There will definitely be a VCP for vSphere (hardly news I know!)
2. It will be available very shortly after the GA date
3. Training on vSphere will also be available shortly after GA, from Global Knowledge of course!
4. There will be training courses for those who already know VI3, those who are new to VMware, and specific courses on some of the bigger areas of the technology
5. There will be numerous paths to obtain the VCP on vSphere

On that last point, VMware will treat each individual as having one of a number of current states, and that individual's upgrade path will depend on their state. So if you're already a VCP on VI3, your path will be different from someone who isn't. If you've attended an official training course on VI3 but you never passed the exam, you will have a path to follow.

I can't tell you exactly what those paths will be, I have seen them but I'm under NDA, and I don't want to lose my VCP or VCI status! I'll publish the info as soon as I'm allowed.

Scott.

New Course - VMware View : Install, Configure, Manage

Hi,

VMware have announced the public availability of a full course on VMware View titled Install, Configure, Manage. View is version 3.0 of VMware's Virtual Desktop Infrastructure (VDI) software, the previous version was known as Virtual Desktop Manager.

There are three key elements to View, and they're all covered in the course:
1. VMware View Manager
2. VMware View Composer
3. VMware ThinApp

The new course is 3 days in length, and the full outline is available here:
http://mylearn.vmware.com/descriptions/EDU_DATASHEET_VMwareViewICM3.pdf

Global Knowledge hope to start offering this course across all European countries soon.

Scott.

VMware Products in 2009

The software engineers at VMware must be working overtime at the minute, and will be for most of the year if you look at the products and components they've got coming out in 2009....

1. Fault Tolerance - live protection for a VM with near-instant failover:
http://www.vmware.com/products/fault-tolerance/

2. VMsafe - framework for security product vendors to develop solutions for VMware Infrastructure:
http://www.vmware.com/technology/security/vmsafe.html

3. vNetwork Distributed Switch - centralised configuration of virtual networking across multiple ESX hosts:
http://www.vmware.com/products/vnetwork-distributed-switch/

4. vShield Zones - monitor and control VM network traffic:
http://www.vmware.com/products/vshield-zones/

5. CapacityIQ - analyzer of current and future resource utilization:
http://www.vmware.com/products/vcenter-capacityiq/

6. Data Recovery - disk-based VM backup and restore:
http://www.vmware.com/products/vcenter-data-recovery/

7. ConfigControl - framework for system compliance monitoring:
http://www.vmware.com/products/vcenter-configcontrol/

8. Orchestrator - workflow automation:
http://www.vmware.com/products/vcenter-orchestrator/

9. Chargeback - cost analysis, monitoring and reporting:
http://www.vmware.com/products/vcenter-chargeback/

10. AppSpeed - application visibility for SLA compliance and performance issue resolution:
http://www.vmware.com/products/vcenter-appspeed/

Some of the above will be included with vSphere, others will be available (and possibly licensed) separetly. You'll also notice the vCenter branding on many of the above components too.

I attended sessions on some of the above at VMworld Europe, and also spoke to some of the VMware guys on their stand about them.

Scott.

What's New in our Labs?

Hi,

I had some time last week to have a look at the What's New course (see older posts) in more detail, specifically the labs (the first bit of any course that I prep). As a VATC, Global Knowledge were recently sent the VMware lab setup guide by the VMware Education team, which documents how they've built their own training labs in the US.

Some VATCs hire training labs, and some (like us) host our own. It gives us a lot of freedom in terms of hardware spec and control, but we also have to interpret the VMware lab setups and translate them onto our own kit. Thankfully this process is now done, so my pal Mark Elliott can now come up with a setup and cleardown process which works for him - Mark sets up and supports our labs.

The best bit is that our hardware is compatible with ALL the new features in the vSphere product range, even the Distributed Power Management (DPM) and Fault Tolerance (FT) features! Both these features have their own hardware dependencies, and our labs tick the necessary boxes! I know that even VMware's labs are going to struggle to support FT, so for us to be able to deliver a lab on FT from Day 1 is excellent!

I've still got load of content from VMworld Europe to put up here too, so there may well be more updates later this week.

Bye for now,
Scott.