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My experience with VCAP5-DCD exam

11 June 2012
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Reading Time: 3 minutes

Last week I’ve taken the official VCAP5-DCD, to remediate the failure of the VCAP5-DCD beta and  try to gain this certification.

The exam is really huge: The VDCD510 exam contains 100 questions (in the beta 131). The total time for this exam is 225 minutes (same of the beta). Candidates who take the VDCD510 exam in a country where English is not a primary language will have an additional 30 minutes added to the exam time. This time extension is automatic, no additional action is required from the candidate.

There were jsut a few questions with a single answers (from 4-5 options), and the options were quite similar (so also those questions were not too easy). Bust most of the questions were a mixture of multiple-choice (with more answers) and drag-and-drop items. The “visio” questions (design items using an in-exam design tool) were more than one (in my case I think to remember 5) and require several time, to read the text and also to use the tool (I still hope an improvement at least in the connectors stencil to have a sticky function or keep selected).

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vCertification, vDesign ,

Storage for VDI: local or shared?

Reading Time: 4 minutes

In my interview with Sakthi Chandra (NexentaVSA for View Director), during the last Open Storage Summit EMEA, we have talk about the Nexenta approach of the storage for a VDI environment. Their product has been developed from a collaboration with VMware and some aspects sound familiar: for example the overview of the VSA deployment and design seems similar to the VMware VSA, except the scalability limit (that is limited to max 3 host for the VMware solution). But I don’t want talk about the product, yet (I prefer dedicate it a post, when I will be able to make some test), but about the approach: using local storage instead of shared storage.

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vStorage

Veeam Backup & Replication 6.1

Reading Time: 2 minutes

Most of you have notice that there was a page on Veeam site (Something Awesome is coming) with a countdown: on June 4th they have announcing *something*.

It’s the new version of Veeam Backup & Replication 6.1 that add several enhancements from the v6.0:

  • VeeamZIP: a new capability for performing ad-hoc backups. In many ways, it functions like a zip utility for VMs. For this reason, it’s called VeeamZIP™.
  • New console with a “Ribbon Design”: while wizards and dialogs (which account for 90% of the user interface) haven’t changed, it’s now easier to get to them.
  • vPower for Hyper-V: v6.1 extends Veeam’s patent-pending vPower® technology—as well as Instant VM Recovery—to Hyper-V. vPower runs a VM directly from a compressed and deduplicated backup file on regular backup storage. You can run a VM from any restore point (full or incremental), without changing the backup. vPower enables Instant VM Recovery, which lets you restart a failed VM from a regular backup in as little as 2 minutes.
  • Additional enhancements: in Intelligent load balancing, Engine, Backup, Replication, VM copy, VM migration, File-level restore, User interface…

But probably the most interesting point is the Veeam Backup Free Edition, that replace the “old” FastSCP free tool. The free mode provides a subset of the functionality in the full (paid) editions of Veeam Backup & Replication, including VM and file recovery. So if you ever need to perform a restore but don’t have access to a Veeam backup server, you can simply download and install Veeam Backup Free Edition. You don’t need a license key, and you can recover VMs, VM files and guest files. The new VeeamZIP capability is the backup method of this edition.
Veeam Backup Free Edition also includes file management capabilities. For this reason, it is sometimes referred to as “the New FastSCP™.

vBackup, Veeam ,

VMware vExpert gift and certificates

Reading Time: < 1 minute

Finally I also have received the vExpert 2011 gift and certificates for the 2010 and 2011 period. Thanks again to VMware for recognizing me as a vExpert for 2010 and 2011 and thanks go out to Alex Maier and John Troyer for making sure we got some really nice stuff.

And, of course, thanks also for the vExpert 2012 nomination!

General

Manage a network load balancer with System Center VMM 2012

Reading Time: < 1 minute

In the fabric section of System Center VMM 2012 is also possible add external hardware network load balancers and manage, in a similar way as a storage array can be added and managed. But in this case there isn’t a standard interface to remote manage the devices and each vendor must make available a supported “provider” that is just the management software part for the integration with VMM.

Actually the supported devices are:

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Microsoft, vNetworking ,

Manage a Dell PowerVault array with System Center VMM 2012

Reading Time: 3 minutes

In the previous post I’ve described how System Center VMM 2012 can handle and manage some storage compatible with the SMI-S interface.

Now I’ll explain how connect an old Dell PowerVault MD3000i (but of course works also with recent models) using the SMIA (SMI Application) package that actually is not available as a standalone package, but it’s only included in the VMware vCenter Center integration (MD Storage Array vCenter Plug-in). You can simple adapt it to work also for SCVMM.

First you have to download the binary (there are a 32 bit and 64 bit versions) and installed on a supported OS (Windows Server 2003, 2008 or 2008 R2). Of course it can run inside a VM.

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Microsoft, vStorage ,

Manage a storage array with System Center VMM 2012

Reading Time: 2 minutes

One of the interesting features of System Center Virtual Machine Manager 2012 is that it can handle several other objects and not only the VM (when the name will be changed to reflect this?).

Of course it can handle hosts (not only Hyper-V hosts), but also networking and storage. All those resource are in the “fabric” tab. In this case we see a storage array with its LUNs:

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Microsoft, vStorage ,
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