VCAP-DCD and VCAP-DCA Experience: Straight after the exams (14th and 15th December 2013)

Well first and foremost keeping me glued to 4 long hours to answer series of questions are challenging and reading lengthy scenarios made me exhausted time and time again.

My piece of advice for this is be mentally prepared. A strategy for this might be keep reading a Design book for 4 hour straight without a break. Not even water. Yes! I just said it.

Cuz you are not even to allow to go to washroom nor take water with you...

You get the results of DCD exam there it self unlike DCA Exam you have to wait 14 business days.

It is a literally a marathon!

DCA exam was another challenging experience, I lost precious time trying to figure out how to scroll down the screen.  Every aspect was questioned Network I/O, Auto Deploy, Update manager service. If you are not a hardcore vSphere Admin, then literally know the screens and doing stuff by heart. There is no time for u to check your stuff. My 4 hours just flew just like that.

I think I have to build my speed, and do the lab until u can visualize the screens on your mind.

But the experience was awesome I literally loved the challenge though I was exhausted.

Time to get back to study... Anyways all thanks and praise to Almighty God! Hope he will help me in my next sitting of my exam.

PLEASE DON'T ASK ME WHAT QUESTIONS WERE THERE I AM BOUND TO NDA AGREEMENT.

VCAP-DCA areas where I need improvement:

1. Increase my pace and do the tasks faster, maybe I need to do the same labs 20 times or more
2. Need more experience and more labbing in auto-deploy
3. Need more experience and more labbing in ESXi firewall
4. Need more experience and more labbing on Storage DRS
5. Need more experience and more labbing on Update Manager
6. Keeping HA Heartbeat on a separate network and separate gateway.

VCAP-DCD areas where I need improvement:

1. Train to sit 4 hours straight and do lengthy readings and mentally and physically prepare.
2. Know HA fail over capacity and designs thoroughly.
3. Network design.

How I prepared for DCA exam at FAST PACED APPROACH :

I went through the blueprint if not more or thoroughly, I started watching Jason Nash's Trainsignal Video's in order. But first 2-3 video's I was ending up watching them over and over again, because they were storage concepts and storage related tasks.  And literally I got bored. Besides that because I had booked my exams earlier, the exam dates were nearing closer and closer. The key was to find the momentum to keep watching and learning at the same time. I thought out a strategy to over come this.

I created folders for each blueprint section. I grouped the video's into each folder (section of the blueprint). Started to vetting through the folder which had the least amount of video. So security was the topic had a single video file. Best part is I got into the mood of learning plus labbing and enjoyed it. Then started to find the next least amount of video's I have to cover. Gained momentum and finished almost all the video's and labbing at the same time.

This worked for me in at least gaining the knowledge. I firmly believe every individual has their own ways of preparing... so key is to find out which works best for you.

Where VMware does get a beat down from Hyper-V?

Where VMware does get a beat down from Hyper-V?

I am trying to put down my personal opinion where Hyper-V is gaining ground in the virtualization war at the Pre-Sales meetings that I have sat down. I think the views are important since it is we Pre-Sales Engineers who are at the forefront who are presenting the Pros and Cons of technology.  I was involved in an unbiased discussion (even though I would love to be biased towards VMware) in front of the customer which technology can compensate the business and a cost comparison.

Please note that these views are mostly when I sat at SMB customer discussions. It might be unfair to compare the vSphere Essentials Kits to the System Center Suite. But that’s the customer.

These views might differ from one geographical location to another. But simply put I would personally love to see VMware stay abreast in the game of Virtualization.

Sometimes you cannot do the same thing or say the same thing all over a long period. But making the correct moves and making those moves at the correct time is key.

1. Bundled comprehensive Backup Solution

This is an area of concern where VMware gets a beat down in my opinion where customers tend to think that they get a full Backup Solution for free when they purchase the System Center Suite.

As a Pre-Sales engineer I would love to say “VMware is not a backup vendor” but to realize the vision of “Software Defined Data Centre” a good backup solution is of paramount importance. The experience of VDP 5.1 was not so great. It cannot take backups to the tape drive. Whether we like it or not Customer’s love the word “FREE”. That’s where Microsoft scoring points. I would love to see VDP free edition would solve this problem, or I personally think acquisition of VEEAM will be a great move. (My sole crazy opinion)

2. Customers still buying the “Config Maximum” numbers

Hyper-V might not really be capable of delivering the maximum’s they state, and customers might not even need that kind of monster VM configurations. Still those increased numbers are a buying point for customers  for some reason.

Customers are now smart enough to get the datasheets from the respective websites to compare with the two hypervisors.

3. Like it or not Customers love the word “FREE”

The System Center Suite is appealing to customers since they see as if with one cost they get all other System Center products for FREE. May be its time to see that along with vCenter the Operations Management Suite, Site Recovery Manager, Security and Networking has to be bundled to one package and give out the bundled product as vCenter Management Suite. (I know its not practical but that’s where Microsoft is gaining in my opinion.)

Even though I hate to see this it’s quite appealing to see that you are getting so much more for one price.

• Operations Manager
• Configuration Manager
• Data Protection Manager
• Service Manager
• Virtual Machine Manager
• Endpoint Protection
• Orchestrator
• App Controller

I would wish to iterate that the  above post was my sole personal views and I only want VMware to stay ahead of all other Hypervisor or Virtualization solutions out in the market.

How to get hardware info through ESXi

Have u ever come across where you desperately need some hardware level information of an ESXi host. I did!

I was asked to get how many memory modules were plugged in DIMM slots. My colleague came up saying there is a Linux command to get the info if it was a Linux host.

# dmidecode | less

It works for ESX versions from 3.x to 4.x

But the above command wont work for ESXi versions and has been replaced with below command

# smbiosDump | less

Accessing ESXi Direct Console from an SSH (putty) session

I know this is an old trick, but for those who didnt know how to access the ESXi Direct Console (DCUI) from an SSH session to the host.

Here's how you do it

And voila!

does it look like a familiar screen to you? 

P.S: Ctrl + C to exit out of the screen and resume to your SSH session (If you are using putty)

Amazingly VMware virtual machine powers up with 255 chained snapshots

I thought of sharing an amazing experience with you which took 2 sleepless nights to rectify the issue.

Not because of anything the only downtime we could get is after hours.

I was responsible in rectifying a vm with whopping 255 snapshots that was created with the backup software.

The VMware Global Support Tech stated he has only seen 234 snapshots in his career of support.

Yet the vm would power on the but it was dead slow.

This goes on to show the stability of VMware vSphere Hypervisor.

VDP 5.1 and SRM 5.1 Interoperability

One of the customers I worked for VDP 5.1 and SRM 5.1 running together on the same environment. and caused a vm to run enormous amount of snapshots. VDP caused to lockout the vm after an unsuccessful backup attempt and which causes vMotion and Storage vmotion not to work.

http://kb.vmware.com/selfservice/microsites/search.do?language=en_US&cmd=displayKC&externalId=2008957

VMware Global support then claimed that VDP 5.1 and SRM 5.1 is not in the interoperability list. They have only bought in interoperability from 5.5 onwards.

Dont take my word for it, please go check for yourself

http://partnerweb.vmware.com/comp_guide2/sim/interop_matrix.php

VCAP5-DCA: Objective 1.1

Profile based storage

• Enable vm storage profiles
• Define storage profiles
• Create a vm storage profile
• Assign a capability to a datastore
• Assign a profile to a vm
• Check storage profile compliance

Enable vm storage profiles

Select the cluster and select enable

Define Storage Profiles

Create a vm storage profile

Assigning a capability to a datastore

Assigning a profile to a vm

Checking storage profile compliance

vSphere 5.5 Product New Feature Highlites...

Well I have been touting on another blog what the new version of vSphere and vCloud Suite is going to offer.

Following are some highlites;

Administrative UI (Web Client)
The 2013 Administrative UI is built around improved performance and a more native web applications feel.
• Improved usability and more search filters, along with the introduction of the 'recent object' tabs
help admins find and manager their key objects with fewer clicks.
• The new UI is built to manage larger inventories with a faster response time.
• Faster response time across the entire UI

vSphere Replication

The vSphere Replication release for 2013 adds the following new capabilities:


• Ability to deploy new appliances to allow for replication between clusters and non-shared storage deployments
• Multiple points in time support allows administrators to recover to a previous snapshot thus providing protection from logical corruptions in the application that may have been replicated.
• Storage DRS Interoperability - allows for replicated VMs to be storage vMotioned across datastores with no interruption to ongoing replication
• Simplified Management - Deeper integration into the vSphere Web Client to configure and monitor replication within the VM and vCenter management panes simplifies the management experience for replication
• VSAN interoperability to protect and recover virtual machines running on VSAN datastores
vCenter Orchestrator
With this release, vCenter Orchestrator is greatly optimized for growing clouds because of significant improvements in scalability and high availability. Workflow developers can benefit from a more simplified and efficient development experience provided by the new debugging and failure diagnostic capabilities in the vCenter Orchestrator client.




Virtual SAN 

Virtual SAN is a software-based storage solution built into the hypervisor that aggregates the hosts’ local storage devices (SSD and HDD) and makes them appear as a single pool of storage shared across all hosts.


VMware Virtual Flash (vFlash)

Virtual Machine File System (VMFS) Highlights:
This vSphere version supports > 2TB vdisks (vmdk size). Customers will be able to create vmdks upto 64TB. Large files can now be contained within a single vdisk. vSphere version 5.5 and VMFS 5 is needed to create >2TB vdisk.

vCloud Director
Enhancements in this vCloud Director 5.5 release focus on the Content Catalog, vApp provisioning and lifecycle management, improved OVF import/export functionality and added browser support to include supporting Mac OS.

vCloud Director Virtual Appliance
The vCloud Director beta includes support for the vCloud Director Virtual Appliance to help facilitate PoCs and Evals.
 vCloud Director cell is available in a virtual appliance form factor for quick-and-easy deployment and setup. With the appliance you can choose to use an internal/embedded database or an external database of your choice (Microsoft SQL Server or Oracle).
 As with prior releases, the vCD virtual appliance is available for PoC/Eval use only. For help with deploying and configuring the vCloud Director virtual appliance please see the vCloud Director 5.5 Virtual Appliance Deployment Guide available in the Beta Community.
Content Catalog
This release includes multiple enhancements to the Content Catalog.




vCloud Networking & Security
Networking Enhancements
This release contains two major networking enhancements
Link Aggregation Control Protocol (LACP): Provides increased bandwidth, better load balancing,
improved link level redundancy and easier operations for hypervisor uplinks connected to physical network.
• Today, vSphere5.1 supports a simplified version of LACP with support for single Link Aggregation per host and limited choice of load balancing algorithms.
• LACP in vSphere5.5 allows for a rich choice of over 22 load balancing algorithms and 32 LAGs per host and ensures the largest density of physical NICs can be aggregated.


Security Features
Distributed Firewall is a key service in the Software Defined Datacenter. It secures and isolates workloads inside the virtual environment. Key new features:
Performance: High performance stateful firewall at hypervisor of each host



vCenter Site Recovery Manager 2013 
Feature Highlights: Here are some key features supported in the beta refresh:
• Support for vSAN with vSphere Replication • SDRS / Storage vMotion interoperability • New configuration option to support vSphere Replication Multi-Point-In-Time snapshots during failover

VMware vCenter Multi-Hypervisor Manager (MHM) 1.1
The MHM 1.1 release adds the following new capabilities:
• Support for Microsoft Hyper-V3 hypervisor (as well as Windows 2008 R2 and 2008).

The ability to cold-migrate VMs from Hyper-V to ESX hosts. 

HP's customized ESXi 5.5 image is now available to download

With the new vSphere 5.5 is out HP released its customized ESXi 5.5 image and is ready to download.

http://h18004.www1.hp.com/products/servers/software/vmware/esxi-image.html

Software Defined Storage Technologies are here!

As you might be already aware of the news EMC's latest acquisition of ScaleIO. It is a Israeli startup which has been in stealth mode and suddenly the news breaks up that EMC has bought the company for $300 Million last week.

But before I could hear about the acquistion of ScaleIO, I was hooked onto Nutanix. Nutanix is also a SAN free solution and provides hardware appliances.

The architecture is more or less the same.

Both use the local storage of the servers and present it as a shared storage to the hypervisor.

Yesterday I had the opportunity of contacting ScaleIO and got some insight on how technology really works.

ScaleIO's ECS (Elastic Converged Storage) deploys a virtual appliance on top of VMware Hypervisor, in case of Hyper-V it provides an exe file to abstract the storage from local disks and provides as a shared pool of storage.

I was told that I need at least 3 servers with 3TB storage to run and I was also offered a trial software to try it out.

ScaleIO seems highly scalable as opposed to Nutanix has the limitation of scaling up to 50 Nodes.

A Nutanix node consists of 4 Servers in built.

I am yet to dive in to the technologies but both seems really cool concepts, and can these kill the SAN business of the big boys?

www.scaleio.com
www.nutanix.com

Points to take note of on the DCA blueprint

• 26 lab live tests.

• Live lab activities consist of multiple tasks, where each task is scored.

• The passing score for this exam is 300. The scale is from 100-500.

• Points are awarded for the successful completion of each lab task. Most items on the exam are composed of several tasks, and partial credit is awarded for those tasks that are completed successfully. Candidates can choose to complete a task using different methods, as points are awarded based on successful completion, not on the steps used to complete the task.

• The total time for this exam is 210 minutes.

• If a candidate fails an exam on the first attempt, he or she must wait 14 calendar days from their original appointment time before he or she can register to retake the exam. If a candidate fails the exam twice or more, there is a 30 calendar day period before being able to take the exam again. If a candidate passes the exam, they cannot take the exam again until a new major revision of the product and certification is released.

• The exam consists of a number of tasks that are performed using actual equipment consisting of two ESXi hosts and a vCenter Server virtual machine. A number of pre-configured virtual machines will also be present for use with certain tasks. The lab environment is based on vSphere 5.0.

• The VCAP5-DCA Exam includes troubleshooting tasks. As a result, some components may not be correctly configured, or may not have been configured at all, which is entirely intentional. In addition, some lab tasks are dependent on the successful completion of previous tasks. Every task can be completed successfully, and knowledge of how the task is completed is essential to determine what component or components must be configured or re-configured.

Visit to VMware office in Bangalore 15th May 2013

VMware office from out side.

It's sad that these folks are no more with VMware.

Can you add an ESXi 5.1 host to vCenter 5.0 update 2?

I tried to add a ESXi 5.1 host to the vCenter 5.0 update 2 and I was not successful giving the below error.

Below is the compatibility list.

So ESXi 5.1 is not officially supported and not compatible with vCenter 5.0 update 2.

The initial steps towards the VMware's Vision "Software Defined Data Center" hints emerging

There are some blog posts and official blog posts are emerging these days giving us hints that VMware is getting ready to keep the next steps towards the vision of "Software Defined Datacenter". It's worth reading those to keep ahead of the technology that VMware is trying to aim at.

So it seems VMware has worked along with the latestly acquired Nicira team to bring about the Network virtualization to the next level...

Following are some of the blogposts that I came across...

http://www.cloudmantic.com/vmware-launches-nsx-based-upon-nicira/?goback=%2Egde_51214_member_223211795

http://blogs.vmware.com/console/2013/03/vmware-nsx-network-virtualization.html

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2013/03/14/vmware_nsx_nicira_nerwork_virtualization/

http://www.networkcomputing.com/data-center/vmwares-network-virtualization-plans-cry/240150736

vSphere vMSC (Metro Storage) Cluster with HP Left Hand Storage

Last week I had the opportunity to design a vMSC cluster with HP Lefthand storage for one of the customer.

I will post some resources in the series.

This post will focus on the design aspects of the solution

·         3 dedicated IP networks will be configured:

o   Storage network

o   VM network

o   vMotion network

·         As per the best practices Round Trip Time (RTT) latencies on storage network between sites should not exceed 2 ms RTT.

·         Storage network must support a minimum of 1Gbps throughput between sites.

·         Network connectivity between the Failover Manager (FOM) and the storage nodes should be at least 100mbps and RTT should not exceed 50ms RTT.

·         ESXi hosts in both data centers must have a private network on the same IP subnet and broadcast domains.

·         Any IP’s used on vm must be accessible from both sites.

·         Sites should be connected through a redundant storage network consisting of two physical links.

·         The VMware data stores for the vm’s running in the ESXi Cluster are provisioned on Network RAID 10 volumes.

·         The maximum nodes are supported on the HA cluster is 32 and should not exceed the number.

·         VMware vSphere Enterprise license needs to be used to gain from the Metro vMotion feature.

Provisioned Size, Defined Size of a datastore explained

Last night I had to explain to Server admins as to what all the terms meant by Provisioned size, defined size and used size.

Let me first define the terms of what is Provisioned Size, Defined Size and Used Size is;

We will then better understand what is the situation right now and plus how we should calculate the growth of the disk.

Provisioned Size: Allocated space for (Defined Size at the creation of vm + Overhead + Snapshots)

Defined Size: Is the size we allocate at the creation of the virtual machine

Used Size: Actual used space from the defined space

Since the virtual machines have been defined to use as thin disks it allows us to over allocate space than the space that we have on the datastore.

In this example although we have 300GB datastore, we are able to allocate 532GB for disks using thin provisioning.

vm	Provisioned Size	Defined Size	Used Size
Vm1	102.05	100	14.43
Vm2	156.19	152	68.75
Vm3	46.05	40	16.73
Vm4	88.05	80	63.86
Vm5	84.05	80	39.36
Vm6	84.05	80	39.21
Total	560.44	532	242.34

When we are calculating the the storage we should calculate the defined size and add 25% on top of that for snapshots and overheads.

That’s VMware’s recommendation.