I took the VCAP6-DCV Design exam in March as part of the BETA program. It was a nice exam but made frustrating by the fact it kept locking up and out of the 4 hours allocated, I lost an hour and moved machines 3 times. When the results came out, I wasn’t surprised when I was told i didn’t make the grade. Afterall, I didn’t actually answer all the questions. After speak to Pearson Vue they finally sorted out a exam voucher so I could take a free resit.
Written by Christopher Lewis on December 5, 2016 .
For those of you who read my VMworld EMEA Blog posts , you will know I took my first VCAP Deploy style exam during my visit. This was my first experience of the Deploy style exam and unfortunately I didn’t pass.
I’m pleased to announce that after a little bit more study and a lot more exam technique, I passed my resit this morning, so once everything has been updated in VMware’s new Certificate Manager tool, I’ll have my second VCAP6 under my belt in 2016 (having already obtained the VCAP6-CMA Design), and this will mean I’ll be 50% completed on VMware Certified Implementation Expert (VCIX) on both the DCV and CMA track!
Written by Christopher Lewis on November 28, 2016 .
At last! As announced at VMworld Europe, VMware vRealize Automation 7.2 has finally arrived!
The key updates/features for this release are:
- Native integration for Microsoft Azure adding to the already supported endpoints of vSphere, KVM, Hyper-V, AWS, OpenStack, vCD and vCloudAir)
- Native integration with** ServiceNow** and their Service Catalog
- Container Management!
This makes this version of VMware vRealize Automation the first one that could be called a true broker of Hybrid Clouds.
Written by Christopher Lewis on November 22, 2016 .
This post is Part 2 of a two part post covering UK VMUG, click here to read Part 1
The only session I attended in the morning was the Community Session, Going Hybrid - using vRealize Automation as a cloud broker for AWS, vCloud Air and Azure given by Sam McGeown . This was a good session overall with Sam going through the differences of deploying the same application to both an on-premises test infrastructure and with Amazon Web Services (no sign of an Azure demo though - but as this is expected in vRealize Automation 7.2 which is not GA yet - that wasn’t a surprise).
Written by Christopher Lewis on November 21, 2016 .
I am right now sitting on the train heading back into London with a smile on my face. I’m listening to music (Eye of the Tiger just started playing) and I’m tapping away on my laptop. Why am I smiling? Well it is simple, today was the first time I realised and understood the value of the community. Today was my first UK VMUG it was the first time in a long time I have enjoyed a UK wide conference. London VMUG (#LonVMUG) is #AWESOME, but today was just bigger (and better) in every way imaginable.
Written by Christopher Lewis on November 18, 2016 .
I’m just back in from attending my first @UKVMUG #vCurry evening.
I have to say I had a #awesome evening in the tres cool surroundings of the National Motorbike Museum in Birmingham. (cue obligatory screen shots of motorbikes below)
It was good to catch up with people i hadn’t seen in a while in the community and even make new acquaintances over rather nice curry with all the trimmings. The only very slight downside for me is I don’t like lamb, so I had to opt for the vegetarian option (which was better than I expected). I, of course, made up for this by having two helpings of the desert (chocolate brownie… with custard - don’t ask).
Written by Christopher Lewis on November 16, 2016 .
If you didn’t already here the news, VMware vSphere 6.5 is now GA . Whilst lots of people will be concentrating on upgrading vSphere 5.x/6.x to 6.5 I’m going to start with the basics…
To install the Platform Services Controller using the VMware vCenter Server Appliance (VCSA), you first have to mount the ISO. In Windows 10 this is simple!
Installation Steps
So first things first, double click on VMware-VCSA-all-6.5.0-<buildnumber>.iso to mount it as a drive on your system. (In my instance on my Windows 10 machines, this was drive letter H:)
Written by Christopher Lewis on November 15, 2016 .
VMware vSphere Platform Services Controller PSC vCenter Server
The task of deploying VMware vRealize Automation 7.x is now mainly completed by the Deployment Wizard (unless you actually like pain) but before you can run the deployment wizard you need to install the VMware vRealize Automation Management Agent onto the IaaS Servers that you will be using within your deployment.
So I can hear you asking:
- What happens when you want to deploy new IaaS components into you vRealize Automation environment?
- What happens when you want to scale you DEMs horizontally (onto new servers) rather than vertically (deploying more DEMs per server)?
- What happens if you want to add another vCenter Proxy Agent for High Availability or a new vCenter Instance?
Well, I’m glad you asked!
Written by Christopher Lewis on November 15, 2016 .
In September 2015, I took a leap of faith. At the time my son had just been born, I had been working for my employer for over 10 years but I didn’t feel valued, either monetarily or professionally. Looking back I will admit, I was too comfortable for too long, it was easy and familiar but I started to realise my career was stalling. There was a glass ceiling between where I was and where I wanted to be. I tried for 12 months to change it and nothing happened. I won’t go into the details of how/why but finally the proverbial straw that broke the camel’s back arrived and I decided it was time to move on.
Written by Christopher Lewis on November 15, 2016 .
- Operating a Private Cloud - Part 3: Creating a Pricing Card in VMware Aria Automation
- Operating a Private Cloud - Part 2: Creating a Pricing Card in VMware Aria Operations
- Operating a Private Cloud - Part 1: Understanding Pricing Cards in VMware Aria
- Zero2Hero - Using Aria Automation to Deploy Multiple Machines with Multiple Disks - Part 5
- Zero2Hero - Using Aria Automation to Deploy Multiple Machines with Multiple Disks - Part 4