Living in a virtual world...

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Hi All,

I'm looking into the possibility of embarking on a self study for VCP-410, my company have recently begun deploying our applications on VMWare ESX running on HP Blades and it is looking likely it will be something I will be getting more and more involved in going forward...

Firstly I was wondering if anyone knows where I would be able to sit the VCP-410 seperate to a course as if I can do it I'd like to self study as although it's been discussed I'm not sure what the liklihood is that work are in a position to pay for a course right now and I'm not one to wait around...

I've used Certification Press books before and have found them pretty good...they have an edition for VCP410 here if anyone is able to comment?

My second question is around the differences between ESX and ESXi? It looks as though the course content for the V4 Fast Track (The course I'd do if I did do one) seems to imply that for the most part at least, what you learn is interchangable between the two...and with ESXi being free makes it great for someone self studying in a home lab!!

Also can someone point me in the direction of the H/W Compatibility list for ESX/ESXi as I'm going to be able to get hold of some 'retired' metal from work...likely to be G4 HP Proliant DL380's or 580's...

Finally...is anyone else taking this route atm? Always good to have a busy forum to bounce ideas around on!

Cheers,

Ryan

 

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Hi,

Whilst you can self study for the VCP exam you can't actually sit it until you have been on an official VMware course.

As far as a HCL goes, have a look here.

Lastly, ESXi is the free version of ESX and it's very much cut down. Have a look here for a better breakdown of the differences between the different versions.

Hope that helps.

 

Thanks Simon...

The links clear things up I think...

Some of the older HP DL Series Servers kicking about at work will run ESXi...which is great.

The differences between ESX and ESXi in my understanding then are that ESXi is now the 'flagship' product with ESX being inferior in terms of architecture...and the differences in functionality are only apparent between the free version and the different levels of licensing?! (Do correct me if I'm wrong)

Finally....it's unfortunate you need to sit a course, although I suppose it guarantee's a standard in the industry which is good.

I'll have to lean on my boss harder!

Cheers

 

ESX has a service consol, ESXI does not. By service console I mean a physical *nix like screen you can log onto if you put a head on the server, ESXI just allows you to make the major config changes from a menu and thats about it.

Hacking about with esxi can get you something similar to the service console but I'm sure that wont be covered.

ESXI is free but all the good stuff that you want to pay for resides on the VC anyway.

 

No you have it the other way around, ESX is the flagship product with ESXi being the inferior product.

 

I'm afraid to say he doesn't really have it wrong. vmware are pushing people to use ESXi with vshpere because ESX is going end of life and will probably not be available for version 5, so you might as well start using ESXi now so you can be reasonably sure third party tools will be future proofed-ish.

 

ESXi is going to be the way forward for VMware as it has less of a footprint to attack and is therefore easier to secure.

 

As others have said, you have to attend an official vSphere training course to qualify for the VCP4 certification. You can find out more about the qualifying courses at http://www.vmware.com/certification

ESX and ESXi are both flagship products, they are different in that ESX has the full "Service Console" CLI, but in most ways they are effectively the same - certainly as far as using the vSphere Client with or without vCenter Server is concerned.

The VCP4 exam has the occasional CLI question, you might not get asked any at all when you do your exam. In terms of building a home lab to study for the exam, you could install ESXi or VMware Server as the base virtualization platform (as they're both free) and build the vSphere components in VMs, install ESX or ESXi and vCenter Server in evaluation mode and you have 60 days to play

In terms of study resources, I have compiled a list of the key resources on my website, go to http://thinkvirtually.co.uk and browse under the VCP4 menu. My blog also has a large amount of VCP4 and other VMware information on it - http://vmwaretraining.blogspot.com

Scott.

 

Confirmed
ESXi is the product they lead with, and the best practice for a deployment, unless theres a good reason not to
ESXi does not eschew any of the features of ESX from a virtualization perspective (this is all licensing based) but does lose the bloated POS service console in favor of VMA access and vCenter
ESX may not make it to version 5, although industry whining may cause them to back track on that ;)

 

ESX nearly didn't make it to v4, and I'd be very surprised if we see it in v5.