Eric Sloof

Although the VDCA410 exam consists of approximately 40 live lab activities and a short pre‐exam survey consisting of 9 questions, fellow VCI Robert Stothard has created a survey with 32 questions based upon the vSphere Trouble shooting course which is a recommended course for those studying for the VCAP-DCA.

VMware vCenter AppSpeed provides proactive performance management and service-level reporting for services running within virtual appliances. By analyzing the traffic that flows between end users, Web applications, and back-end servers, AppSpeed provides visibility into multitier services and enables rapid identification of performance issues originating from inadequate resource allocation and service problems.

Fellow VMware Certified Instructor Paul McSharry over at Elastic Sky has released a new series of VCP practice questions based on vSphere 4.1. To be honest I just did the test and although my performance has been rated as 'Good', I only scored 18 out of 25. Let’s see if you can do better.

Here you will find a growing number of practice exam tests. I have based these questions from the official documentation and my own practical experience. They are completely braindump free, please do you not use braindump materials, instead have fun learning to use an excellent technology!

http://www.elasticsky.co.uk/practice-questions/

To help you prepare for the VCAP exams, VMware Education recommends that you attend one of their new vSphere courses designed to cover the topics from the VCAP4 exam blueprints. And to help you even more, if you attend on of the recommended preparation course listed below between September 1th and November 30, you will receive a 50% off exam voucher applicable for either VACP4-DCA or VCAP4-DCD.

VCAP-DCA Preparation Courses

VMware vSphere: Troubleshooting
VMware vSphere: Manage for Performance
VMware vSphere: Manage and design for Security
VMware vSphere: Automation with vSphere PowerCLI

VCAP-DCD Preparation Course

VMware vSphere: Design Workshop

How it works: Within a week of completing one of the select courses, a 50% off VCAP4 exam voucher will be emailed to you. When registering for a VCAP4 exam enter the voucher number to receive your discount.

Fellow vExpert Ulli Hankeln over at the VM-sickbay has written a very helpful handbook which can guide you to a solution when you’re in real deep VMDK trouble. The VMDK Handbook is an awesome list with the most in-depth information regarding VMDK files. It’s definitely worth a look before you get into trouble. Do you want to get a good understanding of the structure of a virtual disk file and learn everything about how to identify the vmdk-type, sparse and flat - thin and thick, snapshots or redo logs, the parameters used in a vmdk description and CID-parameters? Then go to http://vm-sickbay.com/

Ulli is going to attend the VMworld 2010 in Copenhagen and can be found on Twitter @sanbarrow

Rob de Veij over at Robware.net has released version 2.9.5 of the most awesome utility I know, well if you don’t count in the vmClient :-) You better check out the newest release of RVTools. I already did, and recorded a walkthrough which can be watched here in HD quality. You can also take a peek at Vimeo.

RVTools is a windows .NET 2.0 application which uses the VI SDK to display information about your virtual machines and ESX hosts. Interacting with VirtualCenter 2.5, ESX 3.5, ESX3i, ESX4i and vSphere 4 RVTools is able to list information about cpu, memory, disks, nics, cd-rom, floppy drives, snapshots, VMware tools, ESX hosts, nics, datastores, switches, ports and health checks. With RVTools you can disconnect the cd-rom or floppy drives from the virtual machines and RVTools is able to list the current version of the VMware Tools installed inside each virtual machine and update them to the latest version.

Version 2.9.5 (September, 2010)
• On vInfo tab new field: Guest heartbeat status. The heartbeat status is classified as:  gray - VMware Tools are not installed or not running, red - no heartbeat, guest operating system may have stopped responding. yellow -intermittent heartbeat, may be due to guest load. green - guest operating system is responding normally
• On vMemory tab new fields: Ballooned memory, consumed overhead memory, private memory, shared memory, swapped memory and static memory entitlement
• On vDatastore tab new field: Full device address (controller, target, device)
• On vInfo tab new fields: Commited storage, uncommited storage and unshared storage
• Bug fix! A semicolon in the annotations fields are no longer a problem for the export functions
• Bug fix! Health check "Zombie vmdk" problems solved
• Bug fix! Health check "inconsistent foldername" problems solved
• Bug fix! On vport tab the column "notify switch" value solved
• Bug fix! Sort problem on vNic tab on column "speed" solved

The VDCA410 VMware Certified Advanced Professional on vSphere – Datacenter Administration exam tests potential VCAP‐DCA candidates on their skills and abilities installing, configuring and administering large and/or more complex virtualized environments.

The VDCA410 exam consists of approximately 40 live lab activities and a short pre‐exam survey consisting of 9 questions. Live lab activities consist of multiple tasks, where each task is scored. The total number of activities provided is based on the total number of tasks. Because of this, the actual number of lab activities may vary slightly between exams.

You can register for the VCAP4-DCA Exam at http://mylearn1.vmware.com/feedback.cfm?survey=20128

The card is available under a Creative Commons license, so feel free to copy and distribute this in paper or electronic format. Just check back frequently to www.vReference.com for updates, or subscribe to the RSS feed to be the first to know.

http://www.vreference.com/vsphere4-card/

VMware has released version 4.5 of their VDI product – VMware View. At the same moment Mike Laverick has released 190 pages of awesomeness "the View 4.5 Guide – Author’s Edition". You can get a free copy if you’re willing to donate a small amount to Mike’s charity UNICEF.

Today I’m releasing my very long guide to View 4.5. I’m kinda loathed to call it a “book” because its no way as detailed as my previous works on Vi3, SRM and vSphere4. For me its still very much a work in progress. With that said, I like to mark product GA days with a release of one my guides, and so that’s why I’m releasing it to day. It runs to some 190 pages of text and graphics, and I’ve been working on it since I joined the View 4.5 Beta Program. It contains 21 “chapters” but I’m not being grand here, sometimes these chapters are just a couple of pages long. I’ve tried to use the chapters to outline the major steps you go through in building out a View environment.

http://www.rtfm-ed.co.uk/2010/09/10/view-4-5-guide-authors-edition/

This hands-on training course builds your skills in the VMware View™ suite of products: VMware View Manager, VMware View Composer, and VMware® ThinApp™. This course is based on the VMware View 4.5 release. 

Objectives   

•  Install and configure View components
•  Create and manage dedicated and floating desktop pools
•  Deploy and manage linked clone virtual desktops
•  Configure and manage desktops that run in local mode
•  Configure secure access to desktops through a public network
•  Use ThinApp to package applications


Course Datasheet
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