VCP course at QA

Discussion in 'Training & Development' started by michael78, May 27, 2010.

  1. simongrahamuk
    Honorary Member

    simongrahamuk Hmmmmmmm?

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    Hi Sly,

    I did my VMWare Infrastructure 3.1 course with them and I definitely thought it was one of the better courses I have done.

    I never took the exam though as I don't use it enough (not at all now), and the course does not go into enough depth to get you through the exam.

    Not going to comment on anything else. 8)
     
  2. michael78

    michael78 Terabyte Poster

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    Cheers guys much appreciated. SimonD I do appreciate your point of view mate and understand what your saying but don't agree that someone with 7 years experience can't learn new things and branch out without having commercial experience. I am a big believer that you get out of your career what you put in. I have the books and home lab setup so can learn the majority of what I need to administer ESX which is what my goal is and not to setup enterprise vitalized environments.

    At present I'm learning Exchange 2007 after not having much exposure to it and feel I could implement Exchange in a working environment and have enjoyed learning Exchange and enjoyed learning Poweshell which you need to know to use Exchange 2007. There is nothing wrong with learning like this if and I stress if done correctly. It's not what you learn it's how you learn it.
     
    Certifications: A+ | Network+ | Security+ | MCP | MCDST | MCTS: Hyper-V | MCTS: AD | MCTS: Exchange 2007 | MCTS: Windows 7 | MCSA: 2003 | ITIL Foundation v3 | CCA: Xenapp 5.0 | MCITP: Enterprise Desktop Administrator on Windows 7 | MCITP: Enterprise Desktop Support Technician on Windows 7
    WIP: Online SAN Overview, VCP in December 2011
  3. michael78

    michael78 Terabyte Poster

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    Not at all mate, I have 2 servers a Dell T105 running Windows 2008 with Hyper-V installed and an HP ML115 with ESXi installed. Am thinking about buying a server with SAS disks to do my ESX testing on.
     
    Certifications: A+ | Network+ | Security+ | MCP | MCDST | MCTS: Hyper-V | MCTS: AD | MCTS: Exchange 2007 | MCTS: Windows 7 | MCSA: 2003 | ITIL Foundation v3 | CCA: Xenapp 5.0 | MCITP: Enterprise Desktop Administrator on Windows 7 | MCITP: Enterprise Desktop Support Technician on Windows 7
    WIP: Online SAN Overview, VCP in December 2011
  4. SimonD
    Honorary Member

    SimonD Terabyte Poster

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    What are you going to use for Shared storage so that you can play with v-motion?
     
    Certifications: CNA | CNE | CCNA | MCP | MCP+I | MCSE NT4 | MCSA 2003 | Security+ | MCSA:S 2003 | MCSE:S 2003 | MCTS:SCCM 2007 | MCTS:Win 7 | MCITP:EDA7 | MCITP:SA | MCITP:EA | MCTS:Hyper-V | VCP 4 | ITIL v3 Foundation | VCP 5 DCV | VCP 5 Cloud | VCP6 NV | VCP6 DCV | VCAP 5.5 DCA
  5. michael78

    michael78 Terabyte Poster

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    give me a chance mate I don't even know what v-motion is. I've only just got the books. If you can use NAS then I have a spare one. If not then it will be theory.
     
    Certifications: A+ | Network+ | Security+ | MCP | MCDST | MCTS: Hyper-V | MCTS: AD | MCTS: Exchange 2007 | MCTS: Windows 7 | MCSA: 2003 | ITIL Foundation v3 | CCA: Xenapp 5.0 | MCITP: Enterprise Desktop Administrator on Windows 7 | MCITP: Enterprise Desktop Support Technician on Windows 7
    WIP: Online SAN Overview, VCP in December 2011
  6. onoski

    onoski Terabyte Poster

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    Well done Slypie as I like your proactive attitude and determination and must say nice home servers there too as I have the ML115 quad core for this main reason as well.

    I would suggest you get the dummies book on VMWare as I have it and also half way through it too. I have been booked in to sit the four day course from the 1st to 4th of June next month for VMware and vSphere install, implemention and troubleshooting.

    I work with ESXi at work and home, installed several VM's and can say this it's pretty slick and an interesting technology too.

    Best wishes and keep on keeping on as your break would come. I would let you know how my training went, but would not be sitting the exam any time soon either.
     
    Last edited: May 27, 2010
    Certifications: MCSE: 2003, MCSA: 2003 Messaging, MCP, HNC BIT, ITIL Fdn V3, SDI Fdn, VCP 4 & VCP 5
    WIP: MCTS:70-236, PowerShell
  7. SimonD
    Honorary Member

    SimonD Terabyte Poster

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    If your nas supports iscsi or nfs then you can use it, however it's worth mentioning that the drives will be wiped and formated with vmfs so be careful if you have any data on them.

    I would also suggest you start looking at the likes of Openfiler and Freenas as well, these run on normal machines (and vmware as it happens but won't work for you to play with v-motion) as the OS (as it happens I run an Openfiler SAN with 4tb of storage for my virtualisation platforms (Hyper-V and vSphere).
     
    Certifications: CNA | CNE | CCNA | MCP | MCP+I | MCSE NT4 | MCSA 2003 | Security+ | MCSA:S 2003 | MCSE:S 2003 | MCTS:SCCM 2007 | MCTS:Win 7 | MCITP:EDA7 | MCITP:SA | MCITP:EA | MCTS:Hyper-V | VCP 4 | ITIL v3 Foundation | VCP 5 DCV | VCP 5 Cloud | VCP6 NV | VCP6 DCV | VCAP 5.5 DCA
  8. ThomasMc

    ThomasMc Gigabyte Poster

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    Sound advice there, although only a little 1tb openfiler for me :D
     
    Certifications: MCDST|FtOCC
    WIP: MCSA(70-270|70-290|70-291)
  9. michael78

    michael78 Terabyte Poster

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    Cheers onoski much appreciated mate. I would be really interested to know how the course goes. As for books just got this and this delivered today as I like Sybex books but will have a look into the dummies book as well :D
     
    Certifications: A+ | Network+ | Security+ | MCP | MCDST | MCTS: Hyper-V | MCTS: AD | MCTS: Exchange 2007 | MCTS: Windows 7 | MCSA: 2003 | ITIL Foundation v3 | CCA: Xenapp 5.0 | MCITP: Enterprise Desktop Administrator on Windows 7 | MCITP: Enterprise Desktop Support Technician on Windows 7
    WIP: Online SAN Overview, VCP in December 2011
  10. michael78

    michael78 Terabyte Poster

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    Cheers Simon, appreciate the pointers. Take it Openfiler is just used to host the VM's? Also your openfiler SAN does it just use SATA drives?
     
    Certifications: A+ | Network+ | Security+ | MCP | MCDST | MCTS: Hyper-V | MCTS: AD | MCTS: Exchange 2007 | MCTS: Windows 7 | MCSA: 2003 | ITIL Foundation v3 | CCA: Xenapp 5.0 | MCITP: Enterprise Desktop Administrator on Windows 7 | MCITP: Enterprise Desktop Support Technician on Windows 7
    WIP: Online SAN Overview, VCP in December 2011
  11. SimonD
    Honorary Member

    SimonD Terabyte Poster

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    Yes it is used just to host the vm's and openfiler can use ide or sata (I haven't tried with scsi but I doubt they would be a problem either). I have 2 hardware raid cards in my san box.
     
    Certifications: CNA | CNE | CCNA | MCP | MCP+I | MCSE NT4 | MCSA 2003 | Security+ | MCSA:S 2003 | MCSE:S 2003 | MCTS:SCCM 2007 | MCTS:Win 7 | MCITP:EDA7 | MCITP:SA | MCITP:EA | MCTS:Hyper-V | VCP 4 | ITIL v3 Foundation | VCP 5 DCV | VCP 5 Cloud | VCP6 NV | VCP6 DCV | VCAP 5.5 DCA
  12. michael78

    michael78 Terabyte Poster

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    Simon, quick question mate using openfiler to provide SAN for ESX do the VM's use the resources of the SAN i.e RAM, CPU etc or the resources of the server. I'm assuming it's the server.
     
    Certifications: A+ | Network+ | Security+ | MCP | MCDST | MCTS: Hyper-V | MCTS: AD | MCTS: Exchange 2007 | MCTS: Windows 7 | MCSA: 2003 | ITIL Foundation v3 | CCA: Xenapp 5.0 | MCITP: Enterprise Desktop Administrator on Windows 7 | MCITP: Enterprise Desktop Support Technician on Windows 7
    WIP: Online SAN Overview, VCP in December 2011
  13. ThomasMc

    ThomasMc Gigabyte Poster

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    In simple terms the openfiler will be the HDDs for you VMs and the RAM, CPU etc will come from the ESXi/EXS host (not accurate but the idea is the same)
     
    Last edited: May 28, 2010
    Certifications: MCDST|FtOCC
    WIP: MCSA(70-270|70-290|70-291)
  14. michael78

    michael78 Terabyte Poster

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    Thomas, cheers for clearing that up. I Thought that was the case but thought I'd better check. What is the pro's over using SAN over say installing disks locally on the server? Do you just use it to get experience using SAN technology?
     
    Certifications: A+ | Network+ | Security+ | MCP | MCDST | MCTS: Hyper-V | MCTS: AD | MCTS: Exchange 2007 | MCTS: Windows 7 | MCSA: 2003 | ITIL Foundation v3 | CCA: Xenapp 5.0 | MCITP: Enterprise Desktop Administrator on Windows 7 | MCITP: Enterprise Desktop Support Technician on Windows 7
    WIP: Online SAN Overview, VCP in December 2011
  15. ThomasMc

    ThomasMc Gigabyte Poster

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    HA/Fault tolerance, if a ESXi/ESX host dies then you can light up another or if setup, vCenter will do it automatically.

    There are so many things it allows you to do like taking hosts offline and moving its workload to another server and even optimise your setup to get the best utilisation out of your environment
     
    Last edited: May 28, 2010
    Certifications: MCDST|FtOCC
    WIP: MCSA(70-270|70-290|70-291)
  16. Modey

    Modey Terabyte Poster

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    You may want to check out this thread Slypie. Particularly the info regarding Starwind.

    You can get a free trail to use it as an iSCSI target, and if the offer is still on - a full licence if you have an MCP. You will need a seperate server to set this up on though to use as a cheap and cheerful SAN though.

    Some handy guides on their site IIRC for setting up clustering with failover etc.. on 2K3 and 2K8 etc...
     
    Certifications: A+, N+, MCP, MCDST, MCSA 2K3, MCTS, MOS, MTA, MCT, MCITP:EDST7, MCSA W7, Citrix CCA, ITIL Foundation
    WIP: Nada
  17. michael78

    michael78 Terabyte Poster

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    Cheers Modey, much appreciated mate, emailed to see if I can get a licence for the software.
     
    Certifications: A+ | Network+ | Security+ | MCP | MCDST | MCTS: Hyper-V | MCTS: AD | MCTS: Exchange 2007 | MCTS: Windows 7 | MCSA: 2003 | ITIL Foundation v3 | CCA: Xenapp 5.0 | MCITP: Enterprise Desktop Administrator on Windows 7 | MCITP: Enterprise Desktop Support Technician on Windows 7
    WIP: Online SAN Overview, VCP in December 2011
  18. Modey

    Modey Terabyte Poster

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    They can be a bit slow, so bare with them. The software is nice and easy to setup though (compared to others I have tried).
     
    Last edited: May 28, 2010
    Certifications: A+, N+, MCP, MCDST, MCSA 2K3, MCTS, MOS, MTA, MCT, MCITP:EDST7, MCSA W7, Citrix CCA, ITIL Foundation
    WIP: Nada
  19. zebulebu

    zebulebu Terabyte Poster

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    Still unsure why anyone would use anything other than Openfiler for a free san. It's open-source, the de facto standard and so easy to set up a child could do it. It also offers everything you're likely to need for an ESX san
     
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  20. SimonD
    Honorary Member

    SimonD Terabyte Poster

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    To be fair Freenas isn't too bad either, I can't wait to see OpenMediaVault either.
     
    Certifications: CNA | CNE | CCNA | MCP | MCP+I | MCSE NT4 | MCSA 2003 | Security+ | MCSA:S 2003 | MCSE:S 2003 | MCTS:SCCM 2007 | MCTS:Win 7 | MCITP:EDA7 | MCITP:SA | MCITP:EA | MCTS:Hyper-V | VCP 4 | ITIL v3 Foundation | VCP 5 DCV | VCP 5 Cloud | VCP6 NV | VCP6 DCV | VCAP 5.5 DCA

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