Gaining VCP4 and VCP5

VCP4 has essentially been the "industry standard" virtualisation certification since it was first released back in 2009, and there are thousands of individuals who already hold the certification. I train people all the time who want to gain VCP4, but now VMware have launched vSphere 5 it won't be too long til VCP5 certification becomes available.

If you've yet to train on vSphere 4 and want to gain both VCP4 and VCP5 certifications, here's the path that you need to follow:

Note that from March 1st 2012, attendance of the vSphere 5: What's New course is no longer optional for a VCP4 to achieve VCP5.

VMware have already added a number of VCP5-related resources to their site, more information on that can be found on this blog post: New certification: VCP5

AppSense training in the UK

Global Knowledge has now started offering official AppSense training worldwide, and is the ONLY training provider in the UK that can offer both the Professional and Specialist courses.

http://www.globalknowledge.co.uk/appsense

AppSense is the leading provider of user virtualisation solutions for the enterprise, with over ten years proven track record in the virtualisation space. They make physical and virtual deployment possible by ensuring a seamless user experience across all delivery platforms. Much more than traditional profile management, user virtualisation represents a fundamental change in the way the corporate desktop is constructed, delivered and managed - encompassing the whole user-centric aspect of the desktop, including personal settings, user-centric corporate policy, as well as user applications and data.

VCAP4-DCA exam review

Today was a big day for me, I finally got to take the VCAP4-DCA exam for vSphere 4 - this was the third time I had been scheduled to take the exam and this time I didn't have to re-schedule it - ahh, the joys of being a busy man! It goes without saying that I can only give out so much information on the exam, I definitely don't want to violate any non-disclosure agreement after going through 3.5 hours of work and a lot of preparation!

So, on to what I can say... It's a tough exam, fair, but tough. You get given a really wide variety of tasks to carry out, some of them relatively straightforward things that any VCP would know how to do, other tasks were very in-depth and quite complex. I used a variety of different administrative interfaces - this is not an exam that you can do with the vSphere Client alone - you WILL need to know how to use the Service Console and vSphere Management Assistant, and you WILL need to do some work in vSphere PowerCLI too.

There were a number of tasks that I was asked to carry out that are things I've never had to do before in 5 years of working in-depth with ESX/ESXi and vCenter Server, things that I've never been asked in class or in discussions with customers. I did have a good read through the VCAP-DCA exam blueprint when I came out of the exam just to make sure VMware were justified in asking me to carry out some of these tasks, and I can confirm that they WERE!! You won't get asked to do literally everything in the blueprint document, you get roughly 40 tasks to perform on the day, but the tasks in your exam will be a subset of what's in the blueprint so be prepared to do anything that's in the document.

In terms of preparation, get the blueprint, build a lab, and practice. And just when you think you're ready, practice some more!! I'm sure you're waiting for a list of what resources I used to prepare, or would recommend you take a look at - you really need to focus on troubleshooting, performance, automation and security:

Official advanced-level vSphere courses
Video-based training from TrainSignal
Study guides from people such as Ed Grigson and Sean Crookston

This is definitely a certification that sorts out the men from the boys, puts hairs on your chest, helps you to earn your stripes as a vSphere administrator, and plenty of other cliches. I'm now waiting to get my results in about 2 weeks time, best of luck to you if you're taking yours any time soon...

Global Knowledge awards

Global Knowledge have been picking up a number of awards over the last few months, the one I'm the most proud of personally is the UK organization winning the VMware EMEA Education Partner of the Year - I've been there right from the start as I joined the company the day that we achieved VATC status in the UK.

But, we've also recently been given awards by both Cisco and Microsoft:
2011 Microsoft Learning Competency Marketing Acceleration Partner of the Year Award
Cisco Worldwide Learning Partner Award of Excellence for Excellence in Collaboration – Europe

We are not the kind of organization that rests on it's laurels though, we've produced a massive amount of online content to broaden our "Xtra" series from VMware into Cisco (CCNA and CCNP) and Prince2, we have a free ITIL learning portal for public sector customers, a number of new vendors joining our learning portfolio, and some very exciting developments coming in terms of delivery methods - the rest of 2011 is going to be busy!

What's a BrownBag? Find out this week!

There are only a couple of things in life that I would buy and expect the contents to be given to me wrapped in a brown paper bag, and lunch isn't one of them! However, over in the US the term Brown Bag (or "brown bag seminar" according to Wikipedia) is designed to be an hour-long seminar that can be consumed by attendees whilst they also consume their lunch!

Well-known blogger Cody Bunch started his VCP BrownBag series over a year ago, extended the coverage to incorporate VCDX, and now has an impressive list of guests and topics similar to the VMware Communities Podcast! The problem for us Europeans is that we have to stay up very late if we want to join Cody's BrownBags live, so Tom Howarth of PlanetVM fame has agreed to start a BrownBag series that will run during evening hours in the UK and Europe.

So, the first European BrownBag takes place this Thursday, July 7th, and it starts at 7pm UK time. Tom has kindly asked me to be a guest speaker/presenter on the session, and we plan on discussing the current state of play with VMware certifications and curriculum.

Register for the first European BrownBag here: https://www1.gotomeeting.com/register/389446408

Don't phone, it's just for fun!

I'm still stunned at how the world of online media and social networking has changed the way in which we communicate, so from time to time I collate some statistics about my online presence - I just wanted to share some of those numbers with you:

I'd love to say I have some amazing prize for the first person to correctly identify what each of the numbers above relates to, but I don't! I'll leave this up as it is for a while, and think about posting the "answers" at some point...

Lightning DOES strike twice - I'm a vExpert again!

VMware have been sending out notification emails over the last few days to those lucky enough to be designated as vExpert 2011, and on Friday I got mine! I was also the proud recipient of vExpert 2010 status, so lightning really can strike twice!

"We're pleased to designate you as a vExpert 2011 as recognition of your contributions to the VMware, virtualization, and cloud computing communities. You’ve done work above and beyond, and we’re delighted to communicate more closely, to share resources, and to offer other opportunities for greater interaction throughout the year as we continue to grow knowledge and success in the community of IT professionals. Welcome to the vExpert 2011 Program!"

It's a great honour to be selected again and sit amongst such big-hitters in the virtualization community. I know a huge amount of work goes into running the program and there are many VMware employees involved in the selection process - so a big thanks to all! There is one man who gets a mention on every blog post I've read from other vExperts, John Troyer deserves all the credit he gets for the work he does to keep the VMware community alive and kicking!

I love being part of the VMware community, it does take time out of one's business and personal life to contribute in the ways that all vExperts do, but it's definitely a case of "you get out what you put in" and I've made some great contacts who've become good friends along the way.

Well done to all the other vExperts!