Jim Millard talks certificates, what they are, why you need them and why you should love them.

How I learned to love the CSR with Jim Millard (@millardjk) ProfessionalVMware #vBrownBag US from ProfessionalVMware on Vimeo.

GS talks about his experiences with the VMware VCAP-DCA and VCAP-DCD exams, shares some best practices and tips for taking and preparing for the exam.  We also get an overview of the Virtual Design Master contest which will be running through and concluding at VMworld.

VMware VCAP Exam Experience with GS-Gurusimran Khalsa (@gurusimran) ProfessionalVMware #vBrownBag US from ProfessionalVMware on Vimeo.

EMC World 2013 features some of the latest advancements in storage technologies and their applications for virtualized workloads.  There was the big announcement regarding Project ViPR, and it will be interesting to see how it will allow storage allocations to be more agile.  Of course, we don’t want Storage Sprawl.  So, it will be important to have a good set of reporting tools and showback\chargeback capabilities to properly manage storage usage.

Other interesting technologies to check out are the offerings from the Xtrem Team as well as EMC’s integration efforts with OpenStack.  If you’re at the show, make sure to check out the Solutions Pavilion!

The Hands On Labs (HOL) is my favorite part of the show, and I happened to run into Jase McCarty who is serving as Proctor Manager for the labs.  Jase was kind enough to give us some information about EMC World’s HoL as well as his thoughts on the show.

Click the media player below for our interview with Jase (Firefox users may need to click HERE).

You can also download the interview from the vBrownBag iTunes Podcast.

Phillip Jaenke (@rootwyrm) reviews considerations for building your own own home lab and VMware ESXi servers.  Don’t forget to check the HCL!

DIY VMware Hardware and Labs Phillip Jaenke (@rootwyrm) ProfessionalVMware #vBrownBag US from ProfessionalVMware on Vimeo.

Hey Peeps vNoob here

This happens to me ocassionally so naturally I assume everyone else is plagued by the same issue.

Every once and a while I need to “archive a VM” from one of my environments. Essentially this means that we no longer need the VM but we just don’t want to outright delete. At the same time it is taking up storage space and backup space, so we don’t want to just leave it turned off.

In these instance we choose to copy all of the VM files, vmdks, vmx etc etc to a physical server that has massive storage where all our archived files go to spend the rest of their days.

Most times I just turn off the VM and copy all the files using the vSphere Client GUI, but recently I just wanted to script it out.

I did the script because, A. I wanted to and B. I wanted it to take into account if the VM files are spread across more than one datastore, so I wouldn’t have to hunt any of the files down.

Anyway here is the script.

$fromvcenter=”vCenterName”
$vm=”VMName1, VMName2″
$local=”LocalStorage Location”

Disconnect-viserver * -confirm:$false -ErrorAction silentlycontinue

Connect-VIServer -Server “$fromvcenter”
$vmbases=get-vm $vm
ForEach ($vmbase in $vmbases)
{
$vmdisks=$vmbase |Get-HardDisk
$vmfolder=$vmdisks[0].fileName.Split(” “)[1].split(“/”)[0]
$vmdatastore=$vmbase|Get-Datastore
$local=”$local” + “\” +”$vmfolder” +”\”

FOREACH ($vmstore in $vmdatastore)

{
Remove-PSDrive -Name fromds -ErrorAction silentlycontinue
New-PSDrive -location ($vmstore) -Name fromds -PSProvider VimDatastore -Root “\”
Copy-DatastoreItem -Item fromds:\$vmfolder\* -Destination $local -Force
}
}

A couple things about this script. Just replace the 3 variables at the top with what you want and you are good to go. Secondly, because you are potentially copying big files, this could take a long time. Plan accordingly and make sure the place your are running the script from will be online long enough and be sure to run the script from a location which will expedite the files being transferred.

I love that this script will grab all the files from potentially several datastores, however, it will only do this if the VM Folder name is consistent across the datastores.

Also using the Copy-DatastoreItem cmdlet, it automatically gives you a nice progress bar…

So it is nice to know where you stand.

Hope this helps everyone!!!!

IF you don’t want a quick shameless plug stop now!

Quick Shameless Plug

Atwell and I are doing a VMWorld2013 Session, You should vote for it!

And the Description

A technical deep dive on vCenter 5.1 including SSO, inventory service and focus on the vSphere Web Client.

2013-04-17 20.34 ProfessionalVMware #vBrownBag US with Justin King (@vCenterGuy) from ProfessionalVMware on Vimeo.

The following content is in Spanish, the language in which the webinar is presented.

El 18 de abril 2013 en ProfessionalVMware #vBrownBag LATAM se presentó el tema “VMware Studio vApps” p/ @kylemurley @vBrownbagLATAM

RECURSOS

VMware Studio 2.0 – Build vApps and Virtual Appliances

Part 1: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YvvItDArStg

Part 2: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K6LAMyv5dac

VMware Studio Sharepoint Windows vApp Demo:

This video demonstrates using VMware Studio to build a multi-tier Windows vApp with Sharepoint installed and configured.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_MUCL0JI6tI

VMware Studio playlist:

http://www.youtube.com/user/VMwareStudio

User’s Guide to Deploying vApps and Virtual Appliances

http://www.vmware.com/support/developer/studio/studio26/va_user.pdf

Developer’s Guide to Building vApps and Virtual Appliances

http://www.vmware.com/support/developer/studio/studio26/studio_developer.pdf

http://www.vmware.com/appliances/learn/ovf.html

http://www.vmware.com/support/developer/ovf/

VMware OVF Tool is a command-line utility that allows you to import and export OVF packages to and from a wide variety of VMware platform products.

VMware OVF Tool 3.0.1 for Windows 32/64 bit / Mac OSX /  Linux 32/64 bit

http://www.vmware.com/support/developer/ovf/ovf301/ovftool-301-userguide.pdf

The following content is in Spanish, the language in which the webinar is presented.

El 11 de abril 2013 en ProfessionalVMware #vBrownBag LATAM @Alex_Emulex presentó el tema discusión métodos a comprobar rendimiento CNA/FC/iSCSI

Recursos adicionales:

Mencionado en #vBrownbagLATAM @alex_emulex blog de @bacon_is_king “IO Analyzer 56k no way!”bit.ly/GJfrEF @vbrownbag

 

Mencionado en #vBrownbagLATAM @alex_emulex TuningESXi for better storage performance by modify max I/O block size bit.ly/111ReBi

— Kyle Murley (@kylemurley) April 12, 2013

Mencionado en #vBrownbagLATAM @alex_emulex Joey Dieckhans -Troubleshooting Storage Performance in vSphere (Part 1 bit.ly/111JeQO

— Kyle Murley (@kylemurley) April 12, 2013

Mencionado en #vBrownbagLATAM @alex_emulex Joey Dieckhans -Troubleshooting Storage Performance in vSphere (Part 2bit.ly/111JwHx

— Kyle Murley (@kylemurley) April 12, 2013

Mencionado en #vBrownbagLATAM @alex_emulex Joey Dieckhans -Troubleshooting Storage Performance in vSphere (Part 3 bit.ly/111JOOu

— Kyle Murley (@kylemurley) April 12, 2013

Mencionado en #vBrownbagLATAM @alex_emulex Joey Dieckhans -Troubleshooting Storage Performance in vSphere (Part 1 bit.ly/111JeQO

— Kyle Murley (@kylemurley) April 12, 2013

Mencionado SANBlaze bit.ly/111I6Nk en #vBrownbagLATAM @alex_emulex discusión ventajas &métodos a comprobar rendim adapt CNA/FC/iSCSI

— vBrownBagLATAM (@vBrownBagLATAM) April 12, 2013

The April 10th #vBrownBag featured Thomas Brown covering a technical overview of VMware Horizon Mirage as well as a live lab of Horizon Mirage.  The Mirage Admin Console is covered in detail followed by a live XP to Windows 7 migration.

VMware Mirage with Thomas Brown (@thombrown) ProfessionalVMware #vBrownBag US from ProfessionalVMware on Vimeo.

Hi everyone, it’s Alastair here, @DemitasseNZ. I missed out on the chance to do the VCAP5-DTD beta exam at the end of last year, primarily because New Zealand shuts down from Christmas for a couple of week as it’s the middle of our summer. So when the exam was released to general availability last week I wanted to get it booked and sat as quick as possible.  This morning was the appointed time so I went down to my local Person VUE testing centre and spent a while staring at a screen.

As with all the VCAP exams you must first request authorization to sit the exam. The certification check that you meet the pre-requisites and let Pearson know you are authorised to book. Then you get the email back that you can book your exam.

I didn’t do any specific study for the exam but I suggest you do, teaching the View Design Workshop a couple of times last year and having worked on several View design and implementation project was helpful. A reasonable knowledge of ThinApp and the Windows parts around a View deployment is also important.

The exam itself is 115 questions and 3 1/4 hours long, it has multi choice, drag and drop and diagramming questions just like the vSphere Design VCAP exam.  Also just like the VCAP-DCD exam you need to watch the exam UI demo that you will find on the certification page for the exam, this helps you understand how the diagrams should be laid out. 

Something I like about VMware’s recent exams is that the questions are phrased much more as a customer would phrase things and you need to then work out what feature of configuration option is the right solution for them. This is a lot better than a feeds and speeds kind of question since it is how design actually works. I’m less impressed with questions that were phrased around a particular methodology which I have never come across, maybe I would have come across them if I’d read more of the documents that are linked from the blueprint.

The exam is tough and requires both deep and wide Knowledge, as you’d expect at VCAP level. It is a marathon exam and you should aim to arrive at the testing centre in top condition and expect to leave it quite drained. I did get a little disheartened in the middle of the exam as the wording and diagramming drained my enthusiasm, but in the end I scored well over the 300 pass mark so don’t let the long exam get you down and don’t give up if it’s getting frustrating.

The exam page has the usual list of paths to certification as well as links to the blueprint, exam UI demo and the request for authorization.

Next week I’m sitting the VCP-IaaS exam to get started on the whole Cloud certification stream, since I’m slated to start teaching vCloud in the next couple of months.