VMware’s VCAP-CIA : live lab vCloud Director exam released

VMware updated their website today listing the availability of the VCAP-CIA exam. If you are familiar with the VCAP-DCA exam, this is the vCloud Director version. You will receive a series of questions (32 per the blueprint), remote access to a live environment to perform the tasks in and 210 minutes to complete the tasks. Check the blueprint for the complete list of exam objectives but note that vCenter Chargeback 2.5 is on there along with version 5.1 of the vCloud Suite.

The exam is priced at $400 in the US like all VCAP exams. Passing this exam will inherit the VCP-Cloud certification if you don’t already hold it. You need to hold VCP4/5 (VCP4-DCV/VCP5-DCV) or VCP-Cloud to get authorized for the VCAP-CIA exam.

Demonstrate your ability to actually manage a Cloud hands-on and not just answer multiple choice questions!

Head over to the CIA LinkedIn Group to discuss your study plans.

Get the blueprint.
Get authorized.
Get scheduled.

50% off VCP level exams

All VCP-level exams are 50% off if you use promo code VCP50.

No word yet on how long the code will last, but you can sign up months in advance of taking the exam (and can call Pearon and reschedule later as needed)

virtuallyGhetto’s list of passwords

http://www.virtuallyghetto.com/2013/01/vcloud-suite-virtual-appliances.html

A great list of VMware vCloud appliances and their default passwords and database info. Appliances only so no Chargeback, etc but a great resource for the DIY crowd.

New VCP-Cloud exam available for existing VCP-Cloud certification.

Got Cloud but not a VCP (now VCP5-DV)? VMware has just launched a new exam VCP-Cloud which (along with a qualifying class) will grant a candidate the status of VCP-Cloud.

There has been a VCP-IaaS exam out previously that was aimed at existing VCP holders to demonstrate their Cloud knowledge.

The new exam is aimed at new users who are dedicated to the vCLoud suite. If you examine the blueprint for VCP-Cloud and compare it to the VCP-IaaS and VCP5-DV blueprints you’ll see it looks like a joining of the two blueprint objectives lists – however reading through the first 8 sections of VCP-Cloud you’ll see much of the teeth from VCP5-DV have been removed, leaving the fundamental knowledge of vSphere needed by a VCP-Cloud candidate. The IaaS sections are mostly unchanged.

The VCP-CLoud exam covers vCD 5.1, and vSphere 5.x

Thin Provisioning a LeftHand P4000

While building out a demo environment I had cause to thin-provision already thin-provisioned storage (that might be on a thin-provisioned array. Don’t try this in production!)

The issue was a pre-configured LeftHand P4000 appliance providing iSCSI LUNs to nested ESXi hosts, and needing to present 1.5TB worth of LUNs on an appliance that only has 120GB total and 80GB available.

I needed to create the additional LUNs without affecting the existing LUNs and ensure that one LUN filling up won’t kill all of the LUNs.

Step one is creating the new LUN (called a “volume” in the LeftHand GUI) and then locating the “Thin” setting on the advanced tab.

Once the new LUNs are created, I wanted to be sure that someone filling up one would not affect the others. Without some guarantee of space, if someone wrote 80GB to the 1TB LUN no other thin provisioned LUN could be written to. Enter the commandline “CLIQ“
The command modifyVolume name=volumename reserveQuote=size will set a minimum threshhold for that LUN. It defaults to 512MB and I want to adjust it so that at least 20GB can be written to it. Don’t forget to include the size after the numberic (GB/MB/KB)
So : modifyvolume volumename=LUN6 reservequota=20GB
sets my new thin provisioned LUN6 volume to have at least 20GB reserved for writes. Repeat for all thin LUNs to ensure each has some writable space.

Free Official VMware training

http://vmwarelearning.com launched some time back, but the seminars offered keep improving and there are now over 100 videos offered (that number includes localizations however).

Products covered include:
vSphere 5.1 (8 videos) (why vSphere has a 5.0 and a 5.1 category when the other products mix versions inside one catagory is a mystery)
vCloud Director (13 videos)
vFabric/spring (5 videos)
View (16 videos)

The videos run from 5-15 minutes long and feature VMware Certified Instructors, Product Managers and other VMware employees that really know their stuff. This is a great way to get quick official training on wide degree of VMware products.

vSphere vmk ping reply update in 5.1

There is a new KB Article out from VMware discussing a change in how the kernel managed ICMP replies.
If you’ll recall some ISCSI vendors needed workarounds for how replies worked in previous releases. The issue was the reply would return from the lowest numbered vmk rather than the receiving vmk.

It looks like this has been resolved for 5.1. If you ping a private-LAN vmk interface you’ll get a reply back from the same interface – provided you are on the same network as the VMK interface and don’t require routing from it. Provided you’re not routing your iSCSI/NFS traffic you’re in business.

The Equallogic paper referenced has not been updated to address this change yet.