Tag Archives: vcap

How to validate VMware Certifications

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It seems of late there is more and more people claiming to be VCDX as well as VCAP when they are not. This to me shows the people have no integrity and I would not want to work with a person who lied about a certification to try and get a job.

Luckily there is an easy way to validate if a person has a certification or not.

For VCDX its super easy, visit http://vcdx.vmware.com and enter the persons First Name, Last Name , VCDX Number or Company and you can quickly find out if they are VCDX or not.

See example below:

findvcdx1

Another way is to have the person login to http://mylearn.vmware.com and open their transcript. The transcript shows all VMware certifications including VCA , VCP, VCAP , VCIX and VCDX.

The following shows part of my transcript which shows VCDX, VCAP and VCP certs inc:

  • VMware Certified Design Expert – Cloud
  • VMware Certified Advanced Professional – Cloud Infrastructure Administration
  • VMware Certified Professional – Cloud

certshare

You will also see the “Share” button, what this does is allow you to give a URL to a prospective employer or recruiter for them to validate your certification/s.

To use this facility, simply click the “Share” button and you will be prompted with a window similar to the below:

ShareYoureCert

This gives you two options:

1. Share the PDF version of your certificate with anyone by simply copy and pasting the URL.

You will see something similar to this:

ecertpdf

2. Share the Certification Authentication form URL and Code and allow anyone to check the current status of your certification.

The following is what you will see when you click the Authentication Form button:

authcert

Simply type the random numbers and click Authenticate and you will see something similar to the below:CertFound

Simple as that!

I hope this post helps potential employers and recruiters validate candidates credentials and stamp out this growing trend of people claiming they have VMware certifications (especially VCDX) when they don’t.

My VCAP5-CIA Experience

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Yesterday (21st July 2014) I sat and passed the VMware Certified Advanced Professional Cloud Infrastructure Administration (VCAP5-CIA) exam at my local test centre here in Melbourne, Australia.

As with the VCAP-DCA which I did as a prerequisite for VCDX back in 2011, the CIA exam is a live lab exam where VMware get you to demonstrate your hands on expertise with their products.

I find the value of the VCDX, is in part due to the fact it is a requirement to have not only “Design” but hand-on implementation/administration/troubleshooting experience as it is my opinion a person should not be an architect unless that person has the hands on experience and ability to implement and support the solution as designed.

So, enough rambling, what did I think of the VCAP-CIA?

As with all VMware certifications, the exams are generally well written and closely aligned to the blueprints which VMware provide. For VCAP-CIA the blueprint and exam registration can be found here.

The VCAP-CIA was no different, and aligned very well to the blueprint.

The exam is 210 minutes and has 32 questions some of which are simple 1 min tasks where others require a significant amount of work. One secret to all VCAP exams is you are challenged not only by the questions, but by the clock as time is the enemy. This makes time management essential. Do not get caught up of one question, if your unsure, do your best and move on.

Be ware some questions are dependant on successfully completion of earlier questions, but in saying that, a lot of questions are not, so don’t be afraid to skip questions if your struggling as you will still be able to complete many other questions.

The actual live lab in the exam consists of seven ESXi hosts, three vCenter Server virtual machine, four VMware vCloud™ Director (vCD) cells plus additional supporting resources. The lab has a number of pre-configured vApps and virtual machines will also be present for use with certain tasks. It is importaint to understand the lab environment is based on VMware vCloud Suite 5.1 and vCenter Chargeback Manager 2.5, not vCloud 5.5 so ensure you study and prepare using the correct versions of vCloud/vCB!

At this stage some of you may be thinking, I just breached the NDA telling the world about the exam? Well I haven’t and this is the beauty of how VMware does their exam blueprints, the above information is all available in the blueprint so there is not trickery or secrecy to the lab.

As for the questions in the VCAP-CIA, you will not get a brain dump out of me, but what I can tell you is the questions are in most cases very clear and what is asked of the candidates is vastly skills that anyone with any significant vCD experience would be familiar with. For example, the blueprint under Objection 1.2 – Configure vCloud Director for scalability, states under skills and abilities:

 Generate vCloud Director response files
 Add vCloud cells to an existing installation using response files
 Set up vCloud Director transfer storage space
 Configure vCloud Director load balancing

Its safe to say if you know the blueprint properly, you will be able to complete the tasks in the exam, and as a result, get a passing score.

Now the bad news!

Being based in Melbourne, Australia, and the live lab is being accessed by RDP to a location in Seattle, USA. So what does this mean, Latency!

I was only able to complete about 2/3rd’s of the questions in large part due to the delay in the screen refreshing after switching between for example the vCD web interface and production documentation, Putty etc.

On that point, all the PDF and HTML documentation is available in the exam, but I would highly recommend you don’t rely on it, because accessing the doco and searching/scrolling for things is very slow, at least it was for me.

I had numerous occasions where the screen would totally freeze which was a concern, but I soon accepted this was a latency issue, and the lab was fine, and waited out the freezes (which varied from a few seconds to around 20 seconds, which feels like hours when your against the clock!)

I have heard from numerous other VCAP-CIA who sat the exam in the Australia/NZ region that they experienced the same issues, so if you are A/NZ based, or any location a long way from the USA, be prepared for this.

Now being a live lab, the exam is not scored on the spot, and you have to wait for VMware to score the exam and then you will receive an electronic score report via email. The exam receipt says 15 business days, but I was very impressed that less than 24 hours after sitting the exam, I got my score report. Obviously VMware education have done a great job in automating the scoring process, which is a credit to them!

Overall, the experience of the VCAP-CIA was very good, the exam/questions are a solid test of vCloud related skills and experience, so great work VMware Education!

I am very pleased to have completed this exam and all prerequisites for VCDX-Cloud (VCP-Cloud, VCAP-CID and VCAP-CIA) and I will be submitting my application in the near future.

VCDX Defence Essentials – Part 2 – Preparing for the Design Scenario

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Following on from Part 1 – Preparing for the Design Defence, Part 2 covers my tips for the Design Scenario part of the VCDX defence.

After a short break following your 75min Design defence, your neck deep in the Design Scenario. You are presented with a scenario which you need to demonstrate your abilities to gather requirements and while you will not be able to complete a design in 30mins, you should be able to demonstrate the methodology you use to start the process.

As mentioned in Part 1, I am not a official panellist and I do not know how the scoring works. The below is my advice based on conducting mock panels, the success rate of candidates I have conducted mock panels with and my successfully achieving VCDX on the 1st attempt.

Common Mistakes

1. Not gathering and identifying requirements/constraints & risks

The design scenario is very high level, and does not provide you with all the information required to be able to properly start a design. Not identifying and clarifying requirements/constraints and risks will in most cases prevent a candidate from successfully being able to start the design process.

Note: The word “Start” is underlined! You can’t start a design without knowing what your designing for… so don’t make this mistake.

2. Not documenting the requirements/constraints & risks

Assuming you have not made Mistake #1, and you have gathered and clarified the requirements/constraints & risks, the next mistake is not to write them down. I have seen many candidates do an excellent job of gathering the information, to then fall in a heap because they waste time asking the same questions over again because the have forgotten the details.

30 mins is not a long time, you cannot afford to waste time repeating questions.

3. Going down a rabbit hole

I have observed many candidates who are clearly very knowledgeable, who have spent 10-15 mins talking about one topic, such as HA and going into admission control options and pros/cons, isolation response etc. They demonstrated lots of expertise, but this did not help getting as much progress as possible into a design within the time constraint.

The design may be excellent in one key area (eg: HA) but severely lacked in all other areas, which would certainly led to a low score in the design scenario.

4. Not adjusting to changes

The information given to you in the design scenario may not always be correct and may even change half way through the design. Just like in a customer meeting, the customer doesn’t always know the answers to your questions, and may give you an incorrect answer, or simply not know the answer, then later on, realise they gave you incorrect information and correct themselves.

I deliberately throw curve-balls into mock design scenarios and I have observed several times a candidate be say 25 mins into the design scenario and this happens, and they failed to adjust for whatever reason/s.

5. Being Mute!

I have seen candidates who stand starring at the whiteboard, or drawing away madly, while completely mute. Then after 5-10 mins of drawing/thinking candidates then talk about what they came up with.

Do you stand in customer meetings mute? No! (Well, you shouldn’t!)

 

Tips for the Design Scenario

1. Clarify the Requirements/Constraints

Start by clarifying the information that has been provided to you. The information provided may be contradictory, so get this sorted before going any further.

2. Write the requirements/constraints & risks on the Whiteboard

Once you have clarified a piece of information that has been provided to you, write it on the whiteboard under section heading, such as:

a) Requirements

b) Constraints

c) Risks

d) Assumptions

Now, you can quickly review these items, without having to remember everything and if a curve-ball is thrown at you, you can cross out the incorrect information and write down the correct info and this may assist you modifying your design to cater for the changed requirement/constraint etc.

As you work through the scenario, you may be able to clarify an assumption, so you can remove it as an assumption/risk, this shows your working towards a quality outcome.

3. Write down your decisions!

Ensure you address each of the key areas of a vSphere solution by writing on the whiteboard headings like the following:

a) Storage

b) Networking

c) Compute

d) Availability

e) Datacenter

Ensure you write down at least 3 items per section, so you are covering off the entire environment.

As you make a design choice, write it down, eg: under storage, you may be recommending or constrained to use iSCSI, so write it down. iSCSI / Block storage.

So, aim to have 5 section headings like the above examples, and at  least 3 items per heading by the end of 30 mins. If you do the math, that’s only 6 mins per section, or 2 mins per item so make them count.

eg: Availability does not just mean N+1 vSphere cluster, what about say, environmental items such as UPS? A successful VCDX level design is not just about vSphere.

4. Verbalize your thought process.

I cannot give you advise, if I don’t know what your thinking! Same with the panellists, they can’t score you if you don’t verbalize your thought process.

No matter what, keep thinking out loud, if your working through options in your mind, that’s what the panel want’s to hear, so let them hear it!

If you are mute for a large portion of the 30 mins, the lower the chances you have of increasing your score.

5. Show how you adjust to changes in requirements/constraints/assumptions!

As a VCDX candidate, your most likely an architect day to day, so you would have dealt with this many times in real life, so deal with it in the design scenario!

If your 25 mins into the design scenario, and the panel suddenly tells you the CIO went out drinking on the weekend with his new buddy at storage vendor X and decided to scrap the old vendors storage and go for another vendor, deal with it!

Talk about the implications of moving from vendor X to vendor Y, for example FC to NFS and how this would change the design and would it still meet the requirements or would it be a risk?

6. Don’t be afraid to draw diagrams – but don’t spend all day making it pretty!

Use the whiteboard to draw your solution as it develops, but don’t waste time drawing fancy diagrams. A square box with ESXi written in it, is a Host, it doesn’t need to be pretty.

eg: If your drawing a 16 node cluster, draw three squares, Labelled ESXi01, ESXi…. and ESXi16, don’t draw 16 boxes, this adds no value, wastes time, and makes the diagram harder to draw.

 

Summary

I hope the above tips help you prepare for the VCDX design scenario and best of luck with your VCDX journey. For those who are interested, you can read about My VCDX Journey.

In Part 3, I will go through Preparing for the Troubleshooting Scenario, and how to maximize your 15 mins.