Just like last year, I got up really early and caught a 06:40 am flight from Bergen to Oslo to attend the VMware Forum. A couple of things have changed since the last time, one of them being the venue.

This time around it was held at Ullevaal Business Class, and the venue itself worked great for a one day conference like this, divided into three sections, two for parallel sessions and one for the exhibitor area.

One of the other changes from last year, is that I now work for a VMware Partner, who was also a Platinum Sponsor of the event. This was my first event working for a partner, and I even had booth duty! Talking with customers in a partner setting is quote different from being a customer yourself, so that was interesting in an of itself. Sadly this also meant that I missed most of the sessions, but I did manage to catch the keynote by Brian Gammage, VMware´s Chief Market Technologist.

I even got a “1-on-1″ session with Mr. Gammage, accompanied with a couple of my colleagues from EVRY Consulting, which was really interesting to say the least. Listening to someone extremely knowledgeable and visionary, in a small non-speaking setting was an eye-opener with regards to how VMware sees the future of end user computing. Sadly I can´t go into details about it, but I´m confident that VMware has a strategy in the works that might just surprise more than a few people.

Unfortunately this “1-on-1″ session collided with both Joel Lindberg´s and Lee Dilworth´s sessions, so I didn´t catch any of those, which in reality was the two sessions I was looking most forward to beforehand. Also, what´s up with scheduling both those sessions against each other, that sounds like a bit of bad planning from the organizing committee.

I did however get to meet both of them in the exhibition area, even if only ever so briefly. I also met up with both Vegard Sagbakken and Stein Willhelmsen from VMware, Mike Beevor from Whiptail and Linus Svensson from Veeam.

All in all I think VMworld Forum 2012 in Oslo was a step in the right direction compared to last year, but it´s still not a very technical event and I don’t´really think it is supposed to be. Perhaps my expectations for it last year were a bit high, and this year they might just have been a bit to low.

Oh, I even spotted Cody Bunch´s Automating vSphere with VMware vCenter Orchestrator book in the wild!

Christian Mohn

My little pet project VCDX Wannabe has now (finally) gone live. For now it´s mostly a collection of links and resources, but that will change over time.

So, if you want to see me (and possibly a few others) either go down in flames, kicking and screaming, or succeed obtaining the VCDX certification you now have the opportunity to do so.

Christian Mohn

Since the vCenter Client no longer is bundled with an ESXi host installation, I´ve compiled a quick list of direct download URLs for a couple of the clients. Remember, the client is still available from the vCenter server, if you point your browser to it.

Another way of getting hold of the client is from the vCenter ISO file downloadable from vmware.com.

Christian Mohn

Like many others I was a VCP 4 and needed to upgrade to VCP 5 by Feb 29th to avoid a pricey class and possible ribbing from my peers.  I was well aware of this deadline since mid December, however, I procrastinated on studying and was mostly flinging myself around the globe doing implementations and having an all around good time.  When Feb 1st came I was sitting on a flight from Saigon to Frankfurt and that is when panic struck.  I realized I had until the end of the month to finish the requirement.  I instantly pulled out my iPad and began frantically combing thru the VCP 5 Blueprint and reading countless documents over the 12+ hour flight.

When I returned home that is when I really began to crack the books.  When I was too tired to keep reading official vSphere Docs or playing in my lab Cody Bunch’s Professional VMware Brownbags were perfect to sit and listen and absorb some info.  It was really helpful as they go thru each point of the specific objective of the day and also get some insight from some guests who had already taken the exam.  Another great resource is Andrea Mauro’s vInfrastructure VCP 5 notes - there was tons of helpful information there.  Also not to be forgotten is MW Preston’s VCP 5 resources.  Finally, I would never study for a VCP exam without using the great practice exams available from Simon Long of the SLOG Blog.  While there are many other great resources available there are too many to list here as this is an experience post.

So after combing thru all these resources hours per night for a couple of weeks I finally booked my exam for Feb 28th.  Then that is when the nerves really set in.  I started to doubt if with 3 weeks of studying I had prepared enough or if I was going to be surprised with a lot of new content.  So I pushed on and continued reading and possibly obsessing over particular objectives I was not 100% comfortable with until the days ran out.

Test day I left work after lunch and drove to the test center.  During check in I was a bit nervous and began having trouble speaking Swiss German to the testing center staff.  I sat down and first took the survey which made me even more nervous knowing the test was coming soon.  When the test began and I got thru the first 20 questions and my nerves began to lighten.  I realized all the vSphere 5 implementations I did recently along with reading up on some of the new features was the ticket.  Without getting to much into details as I am bound by NDA, this exam was more about knowing the product and working with it on a day to day basis rather than straight memorization.  For the VCP 4 I remember spending countless hours memorizing Configuration Maximums and other things that promptly left my head after the test was completed.  After all that is what the Configuration Maximum documents are for!

In conclusion I think that for actual Virtualization professionals that have their hands on the product everyday VCP 5 is much easier than VCP 4.  In the end I only spent an hour and 10 minutes on the exam and passed with a score I was highly pleased with.  My message to current VCP 4 holders is go ahead in and take a shot at the exam.  You might be pleasantly surprised with how VMware has changed the structure of their exams.

Ed Czerwin

Now there is an ambitious post title if there ever was one, but it seems fitting as the next 12 months promises to be my most ambitious professional year to date.

Like Neil, I´ve started a journey that could either crash and burn, or end up with my very own personal moon landing.

Those of you that follow my antics on Twitter already know what I´m talking about, but I´ll spell it out once and for all:

I´ve decided to go for the VCDX certification, and hopefully complete it within a timeframe of about 12 months.

With my new role as a Senior Consultant for EVRY, certifications all of a sudden play a major role in my day to day work, so why not go all in and go for the top? I´ve been considering this for a while, but the last few months have solidified the idea that I should just go gung-ho and aim for the stars.

So here I am, sticking my neck out and making this public knowledge. I´ll try my best to stick to the plan newly accredited VCDX Hugo Phan published after his defense.

In much of society, research means to investigate something you do not know or understand.

Neil Armstrong

So there you have it, this norwegian has lost his mind and (for now) lives to tell about it. Wish me luck, I am certainly going to need it.

Christian Mohn

I´ve mentioned this earlier, VMware hands-in labs going public in 2012, but finally it seems like something is happening in that regard!

Scott Sauer has announced the availability of “VMware Virtual Customer Labs” (vCL) where he walks us through the setup and delivery of the new vCL offering.

At the moment it´s only available to “selected customers”, supported by a VMware pre-sales engineer, and the number of labs are limited. It´s still a work in progress, and I´m sure great things will come out of this!

Now, how do I get access to it as a partner? Also, I wonder what possibilities that lies in this with regards to alternative VCP requirements?

Christian Mohn

In a recent article, VCP 5 certification course deadline looms over VMware pros both vNinja.net contributors (Christian and Ed) are quoted in relation to the VCP 5 certification upgrade deadline of February 29th 2012.

While I can´t speak for Ed, I can clarify my own comments a bit. The following is a quote from VMware, taken from the article in question:

“That requirement is in place to maintain the integrity of the certification. If people could pass the VCP 5 without exposure to and hands-on experience with vSphere 5, it would devalue the certification,” a VMware spokesperson wrote in an email.

While I do see why VMware has that stance, and why they try to keep the exam “real”, my problem is that there is no way for anyone to do the VCP certification without classroom training. I don´t mind that VMware has a training requirement, and I don´t mind that you have to pay for it. What I do have a problem with is that I´m required to sit a 5 day training class. Why not offer an online VCP-prep course that you can complete in your own pace, complete with a pre-exam test that you can use to validate your skill set? That way VMware can still require a minimum of training pre-exam, get paid for it, and students can do their training in their own pace and when they have available time for it. Seems like a win-win (bingo!) situation to me?

As far as I´ve heard the VCP5 exam focuses less on minimum and maximum configuration limits than the VCP4 which is a good thing, but at the same time I don´t think the Install, Configure and Manage course by itself is enough to pass the exam, so in essence VMware is already “devaluing” their own exam by requiring training that does not cover the entire curriculum.

The hands-on requirement is a good one, and I applaud it, the best way to ensure that would be to turn the VCP exam into a hands-on-lab environment where you get tasks to complete, instead of multiple choice questions.

Disclaimer: I have not yet tried to do the VCP 5 exam and I´m only commenting based on feedback provided by others who have.

As far as the time available for existing VCPs to upgrade from VCP4 to VCP5, I also believe the timeframe is too short, and to be completely honest I don´t really see why there should be a time limit at all? After all, if you have the VCP4, you pretty much know what you´re in for with regards to the VCP5. Why rush it, and have people attempt to upgrade before they are ready? Let people do this on their own, in their own schedule, I don´t see how VMware benefits from enforcing a timeframe at all. Unless the motivation is selling more training, of course.

Christian Mohn

Eric Siebert has opened up the voting for the top VMware & virtualization blogs. Head on over and cast your votes!

Votes for vNinja.net and vSoup.net would be greatly appreciated, but since we´re not affiliated with the Dutch vMaffia we promise that you will not have to wear concrete boots or wake up to a horses head in your bed if you don´t vote for us.

We think.

Christian Mohn

As Mr. Simon Seagrave has pointed out, there is a fix available to enable OSX Lion Time Machine support for Iomega IX2 and IX4 NAS storage devices.

I decided to take this a little step further, and try to upgrade my old (and discontinued) Iomega IX2-200 to the new IX2-200 Cloud Edition firmware.

Initially this was a big failure, as I seemingly managed to brick my device. It was only responding to pings (so the TCP/IP stack was loaded and working), but I could not bring up the web based management tool nor connect via telnet or SSH.

Thankfully Will van Antwerpen had investigated the firmware upgrade to cloud edition a bit more than I had, and pointed me to the General NAS-Central Forums where I found a link to a great HowTo explaining the entire process: Upgrading Iomega ix2-200 to Cloud Edition.

As that article also mentions, I had to do the process twice to get it to kick in and un-brick my IX2-200 and get it running with the new Cloud Edition firmware.

After configuring the IX2 with security and setting up Time Machine on the Macbook Air, Time Machine seems to be running without problems.

<MrBurns>Excellent</MrBurns>

Christian Mohn

My new colleague Olav Tvedt asked me if I could test his method of enabling Bitlocker in a VM, on VMware vSphere. Of course, I was happy to oblige.

I followed the same steps as he did in his Running Bitlocker on a Virtual computer post, and it worked perfectly.

The only real difference between doing this in Hyper-V and on ESXi, is that the virtual floppy drive on ESXi by default doesn’t emulate an empty floppy. So, in order to mount a virtual floppy you need to create a new floppy image. Thankfully the vSphere Client can do this for you!

To use the vSphere Client to create a floppy image you can later mount in a VM, you need to edit a VM’s settings. Find the floppy drive, if the VM doesn’t have one add one, close the window and return to the VM settings once the floppy drive has been added, and select “Create new floppy image in datastore: “.

Click on the Browse button and browse to your preferred location for the floppy image. Name it, and click on Ok.

Click on Ok again to close the VM settings window and return to the vSphere Client.

There you go, an empty virtual floppy image that you can mount in a VM is now created.

To mount the image, find the floppy drive icon in the vSphere client and select the Connect to floppy image on a datastore option.

Browse to the location where you created the floppy image, and select it.

Now, the VM has an empty floppy that you’ll need to format before you can use it.

Follow Olav’s guide to encrypt the boot drive with Bitlocker, without the need for a TPM chip or USB device connected to the VM!

And yes, it works as you can see here:

So much for never needing a floppy disk again. Oh, and by the way, you can of course do this is VMware Workstation 8 as well.

Christian Mohn