Preparing for VCP...

[spoon_]

What do I need to know?

My employer will most likely pay for the course so I thought - why not!


Any tips/advice before I start buying stuff?

[gman1981]

Have you done a VTSP? Also is your company a VMware Partner?

[Moby-Dick]

Do you have a test/lab environment you can play with ?

VCP isn't too tricky really , eseentially if you read all the PDF's you'll have all the info you need.

The fast track course is good but intensive - you need to take a little time after the course to let it all sink in - especially as there WILL be sections that are examined that you dont use in a day to day basis. ( this is where a test lab can help , but you can't always get everythign running in a lab unless you have your own FC SAN )

Mike Laverick's books are a very good start , but if you fancy somethign online , then one of the best resources is Simon Long's Blog http://www.simonlong.co.uk/blog/ I know Simon from the VMware users groups and he's just got a job with vmware themselves , so knows what he's talking about

If you want to join a bit of a study group then there is a series called the "brown bags" - this actually comes from a Us office term , but dont let that put you off the guys that run it are really helpfull.

http://professionalvmware.com/vcpbrownbag/

If you fancy some extra training videos then the Trainsignal Series for Vmware is about the best there is.

you might find one or two other things on the blog roll on my site , which can help out

www.jfvi.co.uk </shameless plug>

[Moby-Dick]

Originally Posted by gman1981

Have you done a VTSP? Also is your company a VMware Partner?

I havn't but then again I dont work for a reseller just a couple of VCP's and VCAP-DCA ( If I pass it )

[gman1981]

Good advice from Moby-Dick. Reason I ask about VTSP is that it is quite a good basis and if your a partner it's free and online. Get's you introduced to all the different parts.

[spoon_]

Originally Posted by gman1981

Have you done a VTSP? Also is your company a VMware Partner?

In very short - no and no...

@Moby-Dick

Thanks very much for your advise.

I haven't got FC SAN, well I do at work but can't really play with that much [used in production]

At home I have iSCSI SAN on my NAS and self build M-ATX Open Filer box.

I was thinking about using my i7 rig to do all my lab work on, 12GB of RAM and 4 RAIDed Raptors should be sufficient?

[Moby-Dick]

thats plenty - I use nested ESXi in workstation with an openfiler VM for storage. you might also want to try the EMC Cellera VSA too ( play with NFS )

http://nickapedia.com/2010/05/19/bes...a-vsa-uber-v2/

[spoon_]

Thanks for that Moby.

Where did you book your "VMware authorised course"?

I need this info to pass on to my employer so they can pay for it [they better!]

Obviously the cheaper the better, prices seem to be all over the place...

Checked just few and it spans from 2 to 3k...

[pardal51]

My employer paid my course with QA (London).

I have spent around £1K in a home lab with 3x Proliant ML115G5 (2x ESXi4 + 1x Openfiler). It is great and you can do everything, vMotion, HA, FT, etc. I do suggest a home lab. I am still studying to take the the VCP410 exam, i.e., books, pdfs, forums, homelab, etc

I think it is good to have a solid knowledge of the technology/product. The guy in my company who is in charge of virtualisation has basically advised me to get exam cheat files, which for me is a waste of time. Needless to say he probably will stay in this company forever.

this is also a great website: http://www.techhead.co.uk/

Cheers

[Moby-Dick]

Originally Posted by spoon_

Thanks for that Moby.

Where did you book your "VMware authorised course"?

I need this info to pass on to my employer so they can pay for it [they better!]

Obviously the cheaper the better, prices seem to be all over the place...

Checked just few and it spans from 2 to 3k...

I went via QA as well - did the fast track. It was intensive but packed with value.

re: techhead - its a great site, Simon has got a lot of info on the home lab stuff and a coupel of handy discount codes for home kit too. The only thing I can't do in my virtualised lab is FT , but its not rocket science

[mark19632]

I did the non-intensive course thought QA and reviewed the tech docs to revise for mine.

It defiantly helps if you have the practical experiance for the exam.

For a test lab vSphere will install on a VM so you can run a fully functional environment off one bit of hardware.



Mark

[spoon_]

I'm gonna do with via QA as well. I've passed the figures to my employer so they can pay for it.

Trainsignal videos are very good so far!

David Davies is brilliant in explaining things.

How did you guys get full versions of vSphere/vCenter? I have only used ESXi free before and wondering...

Or is 60 day trial enough to do everything?

[Moby-Dick]

60 day trials should be enough - a bit of rebuild practise isn't always a bad thing

[pardal51]

I will upgrade to ESXi4.1 this week, as I just upgraded my vcenter to 4.1 this weekend.

TS videos are good. PDF documentation from VMware is also very good. ESXi4 community forum is great.

Do agree with Moby 60-day trial/rebuild exercise.

[dirky]

vCenter4.1 needs to go on 64bit OS now, IIRC from the latest release docs

[Moby-Dick]

Originally Posted by dirky

vCenter4.1 needs to go on 64bit OS now, IIRC from the latest release docs

It does - I'm glad I put my 4.0 box on a 64 bit VM