GK first to deliver vSphere Fast Track in the UK

Global Knowledge will be the first VMware Authorized Training Center (VATC) in the UK to run the new vSphere: Fast Track course, in their London Old Broad Street training centre, from September 28th to October 2nd.

The course material will be hot off the press, but we know a lot of customers have been waiting for this course so we wanted to offer it as soon as it became available.

Here's the course outline, and our schedule:
http://www.globalknowledge.co.uk/Default.aspx?page=461&coursecode=VSFT

VCP on VI3 Success

One of the students on my VI3: Install & Configure course last week stayed on to attend our VCP Exam Preparation Workshop on Friday - then passed his VCP on VI3 exam on Saturday!

Congratulations to Ernest on an excellent achievement.

Here's the link for our VCP Exam Preparation Workshop:
http://www.globalknowledge.co.uk/Default.aspx?page=461&coursecode=VMEXP

Global Knowledge currently run the Workshop for the VCP on VI3, but will be updating the content for the new VCP on vSphere 4 exam in the coming weeks. We also offer bundled pricing for attending a regular course and a Workshop, just like Ernest did!

New vSphere and View Courses

VMware have just launched a number of new classroom-based courses on vSphere 4 and View.

vSphere: Fast Track: 5-days, instructor-led, extended hours
http://www.globalknowledge.co.uk/Default.aspx?page=461&coursecode=VSFT

vSphere: Manage Availability: 1-day, instructor-led, also covered in Fast Trackhttp://www.globalknowledge.co.uk/Default.aspx?page=461&coursecode=VSMA

vSphere: Overview: 1-day, instructor-led
http://www.globalknowledge.co.uk/Default.aspx?page=461&coursecode=VSO

View: Design Best Practices: 1-day, instructor-ledhttp://www.globalknowledge.co.uk/Default.aspx?page=461&coursecode=VMVD

Global Knowledge UK's full VMware portfolio is available at http://www.globalknowledge.co.uk/courses%20%20certifications/vmware%20training.aspx

I'll be delivering all of these courses at Global Knowledge around the UK, we will have our full schedule for all the above courses published in the next few days.

VCDX exams available to take at VMWorld 2009

I've just heard from Jon Hall at VMware that it will be possible to take the Enterprise Administration or Design exams for VCDX at VMWorld in San Francisco later this month, as well as the VCP on vSphere 4 exam.

You still have to be registered with VMware for the VCDX program, that will pre-authorize you for taking the exam.

http://communities.vmware.com/thread/222194

If you're going to VMWorld, enjoy yourself! If you're taking an exam there, best of luck!

New virtualization community - VDI.com

Eric Sloof from NTPRO.NL has been blogging away about talking with David Bieneman (currently with Liquidware Labs, previously at Vizioncore). A new community is born, centered around VDI but also about virtualization generally - and it looks similar to Facebook.

I've just signed up as a member, there are groups to join, polls to vote on, forums to post in.....

Take a look for yourself at http://www.vdi.com

Eric's blog post can be found at http://www.ntpro.nl/blog/archives/1226-You-want-to-know-whats-up-with-VDI.COM-Just-Skype-David-Bieneman.html

Scott.

Review of July 2009 vSphere Webinar

Following on from the success of the VMware vSphere 4 seminars that I presented for Global Knowledge around the UK, we decided that we should also offer a version of my presentation as a Webex webinar session.

The live session went out on July 31st, and it was the first time I'd presented using Webex. We intended for the session to last for an hour, with my presentation lasting 50 minutes, leaving 10 minutes for Q&A at the end.

In spite of publicising the webinar at short notice, the number of registrations and live attendees was very impressive. I received an email from one live attendee a few days later who told me that he had my session broadcast in an auditorium at his location and there were over 100 people in attendance there - wow!

In the end, my presentation ran over for a few minutes as I covered a lot of material, but the Q&A time at the end ran over by 30 minutes - the questions just kept coming and coming. My colleagues at Global Knowledge, Ryan Fowles and Rosanna Clarke, helped to record the live session as well as the questions asked during the Q&A.

We have now published a recording of the live session, the presentation slides used, and a comprehensive Q&A document that I spent some time on completing - you can find all of those resources on our web site:
http://www.globalknowledge.co.uk/whats%20new/events/vsphere%20webinar%20content.aspx

We have a lot of interest from our colleagues across EMEA to run another session very soon, we are hoping to announce the date/time and the session content in the next week or so - watch this space!

Scott.

Review of July 2009 UK vSphere Seminars

I posted an entry here a few weeks ago, letting you that I would be presenting at a series of VMware vSphere 4 seminars around the UK for Global Knowledge.

Here's the Global Knowledge page for the events:
http://www.globalknowledge.co.uk/whats%20new/events/vsphere%20launch%20seminars.aspx

From my perspective, the seminars were hugely rewarding, it was great to get out on the road and talk to lots of people from a wide variety of organizations all with one thing in common - an interest in virtualization and vSphere 4 specifically. We had a mixture of technical and non-technical folk at the seminars, some of whom were existing VMware customers, some were not currently using virtualization or just starting to "dip their toes", some were current customers of Microsoft and Citrix who wanted to hear what VMware and I had to say.

We had a good turnout at the events too, and most importantly for me, I performed live demos of loads of different elements of vSphere 4 which all went without a hitch:

• VMFS volume grow
• Hot-add and hot-plug of VM hardware
• vApps
• VMotion
• Storage VMotion
• Distributed Resource Scheduler, including Distributed Power Management
• High Availability, including VM Monitoring and Fault Tolerance

If you were an attendee, thanks for coming. If you registered but couldn't make it, thanks for your interest. If you didn't register and wish you had, there is a possibility that we may run more sessions later in the year.

I also recently ran a vSphere webinar, I'm going to post another review of that here shortly. There are plans to make webinars a much more regular thing, and for each session to focus on a specific product area or subject each time.

Scott.

Official - VCP on vSphere 4 exam date!

VMware have now finally announced the exact dates as to when the new VCP on vSphere 4 exam will be available, both in terms of registration, and taking the exam.

Registration through Pearson VUE opens on August 14th.

The first date the exam can be taken is August 25th.

If you're lucky enough to be going to San Francisco for VMWorld, you can take it there and enjoy a discount too!

Here's the link that confirms the above dates:
http://mylearn1.vmware.com/portals/certification/