vSphere - 20

Forbes Guthrie over at the revamped vReference has released version 1.0 of his vSphere Documentation Notes. His latest updates are:

• Completed the documentation set.  Just added:
• vSphere Command-Line Interface Installation and Reference Guide
• vCenter Update Manager Administration Guide
• vCenter Converter Administration Guide
• vCenter Orchestrator Administration Guide
• VMware Consolidated Backup – Virtual Machine Backup Guide
• Added ESXi notes
• Added 2 supplementary (not officially vSphere 4.0 documentation) notes covering:
• vSphere Management Assistant Guide (vMA)
• Data Recovery

This is a great resource when studying for your VCP4 exam, which will be launched in a few weeks.

http://www.vreference.com/

When you’re over there, don’t forget to take a peek at the vSphere 4 reference card.

Trainsignal has just released their VMware vSphere Training, Check it out now!

36 Videos (17 hrs: 46mins: 59secs) will be provided in High-Quality AVI and WMV format. In other words, you get perfect quality and replication of your instructor's screens. An easy-to-use table of contents allows you to navigate to key areas you wish to focus on.

36 iPod video files to watch Train Signal on the go! A popular request amongst our students who wish to study while they commute (i.e., train, plane, bus). These 320x240 .m4v files are compressed versions of the original course, and play on any iPod that supports video. Also great for reviewing and refreshing your mind "on the job."

36 MP3 Files to listen to Train Signal on the go. Some of our students have requested this option. People would like to be able to listen in their car or while working out. Can be burnt to a CD or copied to portable device. Great supplemental training to the videos.

Instructor Notes – These PDF documents can be printed out and contain the slides used by the instructor throughout the videos. These allow the user a quick easy reference to notes on the slides and make any additional notes for their own learning process.

“As a former MCT and present VMware Certified Instructor, I can tell you that teaching a VMware course is far more difficult than teaching an average course. When viewing David’s training videos he puts a smile on my face, he’s one of the few who is able to present the relevant information in a clear and understandable way.”

The broadcast will explore the key technical benefits of virtualization, and highlight some of the primary features available in the latest generation of VMware Infrastructure known as vSphere 4. Features covered will include VMware Virtual Machine File System (VMFS), VMotion, Storage VMotion, Distributed Resource Scheduler (DRS), Distributed Power Management (DPM), High Availability (HA) and Fault Tolerance (FT). The broadcast will also cover the latest news on vSphere training courses and certification.

There seems to be some confusion about the availability of the VCP410 exam at VUE. The VUE website states the VCP on vSphere4 (VCP4) certification exam will be publically available on August 8th.  The VMware certification website said it was August 1st until a week ago, but now it’s also at August 8th. The VMware Partner Central has announced a VCP 4 EXAM UPDATE: The VCP on vSphere 4 (VCP 4) exam will be available publically on August 1st, 2009. But when you’re trying to register at VUE, the first available date is August 31th.

Official response from VUE: The VCP410 exam is not available to take until 31st August. There for you will not find any dates for this exam prior to that date.

Official response from Jon C. Hall over at VMware: The exam is open for registration beginning August 8th, which is reflected on the Certification page on the VMware website. This means you can register with VUE to take the exam. However, the first date you can actually take the exam is dependent on the time needed to process the results of the beta, so if you are seeing a date further out, they are allowing time for that. Once the exam is actually posted in their system, I imagine new schedule dates will become available between the 8th and the 31st.

I assume because VUE has enough information about the exam to start taking registrations now, they are. Since they know we will have the exam ready early August, they probably figured that they could just open registration now but set dates pretty far out just in case. That being said, once the 8th gets here we will probably start seeing some additional dates between then and the 31st become available.

Folks - there is a process involved here. We have to evaluate and process the Beta results (which will happen next week). Then, VUE has to publish the form, a process that I have seen take 1-2 weeks. If it takes a week, then the exam will be ready by the 8th and some dates pretty close to that should become available. If it takes two weeks, then some dates between mid August and the 31st should become available. The only part I can personally tell you for sure is that the beta results will be processed by the end of next week.

Learn how to install an evaluation license for the Cisco Nexus 1000V.

Ensure consistent, policy-based network capabilities to virtual machines across your data center with the Cisco Nexus 1000V, a pure software implementation of a Cisco Nexus switch. Cisco Nexus 1000V integrates with VMware vSphere to deliver VN-Link, virtual machine-aware network services.

http://www.vmware.com/products/cisco-nexus-1000V/