VMware Certified Associate 6 – (VCA6-DCV)

I’ve noticed that VM have recently announced  a number of new retirements (Here) for exams including the VCA certifications that I hold, However apparently VCA certifications are not subject to recertification. I hate the thought of being out date so I am spurned on to update a few of them. There are now a total of 9 VCA certifications 4 for VMware 5 and 5 for Vmware 6. See the VMware site and roadmaps for more info (Here)

So first of all what is the VCA well it’s kind of an entry level qualification for VMware, you simply run through a self-paced CBT that you can return to as often as you want and pick up again or go over a section again, then pass an online exam from Pearson sitting at home rather than going to the test centre. There are different schools of thought as to how valuable a VCA really is however I like the fact it’s an entry level qualification that gives you a stepping stone towards the next, typically a VCP.

The cost of the VCA exams in the UK is £70 +vat so that’s £84, however if you’re a VMUG member that drops by 20% to £56.00 +Vat so £67.20 So don’t forget if that discount is available to you. Which I think is quite reasonable for a qualification to boost anyone’s CV.

I have also been noticing a number of posts on the VCA community’s web site from people saying that they had failed the VCA6-DCV and that they felt there was something wrong with the exam (Here) so I thought I would take a look at the new training material and the Exam.To see more info on the VCA6-DCV see the VMware certification web site (Here)

I must say that the new Data Centre Virtualization Fundamentals [V6] self-paced course was very good, compared to the original VCA Fundamentals courses. It appeared to flow quite well (given the I assume computer generated voices) Its estimated to take 3 hours but I’m a serial note taker, which forms my revision for exams so it probably took me just over 4 x 1 hour stints to get through it. I decided to go straight for the exam the next day and after reading my notes, signed up paid my money and sat the exam. I must say I found it very straight forward and combined with my revision notes and experience I passed it with a score of 380 (The pass mark is 300)

So that gives me VCA number 4 so I think I will try another soon as there are still 5 more to pass. I wonder if anyone else has all 9? Please let me know if you do!

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VMworld 2015 My Session Choices

I haven’t been to VMworld before all thought many years ago I was lucky enough to attend the Novell conference Brainshare a couple of times, once in the USA and once at Barcelona. Rather ironically I have won this ticket as part of the VMware EVO Rail challenge, one of my Novell Brainshare tickets was also won as part of the CNE Challenge.

I thought like other bloggers out there I would make a list of what sessions I have registered for at this year’s VMworld at Barcelona.

First of all I was surprised at how fewer sessions there were at Barcelona compared to San Francisco Now I know that San Francisco is going to be the Home event and weighs in at 5 days and 879 sessions. But Barcelona is just 1 day less at 4 days and yet only has just 379 sessions, Some 500 less. But at least that makes the choosing of sessions slightly easier with less to choose from.

From my point of view I was interested in the hands on labs expert led workshops (ELW) as VMware is not my primary or even my secondary job function in my current role so some course like labs to update my skills is just what I’m looking for. I believe the ELW are usually one of the first sessions to fill up so got in quick on the first day however Barcelona had just 10 compared to 27 in San Francisco. So I’ve managed to get 5 of the workshops in my schedule.

Apart from workshops I’ve tried to focus on sessions I will find useful for work, so as I’m about to roll out AirWatch to my environment that’s a must. I’m also a VDI environment so tried to find a good number of Horizon sessions. I also picked a few NSX sessions as that is currently a hot topic that I’m personally interested in.

Here is the complete listing of my 18 registered sessions.

Expert Led Workshops

• ELW-MBL-1657 — AirWatch – Explore and Deploy Workshop
• ELW-SDC-1603 — VMware NSX Introduction Workshop
• ELW-SDC-1628 — VMware EVO:RAIL Introduction Workshop
• ELW-SDC-1610 — Virtualization 101: vSphere with Operations Management 6 Workshop
• ELW-MBL-1652 — Securely Manage and Deliver Horizon 6 Workshop

AirWatch

• EUC5617 — Take Advantage of AirWatch 8.1: Preview the Latest Release
• EUC5762 — End-to-end Security with AirWatch, NSX and Intelligent Networking
• EUC5791 — Advanced EMM: Your Top 10 Problems Solved
• EUC6105 — What’s New in VMware Identity Manager

Horizon

• EUC5404 — Deliver High Performance Desktops with VMware Horizon and NVIDIA GRID vGPU
• EUC4437 — Horizon View Troubleshooting – Looking Under the Hood
• EUC4509 — Architecting Horizon for VSAN, the VCDX way – VMware on VMware.

NSX

• NET5541 — Introduction to VMware NSX
• NET5560 — VMware NSX – Deep Dive
• NET5612 — NSX for vSphere Logical Load Balacing Deep Dive

VSAN

• STO5906 — Virtual SAN Technical Deep Dive and What’s New
• STO6228 — Monitoring and Troubleshooting Virtual SAN, Current and Future

VCE (I’m a VCE customer)

• SDDC6569-SPO — VCE Converged Solutions for the Software Defined Enterprise

VMworld Barcelona Here I Come

A while ago I posted that one of my colleagues at work won a ticket to VMworld by completing the EVO:Rail Challenge, well not to be outdone I too have managed to complete the challenge in an equally fast time and have won a ticket to VMworld which I am absolutely thrilled about. So thanks to VMware, Barcelona here I come!

Who knows I hope to see my first EVO:rail in the flesh so to speak very soon.

The EVO:Rail Challenge was brought to my attention by a task on Cloudcred Task 2237: EVO: RAIL Challenge Lab although I have to say I’ve probably attempted it over a dozen times now to tune the process!

The EVO:Rail Challenge ends on August 20, 2015 so there is still time to enter and secure yourself a ticket to VMworld so give it a go!

Cloudcred and the Blogger Badge

In the run up to VMworld things are quiet at Cloucred, I’m expecting it to go crazy one we hit August the 30th. But for now we have the current Disaster Recovery challenge but I’ve done all those tasks so have been looking for tasks to get me to 20000 points so I can prestige up to level 6.

I must say that the further I’ve progressed the slower the points have come, I guess that’s as now Im able to keep up with the new tasks finding older ones that I can complete is getting harder, again the benefit of level up does bring the repeatable tasks back, if you can remember them, I do find myself finding tasks and thinking haven’t I done this already.

Initially I set myself the task of getting the available tasks below 1000 which I achieved the other day taking a quick hit on low point tasks such as follow something or comment on a social media site, or download something. So my next point of call was badges. I tend not to focus on badges until they have naturally gained some points, but a quick look at my profile indicated a couple of candidates that were on the way to being completed, so I’ve spent the last couple of days working on the Tech VM badge and blogger badge. The blogger badge is why this blog came about, I decided that I needed to dip my toe in to blogging and discovered wordpress.com as its free. I’ve quickly discovered its limitations however for now it’s doing the job. I’m still looking for points to level up so might have to look at a few more badges, of course there is always triple point Tuesday to look forward to!

less that 1000 to go!