With vSphere 5, the VMware HA infrastructure has been completely changed.

In vSphere 5.0 the new HA agent is “FDM” (Fault Domain Manager) and replaces the old AAM agent (from EMC Legato).

Other notable changes:
The old Primary / Secondary node concept has been replaced by a new and more simple Master/Slave node concept
A new Datastore Heartbeat function as been added (HA Architecture Series – Datastore Heartbeating)
No dependency on DNS
Syslog functionality

See this slideshare for more information:

Note: The Indy VMUG setup an event that conflicted with my original vBeers night. vBeers was setup first, but the VMUG is a social event so it’s going to be essentially the same exact crowd. Plus free beers at the VMUG event! (Thanks Tintri) Please see the updated location below and we’ll just see you at the VMUG instead. The crowds are too similar to have a event that competes.

All, I’ve setup another vBeers for Indy.  Hope to see you all there!

What is vBeers you ask?

Fancy meeting up every month with other IT virtualization enthusiasts to socialise and chat over a cold beer, wine or soft-drink?  If so, then vBeers is for you!

This is a great opportunity to meet with other virtualization enthusiasts and professionals and enjoy discussing all things virtualization, and in fact anything else that comes up in conversation…

vBeers is open to everyone so whether you are a VMware vSphere, Microsoft Hyper-V, Citrix XenServer user/fan or none of the above it really doesn’t matter as “it’s all about the virtualization”.

It’s time for another vBeers!  I wanted to schedule one up for the beginning of February but with the Super Bowl in town it’s probably not the best idea.  Therefore, we’re going to wait until 2/22.  We’ll see you in Broad Ripple!

Location:The Elbow Room

Date: February 22nd, 2012
Time: 6:00pm-9:30pm

If you have any questions hit me up here or on twitter:  @ryanbirk

VMware Technical Publications has released another great video.  This one gives an overview of available authentication methods including session files, Active Directory, and configuration files. It also explains how to run commands against vCenterServer systems to target ESXi hosts in lockdown mode on vCLI in vSphere 5.0.

Check it out!

There is also another great vCLI video as well which gives an overview of vCLI commands in vSphere 5.0. Unlike the above video, this one discusses ESXCLI name spaces and commands and goes over commands for which no ESXCLI equivalent exists in vSphere 5.0.

I am happy to say that this morning, I sat the VCI-5 exam and passed on my first go at it! The VCI-5 exam is essentially the same test as the VCP-5 but the passing score is higher. VMware Certified Instructors are required to take this exam and it’s not open to the public.

If you’re an existing VCP 4, the exam has no class requirement until February 29th, 2012 and you can successfully upgrade to a VCP 5.  After that, you’ll need to take an official course.  You can see the upgrade path outlined below.

Like most other bloggers, I felt the exam was harder and a lot more real world vs. the previous VCP exams. If you’ve done any homework, you’ve probably realized that the exam is a lot less ”maximum/minimum” questions.  Love it or hate it, but I welcome the idea! You must be prepared for multiple troubleshooting questions.  Now, I can’t tell you exactly what’s on it per the NDA, but I can say that you must be ready to answer quickly because it’s 85 questions in 90 minutes.

I didn’t even leave much time on the clock.  I think I had 3 minutes left when I submitted it, which is the tightest time crunch I’ve had on any certification exam in years.  The VCP makes most Microsoft exams laughable!  (Trust me, I should know, I recently sat all the Microsoft exams for the MCITP on Hyper-V.  Yawn…)  I marked about 10 questions for review and went with my hunch on all but 2 where I felt I was getting tricked into a wrong answer. The consultant came out of me on those last two questions, I guess. There will be questions where you either know it flat out or you’ll have to sell yourself on the answer.  As somebody who teaches official VMware courses and general “sysadmin” courses at Purdue, I can tell you that you should always go with your gut 95% of the time. I see people get burned all the time when they doubt themselves. I’m telling ya!

Here are my best ways of making sure you’re successful:

• Grab the official exam blueprint.  Then see my second bullet.
• Read Forbes Guthries 50 page “Notes” document from front to back. He also has a great reference card but the full notes are where it’s at!  From his site:  ”They’re excerpts taken directly from VMware’s own official PDFs.  The notes aren’t meant to be comprehensive, or for a beginner; just my own personal notes.” Don’t just skim it, read the entire thing and understand it.  You’ll end up learning more than you need to know!
• Build a home lab for practice!  I can say that you will fare better on this exam with some real hands on experience.  Even if you’re doing nested ESXi inside VMware Workstation. Check out my blog post about my Shuttles that work perfectly out of the box with ESXi 5 and Sammy Bogaert’s blog if you’d like to set it up inside workstation.
• Take a VMware “What’s New” class. If you’ve got a lot of experience this class most certainly will help you get up to speed on the new features that have been released in vSphere 5.  The Install, Configure, Manage class is great for somebody starting out but for the people who’ve been doing it awhile, the “What’s New” class will help bring you up to speed.
• Check out Simon Longs blog.  Simon has been knocking out solid practice exams for years.  He’s got some great practice exam questions too!
• VMware has a mock exam as well.  Be sure to not ace it the first time out!  Find a question you know is right and purposely get it wrong.  Once you get a 100%, you’re done and can’t take it anymore.
• Read Scott Lowes “Mastering vSphere 5” book.  I find that his books are excellent resources.  They cover a lot more than what’s just on the VCP exam.  If you’re looking for a good day to day reference, be sure to pick this up.  I always jump straight to the networking and storage sections first and then read the rest after.  If you’re new to the technology, read it front to back.  That is, unless you’re better at reading things backwards.
• Cody Bunch and Damian Karlson have been putting together “brownbags” that focus on all kinds of stuff.  They’ve just now kicked off a VCP 5 series, so check it out!  With my busy schedule, I always had to catch the recordings but I’m hoping to get in and help out live if they ever need it for the remainder of the VCP 5 series.
• Duncan Epping and Frank Dennemans “Clustering” book is a great resource for the new FDM version of HA.

Good luck and make sure you’re prepared!  Most won’t be able to just walk in and pass!  If you’ve got any other tips/tricks, feel free to post them in the comments section.

Next up, kick back for a few days and relax and then on to VCAP-DCA & DCD on 5, whenever that comes out!! Hopefully VMware release the blueprint for those soon.

Check out the video below of an LG Revolution (Verizon) running VMware Horizon Mobile. VMware has been talking about this technology for awhile now. I believe the first time was the keynote at VMworld 2009. This demo was recorded at CES this week. VMware Horizon Mobile allows you to run a “work” version of Android and a “personal” version of Android independently of each other.

From the VMware Horizon site:
Allow users to carry a single device for both personal and corporate usage. Employees want to use their personal smartphone for work and are pushing IT to support those devices. This trend—sometimes called “Consumerization of IT”—challenges IT requirements for security, compliance and ease of management. VMware MVP enables enterprises to embrace this trend, by allowing IT to safely support employee owned devices. With VMware MVP, enterprises can get the security and ease of management they require, while reducing CAPEX.

VMware has over the years put out some great reference posters to hang on your nearest wall. Most of the time you can pick these up at VMworld or at a local VMUG meeting. They always go fast. They gave them away at the hands on labs this past year at VMworld and they were gone within a couple of hours. I was lucky enough to get a physical copy. If you’d like a copy of these reference posters in pdf form, see the links below!

VMware ESXi 5 Reference

Poster Link (pdf)

PowerCLI 5.0

Poster Link (pdf)

PowerCLI Quick Reference

Poster Link (pdf)

The next Indy VMUG meeting will be held at the Fraternal Order of Police Lodge on Thursday January 19th 2012 from 5:30 to 9:30PM.

Location:
Fraternal Order of Police Lodge 86
1525 S Shelby Street
Indianapolis, IN 46203
View Map

Agenda:
5:30 PM Sign-in and Networking [Dinner Provided]
6:30 PM Welcome & Opening Notes
6:45 PM Real Time Migration and Disaster Recovery for VMware – Double-Take Software
7:45 PM Break and Networking
8:00 PM User case study: VMware View at IPS – Luther Bowens (Virtualization White Paper)
8:45 PM Wrap-up and Giveaways
9:00 PM Meeting Concludes
9:00 PM Post-Meeting Networking. Enjoy drinks (on your own) and further networking at the FOP Hall’s full bar and ask about how you can support local law enforcement with an FOP Associate Membership

Register Now
More details at: IndyVMUG

Event sponsored by:

Ladies and gentlemen, I wanted to put up a quick post and link to a recent blog article I’ve read through about installing the VMware View Client (with PCoIP!) to a live CD. VMware released a client for Ubuntu and it’s a great idea to do this. Imagine the possibilities of having your clients PXE boot an iso with this on it. No more paying Microsoft for double licenses!

An even better solution would be to add some sort of functionality to login automatically so the user has no idea Linux is even underneath. Love it!

Check it out at Chuck Hirstius’ site: http://mindfluxinc.net/?p=234

VMware has released a whitepaper that details some technical information about the VSA. In the release of VMware vSphere 5.0, VMware also released a new software storage appliance called the VMware vSphere Storage Appliance (VSA). VMware VSA provides an alternative shared storage solution to Small to Medium Business (SMB) customers who might not be in a position to purchase a Storage Area Network (SAN) or Network-Attached Storage (NAS) array for their virtual infrastructure. Without shared storage configured in a vSphere environment, customers have not been able to exploit the unique features available in vSphere 5.0, such as vSphere High Availability (HA), vSphere, vMotion and vSphere Distributed Resource Scheduler (DRS). The VSA is designed to provide “Shared Storage for Everyone”.

See the whitepaper here.

Veeam is giving away free NFR licenses of their popular backup and replication software for the holidays to use in your home lab. They are available for VMware vExperts, VMware Certified Professionals, VMware Certified Instructors, VMUG members, Microsoft Most Valuable Professionals, and Microsoft Certified Professionals.

I’m not by any means pushing the software because they’ve paid me. They haven’t. I just think it’s a good product and they’re helping the virtualization community.

See this link for more info.

From the Veeam site:
“Veeam Backup & Replication v6 was downloaded more than 15 thousand times in its first week of availability, and with new support for Hyper-V, we are glad to extend our offer of NFR licenses to the Microsoft community as well as the entire VMUG community,” explained Doug Hazelman, Vice President of Product Strategy for Veeam Software.

“Access to free NFR licenses of Veeam Backup & Replication is another great perk of VMUG Membership. Thank you, Veeam, for supporting the VMUG Community,” said Jim Millard, VMUG member in the Midwest.
Derek Schauland, Microsoft MVP said, “Veeam for the Microsoft Community? Awesome! Having a program giving NFR licenses of Veeam software to the Microsoft community will be invaluable to the home lab and test needs of IT pros in pursuit of training, blogging and other activities. I look forward to this program.”

About Veeam Software
Veeam Software develops innovative solutions for virtualization management and data protection for VMware vSphere and Microsoft Hyper-V. Veeam Backup & Replication is the #1 VM backup solution. Veeam ONE is a single solution for real-time monitoring, capacity planning, change tracking, documentation, and management reporting of vSphere environments. Veeam nworks extends enterprise monitoring to VMware through Microsoft System Center and HP Operations Manager. Learn more by visiting www.veeam.com.