First, I would say it’s actually one of the easier MS exams I’ve actually sat (and I’ve been doing them for about 7 years now). I don’t know if this is because I have a virtualisation background or whether the exam itself would be easy for newer members of the IT community, but either way it could have been a lot worse!

I would say the exam content sticks fairly well to the exam “skills measured” table on the 70-659 page. The problem with this page is it’s very general, and doesn’t give you any specific details on source materials etc, like you normally get on for example a VMware Exam Blueprint. I would suggest that you look at the topics covered but always remember to research into the “corners” so to speak, i.e. look into the fringe areas which you may not use every day, such as P2V, SAN migration, Authorization Manager, etc. Also make sure you understand the use cases for each type of technology, e.g. PRO, CSVs, the Self Service Portal, etc, and finally make sure you know all your numbers e.g. ports and maximums. MS is always keen to check you know these values, even though they change frequently between OS versions (and even service packs)!

Most importantly, I go back to my final recommendation from my MCTS: 70-659 Windows Server 2008 R2, Server Virtualization Exam Prep and Study Guide, which is to build your own home lab, using at least full fat Server 2008 R2, plus a Hyper-V 2008 R2 server, and just test, test, test. Play with it and break it as much as possible, and look into every menu option as specific options in specific menus is always another MS favourite for testing. If you build and configure every item from the skills measured list, you should have a good chance when you come to the exam.

Finally, for all existing VMware-trained professionals, I definitely recommend the Microsoft Virtual Academy courses mentioned in my previous blog post, specifically the following courses, which do a good job of translating your existing VMware knowledge into “Hyper-V speak”:

• Microsoft Virtualization for VMware Professionals – The Platform
• Microsoft Virtualization for VMware Professionals – Management

Next on my agenda was originally to go onto do the MCTS desktop virtualisation and the MCITP exams, but as MS have completely overhauled their certs again I will be holding off until June now, when I should be able to take the 70-246 exam and jump straight to MCSE: Private Cloud certification. At least my wife and kids will get to spend a bit more time with me until then!

Related Posts:
MCTS: 70-659 Windows Server 2008 R2, Server Virtualization Exam Prep and Study Guide

The qualifications are now as follows:

• MCSA: Microsoft Certified Solutions Advisor
• MCSE: Microsoft Certified Solutions Expert
• MCSM: Microsoft Certified Solutions Master

After a lengthy chat I had with a very friendly MS live advisor, I can summarise the facts as follows:

• If you are an existing MCITP: Enterprise Administrator you will get the MCSA qualification for free (and no requirement to take the 70-646 SA exam). This should be automatically updated on your transcript some time soon. UPDATE: I have heard a rumour that this will be on April 24th.
• The MCSE: Private Cloud will be considered a higher level cert than the MCITP.
• The new 70-246 and 70-247 will not be released until June, which seems to match with my checks on the Prometric site, where the earliest date available at my local test centre is 8th June.
• If you have passed the 70-659 exam already, you will be allowed to skip the 70-247 Private Cloud Configuration and Deployment with System Center 2012 exam, as long as you pass your MCSE by January 31st 2013.

When I first heard that they were changing the certs I was a bit annoyed (having just started down the MCITP Virtualization Administrator track), but as it turns out it’s pretty good! Based on the above, I’ll complete my 70-659 exam (which is free anyway) next week, take a break and await the release of 70-246 Private Cloud Monitoring and Operations with System Center 2012. Then it’s only one exam for the MCSE… easy!

I would highly recommend anyone who hasn’t already taken advantage of this offer, get your free 70-659 exam voucher and do the exam now! I have posted my 70-659 study guide here which is now updated with the info on the free 70-659 training for MS partners!

For those interested in the word from the horses mouth, here follows the transcript of my chat:

Jeffrey: Hello, I'm Jeffrey with the Microsoft Certification Guidance Team.
John: hi
Jeffrey: Hi John
John: I'm trying to understand this new MCSA stuff
Jeffrey: I can see here that you have a question about getting the MCSA 2008
John: I'm already an MCITP Enterprise Admin in 2008
John: Do I have to still do 70-646 Server Admin exam just to get the MCSA 2008?
Jeffrey: That is great to hear. That already qualifies you as an MCSA in Private Cloud
John: Ah right, that's good. So when does that get updated onto our transcripts?
Jeffrey: Excellent question. There is no updates yet at this time since the announcement is still new - but you should have it in your records soon
Jeffrey: If you want to further upgrade to the MCSE in Private Cloud - you just need 2 exams
Jeffrey: Exam 70-247 
Jeffrey: Exam 70-246
John: right, thanks. I also have one other question then
Jeffrey: Go ahead
John: I'm currently studying towards MCITP: Virtualization Administrator
John: This now seems a bit pointless as you appear to be replacing this cert with MCSE Private Cloud
Jeffrey: That is great to hear
John: would the MCSE be considered a "higher level" cert?
Jeffrey: Excellent question. Yes - the new MCSE will be considered as a higher certification path
Jeffrey: The new Microsoft Certified Solution Expert (MCSE) credential focuses on the ability to design and build technology solutions, which may include integrating multiple technology products and may span multiple versions of a single technology.
John: The following page also seems to recommend that we do 70-659 as a pre-req for the MCSE, even though it's not required? http://www.microsoft.com/learning/en/us/training/cloud.aspx
Jeffrey: You can also see the latest training resources for this technology in this link. I can further recommend that you check on them regularly as training resources are usually updated once they have been set for release
Jeffrey: System Center 2012 - Latest Training Courses and Materials 
Jeffrey: Great question. Currently all the exams you need to upgrade towards the MCSE in Private is not offered until June this year
Jeffrey: However, you can use Exam 70-659 as a substitute for the new exam Exam 70-247
Jeffrey: Exam 70-659 counts as credit towards the Private Cloud certification until January 31, 2013.
Jeffrey: After January 31, 2013, you will be required to pass Exam 70-247 to achieve the private cloud certification.
John: right
John: ah thats good. So if I pass 70-659 in a week, then I only need one exam to be MCSE?
Jeffrey: Exactly. When you are ready to take an exam, you can register with Prometric. Prometric serves as the exam provider for all IT and Developer exams.
Jeffrey: Exam Location and Registration Steps - Prometric 
Jeffrey: If you would like to take instructor-led training, you can use the Class Locator tool to find training near you
Jeffrey: Class Locator 
John: Great stuff, that's a lot more clear now... (and saves me doing extra exams I don't need to!) 
John: Thanks for your help
Jeffrey: You are most welcome. Just one more thing
Jeffrey: Since you are interested in taking up the Virtualization exam - let me also show you  another exam offer we have for this path
Jeffrey: How to Register - Jump Start Online Class for Virtualization 
Jeffrey: The Jump Start package for US$99 includes attendance at one online Jump Start training session and a voucher good for Exam 70-659.
Jeffrey: This next link will show you the current training resources we have available for this exam
Jeffrey: Learning Plan for Windows Server 2008 R2, Server Virtualization (70-659) 
Jeffrey: I just wanted to make sure that we cover everything you need to know.
John: Thanks for that
Jeffrey: You are most welcome. We understand that getting a  certification is a big step and we would like to give you all the  help you need
Jeffrey: If you have a moment, we would appreciate you taking a short survey for us. The survey will appear when you click the “close” button on the chat.
Jeffrey: Have a great day John!

Here’s also a few more links for further information:

• MCSE: Private Cloud
• MCSA
• MS Certification Pyramids (very pretty!)
• The official FAQ

UPDATE: The following graphic is now available which summarises things quite succinctly:

As with many MS exams, the first thing that happens when you look for some study materials for an exam is that you have to trawl through all the search results peppered with spammy brain dumps etc, to find any nuggets of actual material useful to those of us who actually want to learn the subject, very annoying! To be honest there isn’t a huge amount of information out there, but the best of what I found / used has been is condensed below:

• Official Microsoft Exam Page
  Links to all official source material, exam reqs, etc
• Official MS E-Learning Collection 10215
  I find the MS official training a little dry (some might say tedious!), but it does cover all the basics and the lab simulations are useful, if a tad flakey… 15-20 hours training for £120 is cheap compared to classroom learning, but does depend on you being a little more disciplined, and buying the books would work out cheaper if you are on a tight budget.
  UPDATE: If you are an MS partner then use the following link and code to get the 70-659 and 70-669 training for FREE for 2 months (subscription ends July 31st)!
  Collection 10215: Implementing and Managing Microsoft Server Virtualization [Code: 8062-COL10215-1445] http://bit.ly/HbDVTf
  Collection 10324: Implementing and Managing Microsoft® Desktop Virtualization [Code: 8430-COL10324-8932] http://bit.ly/H6pUrd
• Mastering Microsoft Virtualization by Tim Cerling & Jeffrey Buller
  Not actually read this yet but it comes recommend by many other people. I always recommend if you are going to buy these books, buy them on Kindle. Why kill a few trees for a book you will only read once or twice, and have it clog up your book shelves for years to come. Also it’s cheaper on Kindle!
• Mastering Virtual Machine Manager 2008 R2 by Michael Michael & Hector Linares
  I haven’t read this as yet, mainly due to time restrictions, but plan to do so for the 70-693 MCITP Windows Server 2008 R2, Virtualization Administrator exam. If you do have time it is recommended reading. VMM 2012 is now out as RTM, though I assume the exam is still based on 2008. No sign of any 2012 books as yet, but I’m sure they’ll be coming soon.
• Mastering Hyper-V Deployment by Aidan Finn
  Again I haven’t actually read this one yet so can’t review at this time, but I plan to for the 70-693.
• Virtual Training Boot camp for Exam 70-659 TS: Windows Server 2008 R2 Virtualization – Free!
  A welcome offer from MS to get partners interested in Hyper-V by offering what is in effect a full 70-659 course, crammed into 2 days of LVCs (Live Virtual Classes) using Microsoft Office Live Meeting. Mine was run by a QA trainer called Paul Gregory, who was very friendly and competent. If you do a Google search for the exact title above, you may even find the slide decks from this course…
  It was a great offer, so I also recommend you keep an eye on the MS Events website for future similar offers. I believe they have some Windows 8 Tech days coming up shortly…
• Microsoft Virtual Academy Courses – Free!
  For a free resource these courses are superb! There are many hours of training available, and MS encourage you to watch more (via a bit of obvious geek-tosterone based competition / ranking) you are awarded points for each course you complete, which can then be tracked and compared to other people in your own country and across the world. Be prepared to wade through the marketing BS (particularly for the overview-type presentations), but a very good resource either way.
  Note: there is quite a bit of repetition in the courses, so I will try to highlight as I go, which are the best use of your time (unless of course you’re a rank whore, in which case do them all!). The courses I completed are as follows:
  1. Microsoft Virtualization for VMware Professionals – The Platform
     A good intro to Hyper-V where all of the features are translated for VMware-trained folk such as myself, presented in a fairly informal manner.If you don’t watch any of the other videos, watch this one! 11 videos @ 20-30 mins each.
  2. Microsoft Virtualization for VMware Professionals – Management
     A continuation of the previous course. There’s a lot of marketing material in this related to systems which may or may not come up in the exam, though depending on your experience with the MS System Center range of products, this may be of use to you. Personally I’m used to products like BMC Patrol, Tivoli Netcool/OMNIbus, HP Openview, Altiris DS/NS etc, so this was quite interesting for me.
  3. Microsoft Virtualization for VMware Professionals – VDI
     I would say this would be more useful for the next exam in the MCITP track (70-669 TS: Windows Server 2008 R2, Desktop Virtualization), but is included in this list for reference. I will probably take this later when I have some time.
• Microsoft Server Virtualization Training by TrainSignal
  I haven’t actually used this one but a few people recommended it to me, and the TrainSignal courses are usually of a pretty high standard. The only drawback is that it’s nearly $300, but that’s still way cheaper than a live course.
  
• Blog Post Series by Joseph Yedid
  This series covers a number of different subjects based on the exam outline / “skills measured“, which are very much like VMware exam blueprints, minus the links! These posts are also mirrored by Ruth Morton’s Technet blog.
• Technet Blog Series by Chris Avis
  Another great series of posts going into the detail for everything you need to know. The above link goes to the most recent post which can then link you to all the others. His first post also has a load of other study resources linked off it which you should check out!
• Official MS Virtualisation Blog
  If you’re a VMware person, hold onto your hat for some serious politicking, but there is some interesting content if you have time for a browse.
• Exam review by Matt McSpirit
  A few useful tips here on the exam itself, and what to study.
• Hyper-V White Papers by Aidan Finn
  This site is run by MS MVP Aidan Finn, who has co-authored a load of books on MS products.
• Build a Home Lab
  I cannot recommend this enough. The best way to learn Hyper-V is to play with it, that way you have seen the ins and outs, the great bits (like Dynamic Memory), and the downright ugly ones (like simply setting up SCOM to then get PRO working – use SQL Server 2008, not R2, as R2 doesn’t work properly without a load of fiddling)!
  My home lab runs under VMware Workstation 8 on Windows 7 64-bit, with an Intel Core i7 920 and 24GB of RAM. I run 2 Hyper-V hosts, one is full fat 2008 R2 Enterprise, and the other is Hyper-V Server. Clustering is not officially supported, but does work, and this way you get to practice both worlds (GUI and CLI).
  To get Hyper-V to run like this you need to do a couple of fixes to your hypervisor VMs when you create them. See Velimir Kojic’s blog postfor more info on this, but the headline points are:
  1. Enable virtualisation of VT-x/EPT. This is the same as you would do for virtualising ESX/ESXi under Workstation 8, allowing nested 64-bit VMs.
  2. Add the following line to your VMX files:
     hypervisor.cpuid.v0 = “FALSE”
• More to links to follow…

Please feel free to submit any worthwhile links to study materials and I will include them above.

My final week was an interesting one as I was actually out of office all week attending the internal/partner version of our Sun Storage 7000 Unified Storage System Installation, Maintenance and Administration course. In some ways this was a blessing as this was away from work (and all the distractions thereof), but studying all day on one subject then coming home at night and hammering the books on another does tax the brain somewhat!

Anyway, my final week of prep looked something like this:

One week to go: Finished watching the last few VMworld 2010 videos listed in my Exam Prep post. Mainly concentrating on the Exchange, SQL & Oracle ones, plus anything to do with SRM. I also watched several of the customer case studies, which were really useful in helping to relate the theory to the practice.

4 days to go: Watched all of the VCAP Brown Bags by Alastair Cooke et al, and the other two by Jason Boche and Harley Stagner. I cannot recommend these highly enough, and would really like to thank them for all of their efforts in producing this excellent (and completely free!) content. I would suggest you save these for your final week or so, as they are a great recap of everything you should know, plus a few extra golden nuggets. The one by Harley Stagner was also really good as an exam prep as the way things are discussed, is exactly what you need to do in your own head during the trickier exam questions! Do NOT miss this brown bag!

3 days to go: Read through all of my copious notes (> 400 pages of A4!!!) taken over the past 8 weeks. My preferred study method is always to take lots of notes as I watch / read material, and the act of writing it down helps to cement it, and give you a summarised reference for later. It does mean I tend to take a lot longer to watch a video as I often have to pause to write up diagrams etc (+30-50% on the length of most videos!). Obviously this is just my preference, but try it, and see if it helps you too…

2 days to go: Read the official VMware vSphere: Design Workshop [V4.x] workbook from my course last year, cover to cover. This didn’t really come up with anything I didn’t already know but it was good to remind me of the VMware-specific terminology, which obviously carries through to the blueprint and hence exam. In much the same way as you do with an MS exam, you have to “think with your VMware hat on”, even if you would do something slightly differently in the real world.
Finished reading VMware vSphere 4.1 HA and DRS Technical Deepdive by Duncan Epping and Frank Denneman, which is an excellent resource. If you don’t have time to read it all before your exam, just jump to Appendix A, which lists all of the key best practices (or recommended practices as Scott Lowe calls them!). If you are studying for the VCAP 5, there is an updated version already out: VMware vSphere 5 Clustering Technical Deepdive

Day before the exam: Read through a handful of the white papers dealing with the “fringes” of my knowledge, e.g. vCenter Heartbeat, where I haven’t actually used the product before, and where none of my previous study materials had covered much detail.
Read through the case study at the end of VMware vSphere Design by Forbes Guthrie, Scott Lowe and, Maish Saidel-Keesing. I read the book weeks ago, but deliberately saved the case study until later. In hindsight it may have been interesting to write down some thoughts on it before and after the rest of my study, maybe highlighting the things I’d learned in between!
Did as much of the VMware workshop case study as I had time left to complete. Went to bed @ 2.30am ready for my midday exam the next day.

Night before the exam, 4.30am: Got called out for work!!! Aaaargh! Not only that but it turns out it was due to someone being unable to connect an box by IP and thinking it was down, when they simply had the wrong IP… we invented DNS 30 years ago, let’s try using it!!! *facepalm*

The Exam: So as for the exam itself, I managed to completed every one of the 113 questions in time, but by “in time” what I actually mean is that I literally submitted my last answer with one second to go! The timing on the exam really is that tight! It didn’t help that about half way through the exam I needed the loo, and held on to the end. Had I not done so I might not have managed to get to those last handful of questions… the “crossing of legs” best practice was implemented with no DR plan, which I admit was a high risk strategy!

One thing I would say if looking at the exam with a critical eye, is that VMware should consider taking a small leaf out of Microsoft’s book. At the end of an MS exam you get a breakdown of where you gained all of your points (just a bar chart with a relative %). I would love to have known how my points were broken down so it could identify any weaknesses in my skill set, both for future exams and my actual job! Similarly there could be a small breakdown of the “relative” scores for the three types of questions. It’s great to know I passed, but would be even better to know where I didn’t do so well. This would be even more useful for people who don’t pass on the first attempt.

Regarding the “Visio tool”; even though I did actually do the demo a couple of times, I still had some issues with it, including the fact that the more objects you add, the more lag you experience (sometimes several seconds to place an object), which wastes precious time. I hope this improves with the vSphere 5 exam (though I doubt it will).

Now, a few tips for the actual exam from my perspective (obviously being careful not to breach the NDA!). Watch this brownbag with Jon Hall (of the VMware cert team) for an in depth look at the way the points are allocated per question, or see my summary:

1. Don’t pay too much attention to the clock, except when doing the Visio design questions, and maybe for the final 30 minutes or so. Whenever I had one of those (for which VMware recommends 15 mins each), I checked the clock and worked out roughly what time I should be done by. A couple of them took me 5+ mins longer than the recommended time, but the others took slightly less so I guess it probably averaged to 15 or just over. Dont stress if one takes you a bit more time, but don’t let it go much beyond the 20 minute mark. At that point you’re better to move on and get more points elsewhere as you can still get lots of points for a “nearly right” answer.
2. There was one exam strategy I mentioned in my prep post which came from a VMware trainer; Do all multi choice questions first. Second time through, do drag and drop questions. Third time through do design questions, which means you know how much time you have left.
   I did not take this approach in my exam, and instead just went through the exam in a serial fashion. If I had taken the above approach I may have wasted time with the review process to get back and not had enough time to complete the questions.
3. Read the question before you read the information as it will help you to more quickly identify what information you are looking for and will reduce the likelihood of having to re-read anything.
4. Once you have entered an answer don’t second guess yourself. Chances are your gut reaction is probably right as long as you have read the question and answers properly.
5. Mark any questions you haven’t been able to complete but always put an answer in and keep moving. There are 113 questions to get through! If you do actually make it to the end with time to spare you can come back, but concentrate on getting through the questions first.
6. I don’t believe there is negative marking employed, so any answer is better than leaving blanks. This is especially true if you reach the last 5 mins and still have some questions left. Speed read and answer quickly…

One final point I would make is that as I understand it, the VCAP4-DCD and the VCAP5-DCD are not massively different, just the new improvements which will tweak your designs (especially HA!) and the way the new blueprint emphasizes the design method. Therefore a very large proportion of the exam prep materials in my VMware VCAP-DCD 4 Exam Prep Guide should be just as relevant as a VCAP-DCD 5 exam prep guide. I plan to upgrade my VCAP4 to a VCAP5 while the information is still fresh in my mind. Hopefully this will be soon as the beta completed over three weeks ago, meaning the final exam version shouldn’t be far off.

In the mean time, I have to learn Hyper V for an upcoming project!…

Related posts:
VMware VCAP-DCD 4 Exam Prep Guide

The same error occurred on both an ESX and ESXi host in the came cluster, both using the latest vSphere 4.1 build 582267. I am going to assume this can appear on older versions too.

The object has already been deleted or has not been completely created

Call "PropertyCollector.RetrieveContents" for object "propertyCollector" on vCenter Server "<servername>" failed.

You can see the error in the following screenshot:

This seems to occur because the host does not have any record, even a default, for the snapshot location. This only affected half the hosts in my cluster, where the other half were showing their defaults just fine.

The fix for this is very simple. I’m sure it could be implemented by multiple methods, but I used PowerCLI. Simply:

1. Connect to the faulty host, e.g.:
   Connect-VIServer <servername / ip>
2. Validate that you can see your preferred datastore from that host:
   Get-Datastore
3. Manually set the datastore to your preferred DS:
   Set-VMHost -VMSwapfileDatastore <datastorename>
4. Go back to vCenter and you will find the new value reflected, and you can now edit the Virtual Machine Swapfile Location settings under the Configuration tab for your host:

If you have multiple hosts with the same issue, or indeed when simply making swapfile location changes across your cluster, you could of course script the above.

I’m not sure whether this applies to vSphere 5 as I have not come across it there to date.

The results are from very simplistic testing using a simple buffered read test only (it would be reasonable to expect write times to be the same or slower, and this is just a quick test for my own info). For this I used the following sample hdparm command in some Ubuntu VMs:

sudo hdparm -t /dev/sda

A sample output from this command would be:

/dev/sda:  Timing buffered disk reads: 142 MB in  3.11 seconds =  45.59 MB/sec

As this was a quick performance comparison I only repeated the test three times per storage and protocol type, but even with this simplistic testing the results fairly conclusive.

Test HW was based on my 24GB RAM ESX and ESXi cluster in a box solution running under Windows 7 64-bit with VMware Workstation 8. Components are:

• 4x ESX/ESXi 4.1 hosts running in Workstation 8 with an SSD datastore. 4GB RAM and 2x vCPUs each.
• 1x FreeNAS 0.7.2 instance running in Workstation 8 with an SSD datastore and a SATA datastore. I use this over FreeNAS 8 as it has a significantly smaller memory footprint (512mb instead of 2GB). 1vCPU and 512 MB RAM.
• 64-bit Ubuntu Linux VMs running nested under the ESX(i) virtual hosts. 1vCPU and 512 MB RAM each.

Storage components are:

• SATA 2 onboard ICH10R controller
• 1x Crucial M4 128GB SSD (500MB/sec Read, 175MB/Sec Write)
• 1x Seagate 250GB 7200RPM SATA

The results of the testing are as follows:

As you can see, FreeNAS with NFS does not play nice with ESX(i) 4. I can confirm that I have seen stats and posts confirming these issues are not aparent in the real world, with NetApp FAS or Oracle Unified Storage (which is aparently awesome on NFS) but for your home lab, the answer is clear:

For best VM performance using FreeNAS 7, stick to iSCSI!

Basically MS are offering a free exam voucher for the 70-659 Windows Server 2008 R2, Server Virtualization exam. This seems to be a good introduction to Hyper-V and well worth taking, if only to expand your knowledge across virtualisation technologies, and especially if you’re a VMware hypervisor fanboi like me! If I enjoy it I may even go ahead and complete the next two exams after this (70-669 Windows Server 2008 R2, Desktop Virtualization and 70-693 Windows Server 2008 R2, Virtualization Administrator) which will give me a second MCITP (nice).

For more information on the offer see here at the Microsoft Virtualization Challenge page:

Microsoft Virtualization Challenge

Details for the exam itself can be found here:

70-659 Windows Server 2008 R2, Server Virtualization

Signing up for the free voucher is not exactly crystal clear from the description, but all you actually need to do is phone up your local training provider (our preferred supplier is Global Knowledge and their test centre is near me so I called them first) and their Microsoft team simply emailed me a free voucher!

The main proviso is that you must complete the exam by 31st May 2012, giving you 4 months, which seems reasonable enough to me… As it happens, I’ve booked my exam for just 3 weeks after my VCAP-DCD, so it looks like I’ll be cramming a fair bit for the next couple of months!

Once the VCAP-DCD is is out of the way, I’ll post up the training materials I use for the 70-659 in case they are of some use to others.

UPDATE: My exam study guide has now been posted here:
http://www.tekhead.org/blog/2012/04/mcts-70-659-windows-server-2008-r2-server-virtualization-exam-prep-and-study-guide/

UPDATE: If you are an MS partner then use the following link and code to get the 70-659 and 70-669 training for FREE for 2 months (subscription ends July 31st)!
Collection 10215: Implementing and Managing Microsoft Server Virtualization [Code: 8062-COL10215-1445] http://bit.ly/HbDVTf
Collection 10324: Implementing and Managing Microsoft® Desktop Virtualization [Code: 8430-COL10324-8932] http://bit.ly/H6pUrd

I plan to take the exam in late March, giving me 8 weeks to prepare, so much like I did with my VCP5 Exam Prep Guide, I will post an expanding list of my VCAP4-DCD exam prep materials below, in the hopes that it may be of some help to others.

Prep Courses / Materials

• VMware vSphere: Design Workshop [V4.x]
  Well worth the time (and money – paid for by my employer, advantages of being a permie!) in my opinion. It is basically an opportunity to sit down for three days and go through a fictional design, end to end, using all the VMware best practices and guides, whilst shooting the breeze with like minded individuals. The manual provided with this course is very good, and a few days prior to my exam I plan to read it again cover to cover.
• DRBC Design – Disaster Recovery and Business Continuity Fundamentals
  Online “virtual” training course from VMware. Pretty steep price for only 4 hours training IMHO, especially when they only give you 3 months access… For $240 (£152) I would expect permanent access to it! Fortunately, again I didn’t actually have to pay for this myself. Were I contracting, I would seriously think twice about skipping this! I believe some people can access this for free, depending on your VMware Partner level.
• VMware vSphere Design by Forbes Guthrie, Scott Lowe and, Maish Saidel-Keesing
  If there is one resource which I can recommend above all other’s it would be this book. Buy it on Kindle for less than £20! Its the best £30 you’ll ever spend!
• VMware vSphere 4.1 HA and DRS Technical Deepdive by Duncan Epping and Frank Denneman
  A superb and easy read. This is a short book concentrating on the nitty gritty of vSphere clustering. You will need to know this if you want to pass the exam! Again, spread out your reading, and don’t try to take it all in in one go!
• Official Exam Blueprint
  The official exam blueprint/guide. As much of a pain in the ar*e as it is, I suggest at least scanning through every document referenced in this guide. If you know it all (and have practiced it lots) then you *should* be ok in the exam!
• Exam Blueprint PDF Files and Objectives Discussion
  Sean Crookston has very kindly packaged all the required PDFs up in an executable zip (based on 1.3 blueprint but its basically identical), thanks Sean! I wont have time to go through them all, but I’ll post a few highlights shortly. Also make sure that you go through his discussion on Objectives 1.1 / 1.2 / 1.3 / 2.1 / 2.2. I believe Sean would have done more but time constraints stopped him at that point, but what he has done is really useful and worth a read!
• VCAP4-DCD Exam UI Demo
  A useful resource as this gives first-timers a chance to get used to the “Visio”-style exam interface and get an idea of the types of activities required in the exam. This requires registration, and only lasts 3 months from reg. Its disappointing that they do not give you sample exam questions for practice as you normally get with the VCP exams.
• VCAP-DCD4 Exam UI Tutorial
  This one does not require registration and repeats the above without your interaction.
• VCAP-DCD Community Forums
  I read through virtually every post on here (there aren’t that many). If you don’t want to read through them all (might take you an hour once you follow the links etc) I did take a note of some key comments which I felt were worth investigating later, which you can download here: VMware VCAP-DCD Community Forums Tips
• The Saffa Geek VCAP-DCA-DCD Guide
  Gregg has a raft of links to prep materials, of which I plan to go through as many as possible.
• Private Cloud Architecture v1.4 by Iwan Rahabok
  A superb resource with highlights for every area of design of what you should be considering.
• VCAP Brown Bags by Alastair Cooke et al. This is based on the VCAP-DCD5 (not yet out) but should still be applicable to VCAP-DCD4. Update: Having watched these, I can confirm that there are very few areas which are specific to vSphere 5, so I highly recommend you save these up and watch them as part of your final exam prep / review. You shouldknow most of it already if you have covered enough in studying, so with luck this should be a great way to do final revision.
  1. Overview, Methodology and Business Requirements
     Excellent session where Alastair Cooke goes over the VMware VIM (Virtual Infrastructure Methodology). This is all just as relevant to vSphere 4 as it is to 5.
  2. Storage Design
     A great reminder of the key things you need to remember when designing storage. Sometimes a bit hard to hear due to the VoIP method, but still a great presentation. Watch this when you are doing your final revision.
  3. Network Design
     Much like the above. A good reminder session which very quickly goes through each key design choice and highlights pros and cons for each with a number of discussions based on live questions. Ran out of time after 75 mins so to be continued below.
  4. Availability and DR Design
     Gladly, Alastair teaches this session himself, which is great as he is obviously a very good trainer. One great tip I gained was when defining your replication strategy for your RPO, don’t forget that the time to replicate must be within the RPO timescale, especially when using periodic replication.  For example if your RPO is an hour, then your replication must complete within that hour. A 2 hour replication on a 1 hour RPO doesn’t meet requirements!!!
     The closer your RPO gets to zero, the more likely you will need continuous replication. When under an hour, start to look into asynchronous replication. Once you’re getting into RPO times under 5 mins, you will probably start needing to look at synchronous replication, which obviously causes latency, and may dictate distance to your DR site etc.
  5. Security Design
     Direct link from Vimeo as the main link page on demitasse.co.nz seems to be missing it. The detailed slide decks can be found here and here. One wee golden nugget was to use folders in the datastore view to lockdown permissions. A really simple use of this is to put all the local VMFS volumes into one directory and secure it, that way admins wont have to sift through them when creating VMDKs as they will not appear in their views, so this reduces risk of putting VMDKs in the wrong place.
  6. Network Design (Continued)
     A simple continuation of the previous session. Only lasts 45 mins or so.
  7. Exam Registration and Environment
     Skip the first 16 mins as its mainly about VCAP5 track. The next section (10 mins or so) can be summarised as:
     • Multi Choice Questions
       These make up over half exam
       Small # of points per answer
       No partial points – all or nothing!
     • Drag and Drop Style Questions
       Quite a few questions
       Single digit points per answer
       Partial points given, based on being correct with 2-4 key ideas.
     • Visio-Style Design Tool
       Might be 3-5 questions
       Worth a lot of points per answer, e.g. 20-40 pts!
       Partial points given, based on up to 20 checks against your design.
     • Time Management Suggestion
       Not sure if i’ll try this or not, I normally do exams straight through and dont look back!:
       - Do all multi choice questions first.
       - Second time through, do drag and drop questions.
       - Third time through do design questions, which means you know how much time you have left.
  8. Host Design
     Another great session run by Alastair Cooke. Quote of the day:
     “Always document WHY you make a decision.”
  9. Cluster Design
     Scheduled for 29 March 2012. Irrespective of my exam being over this week, I will be tuning in (though maybe not live as I think these run at about 6am for us in the UK)!
• Other Brown Bags – DO NOT MISS THESE!
  1. VCAP-DCD Objective 1 (Jason Boche) Absolutely SUPERB brown bag, do NOT miss this! This goes through the VMware design process, the info you need to gather, who from, and why. He then goes into how to identify Requirements, Constraints, Assumptions and Risks, and has a quick game of identifying each from some example cases. I cannot recommend this enough…
  2. vSphere Design with Harley Stagner
     A great preparation tool to use closer to the time of your exam. This goes through a couple of design scenarios and discusses the different options you could consider. Definitely watch this!
• VMworld Community Sessions (2010)
  Now free to watch if you sign up for a free account. I recommend you go through as many of the TA and BCtracks as you have time for (there are about 50 odd of them at about an hour each!!!) but if you only have time for a few, concentrate on the following in priority / technology order depending on what areas you are weakest on:
  1. TA8133    Best Practices to Increase Availability and Throughput for VMware
     Superb presentation pitched at an appropriate level. Lots of good storage design tips here. If you don’t watch anything else, watch this!
  2. TA8018    Architecting for Performance
     Only 40 minutes long. More of a refresher of things you should be remembering anyway, plus a couple of information nuggets. Watch it in your lunch hour.
  3. TA7171    Performance Best Practices for vSphere
     Very good session led by Scott Drummonds, formerly of VMware, now EMC. Absolutely worth a watch! Covers ESX(i), Storage, Memory, NetIOC/SIOC, and a quick bit about troubleshooting.
  4. TA8065    Storage Best Practices, Performance Tuning and Troubleshooting
     Detailed review of best practices by Duane Fafard from IBM. He goes through his whole design process from Fabric, to arrays, queue depths, pathing, and much more. The design stuff is based on IBM HW, but applicable on any vendor setup. A great presentation and some really useful tuning and troubleshooting tips.
  5. TA8452    Designing Resilient Networks for vSphere and NFS
     This is audio only, but you can download the slide decks so no biggie. This is a good reminder session if you read Scott Lowe’s book, if not, it’s essential! The first ~25 mins are the most important, after which it all becomes very NetApp specific.
  6. TA8595    Virtual Networking Concepts and Best Practices
     First of all, skip the first 20 mins which is very basic. Second, if you have already read Scott Lowe’s design book, the rest of this presentation should really just be a refresher. Nothing much new here.
  7. TA6841    Cisco Nexus 1000v: Architecture, Deployment, and Management
     Run by Jason Nash of TrainSignal vSphere Security course fame, this presentation is an excellent into to Cisco Nexus 1000v. Doesn’t go into masses of detail (he only has 50 mins to be fair!), but still highly recommended. If you want more detail, try the TrainSignal course (at a cost!), or read the VMware white paper Guidelines for Implementing VMware vSphere 4 with the Cisco Nexus 1000V Virtual Switch.
  8. TA7121    Next Generation VM Storage Solutions with vStorage API for Array Integration (VAAI)
     Just watch the first 20 mins for a quick overview of VAAI by the guy who wrote it! The rest talks about features which have basically come out in vSphere 5, though jumping to > 38 mins or so lets you hear the Q&A session which is quite interesting too.
  9. TA8440    10Gb & FCoE Real World Design Considerations
     Some great best practice recommendations, along with some great info on NetIOC and recommendations for shares, etc. My only complaint is that the speaker is speaks VERY fast, which he does apologies for at the start, but its quite distracting. Definitely a good session though.
  10. TA7743    ESX iSCSI News, Configuration, and Best Practices
      Some useful solutions for iSCSI multipathing, though the presentation is not that well done and jumps about a bit. You may be better just reading the iSCSI SAN Configuration Guide (vsp_41_iscsi_san_cfg.pdf), page 36 onwards.
  11. BC7803    Planning and Designing an HA Cluster that Maximizes VM Uptime
      A great session part presented by the ever-knowledgeable Duncan Epping. If you haven’t read his HA book, don’t miss this! Be warned: some muppet who edited the video has left the muzak running in the background for the entire video! Just turn the volume down a lot until you can mainly only hear the presenters, and as little music as possible. Very annoying!
  12. MA7528    VMware vCenter Server: Operational Best Practices in the Datacenter
      Covers a lot that you should already know if you read Scott Lowe’s book, but a decent presentation and some good reminders for the kind of questions to ask yourself in section 1 of the VMware “design framework”.
  13. BC8274    VMware Fault Tolerance – Best Practices, Usage Scenarios and Performance
      Ok session, but most of this info you should already know. Skip the first and last 15 mins as they are very basic, and the Q&A session is poor as they don’t repeat the questions for the mic!
  14. SE8206    Security Hardening Guidelines for vSphere
      This is not a guide to security, it’s a guide to the security guides!!! They do highlight some of the most important recommendations, from 21.5 mins onwards if you want to watch it, otherwise, just read the actual vSphere 4.0 Security Hardening Guide pdf, referenced in the 1.6 blueprint!
  15. BC8283    Backing up VMware – Benchmarked and Best Practices
      Review TBA
  16. BC7773    VMware Site Recovery Manager: Misconceptions and Misconfigurations
      An excellent presentation on SRM from the inimitable Mike Laverick of RTFM-ED. First 40 mins for the best DCD related content.
  17. BC6703    How to be Successful with SRM Implementations
      An excellent technical and architectural presentation by Michael White of VMware. Dives into multiple areas of SRM and many best practice tips. Dont miss it if you want to learn more on SRM!
  18. BC9017    Customer Use Cases: Lone Star College and Weyerhaeuser
      A quick 30 minute run through a couple of use cases. The Weyerhaeuser was far better in terms of actually going into detail on the SRM implementation, and lessons learned. Jump to 11:30 for this.
  19. EA7849    Design, Deploy, and Optimize Microsoft Exchange Server 2010 on vSphere
      The blueprint is for 2007 but I think this presentation is still worth mainly seeing for the first half. Most of the stuff up until he starts discussing DAGs is relevant to 2007, plus you should be reading the Best Practices Guide: Microsoft Exchange Solutions on VMware, the Exchange Getting Started Kit, and  Microsoft Exchange Server 2007 Performance on VMware vSphere™ 4 white papers anyway.
  20. EA7850    Design, Deploy, and Optimize Microsoft SQL 2008
      This applies to 2005 or 2008 so is appropriate. Its a great presentation (skip the basics at start). Main point to note is that MS SQL DB Mirroring is the best method for virtualising SQL, though you do double your disk reqs as compared to MSCS. FT is also good for single CPU VMs with small, but critical DBs. The price to pay for flexibility! Dont forget the Best Practices Guide: Microsoft SQL Server and VMware Virtual Infrastructure and Performance and Scalability of Microsoft SQL Server® on VMware vSphere 4 white papers too.
  21. EA7061    Creating an Internal Oracle Database Cloud Using vSphere
      Good presentation, but may not all be relevant. Key points are around licensing and suggesting that you have dedicated Oracle clusters if you have enough Oracle DBs. Dont forget the Oracle® Databases on VMware vSphere™ 4 and Virtualizing Performance-Critical Database Applications in VMware® vSphere™ white papers.
  22. EA8700 Oracle on vSphere: Re-Platforming Tier 1 Oracle Databases from UNIX to vSphere at Indiana University
      Very interesting case study, which gives a good insight into architectural choices and methods for a migration between two DCs whilst also virtualising Oracle onto a different OS!
  23. SE7813    vShield Edge & Application Protection – Architecture and Use Cases
      Interesting presentation, though the fist 15 mins or so are mainly marketing. Includes some use cases for things such as PCI compliance etc.
  24. TA2222    ESX implementation at Kroger Store Systems (from VMworld 2009)
      Interesting case study with >100 remote sites controlled via a centralised vCenter in the main DC. Jump to 52 mins for architectural considerations, or read ROBO – Managing Remote ESX Hosts Over WAN with VirtualCenter.
  25. TA8661    Deploying vSphere in a ROBO Environment
      Just read the pdf if you have watched TA2222. If you’re keen there’s an mp3 only presentation too with a few more tips and deep dive info.
  26. SE8421    Hypervisor-Based Antivirus and Endpoint Security
      Ok presentation if you don’t know much about the vShield product suite. I downloaded the MP3 and listened to this one in the car. If you don’t have time, don’t bother.
  27. SE8389    Architectural Overview of Virtualization Security for the Private Cloud
      This is basically a marketing presentation. Interesting, but basically not useful for study. I downloaded the mp3 and listed in the car to make my commute more exciting!
  28. TA6862    vDS Deep Dive: Managing and Troubleshooting
      Interesting first half of the presentation, though not a huge amount of design help. Low priority for watching.
  29. TA8158    Surviving VMware on Blades
      A little disappointing, and probably should have been in the partner presentations as half of it is a sales pitch! Useful only by examining the design decisions, and ignore the fluff. Skip the start and watch from 14 mins in.
  30. TA8270    Get the Best VM Density From Your Virtualization Platform
      Don’t waste your time. This should have been in the 101 section.
• VMware Partner University Courses
  Useful courses, if you have both access, and time:
  • Infrastructure Virtualization Technical Post-Sales Accreditation: Assessment Fundamentals
    Not much new here but just a few good reminders on how to size up your source capacity / requirements and only takes 1-2 hrs to complete. Also counts towards the Infrastructure Virtualization competency.
• More links to come…

Related posts:
VMware VCAP-DCD 4 Exam Review

The exam itself was reasonable, and not massively dissimilar to the VCP 4 in terms of difficulty and question style. The content was all pulled pretty much directly from the exam blueprint, so if you are confident you know the blueprint, then you should be ok with the exam. I would also STRONGLY suggest you take the official mock VCP-510 exam once you feel you are prepared enough, as it will give you a really good feel for the exam and if you pass it comfortably, you will almost certainly do fine in the real one.

The exam has a total of 85 questions to complete in 90 minutes, which sounds tight, but when some of the simpler questions have very short (e.g. 1 word) answers, you can get through those in just seconds, giving you more time to complete the more tricky ones. Just don’t panic about time, or even bother looking at the clock until you’re at least 60 questions into it. I completed mine in about an hour.

I used Scott Lowe’s Mastering VMware vSphere 5 as my main study aid, followed by building several test environments (thanks to the vSphere 60 day evaluation) and doing loads of practice questions etc. I would highlight the fact that his book does not cover much about the extras which are likely to come up, such as the VSA, vDR and even a basic knowledge of other VMware products (Workstation, Server, View etc). I would suggest a little time is dedicated to understanding the basic capabilities of these products too (perhaps a little unfair as the exam is on vSphere but hey?!).

For more info on the exam prep materials I used please see my previous blog post:
VCP5 Exam Prep Guide

Next task: VCAP-DCD 4 (backwards I know)!

Before shrinking your VM, be sure to zero out all of the unused space (left over from file deletes). This is especially important if you have been using the VM for some time, as deleted files do not actually zero the space (just remove the pointers). I recommend using SDelete from SysInternals. Simply run “sdelete -c” to zero out all the deleted file space (experiences may vary!!!).

Once you have cleaned up (and ideally backed up) your VM, The process of migrating to a new datastore and safely shrinking / converting the VMDK files to thin provisioned, is as follows:

1. Create your new datastore directory on the new drive and specify the location in VMware Server (if required), e.g.
   D:\VMs
2. Create a new directory for the VM to be migrated, e.g.
   D:\VMs\TestVM
3. Run the following command:
   “<path-to-vmware-install>\vmware-vdiskmanager.exe” -r “<old-ds-path>\<VM-Name>.vmdk” -t 0 “<new-ds-path>\<VM-Name>.vmdk”
   e.g.
   “C:\Program Files (x86)\VMware\VMware Server\vmware-vdiskmanager.exe” -r “C:\VMs\TestVM\TestVM.vmdk” -t 0 “D:\VMs\TestVM\TestVM.vmdk”
4. The VM will be converted and copied to the new location with no risk to the original file.
5. Copy the remaining files from the original datastore location (minus the VMDK / vmdk-flat of course).
6. Remove the old VM from your VMware Server/Workstation inventory (don’t delete the originals until you have tested the new VM!).
7. Add the VM back into VMware Server / Workstation using the new datastore location, and start it up, specifying “I moved it” when prompted.
8. Sit back and enjoy the extra space!

Note the same process will work for converting VMDK files between all file types, by simply replacing -t 0 with your preferred option from the list below:

0                   : single growable virtual disk
1                   : growable virtual disk split in 2GB files
2                   : preallocated virtual disk
3                   : preallocated virtual disk split in 2GB files
4                   : preallocated ESX-type virtual disk
5                   : compressed disk optimized for streaming

NOTE: You can also run “<path-to-vmware-install>\vmware-vdiskmanager.exe” -k “<ds-path>\<VM-Name>.vmdk” to shrink your vmdk in place, but you will need enough spare space on the same drive to do this (as much as the current vmdk file size if you don’t gain much), you lose the ability to roll back to your original file, and this wont work on thick provisioned disks.