Archives November 2013

Maybe you’ve heard all the rage about the new Certification Exams from VMware at the Associate Level called the VCA! (VMware Certified Associate) and maybe you haven’t! Well, guess what, You’s gonna hear about it now! :)  So a few things regarding these new Associate level certifications…

THEY’RE FREE TO TAKE AND INCLUDE FREE TRAINING!!!

And the test is delivered via the Web – Online from where you are!

###UPDATE!### – Inline in the comments Phil Wiffen points out what I had forgotten… The code is valid until at LEAST Nov 15th, so act SOON! Also you must take the exam within 48 hours of booking it (hence it expiring in 2 days).

Yea you heard me right.  Now this won’t be free forever, but right now if you use the right formulae of success criteria (detailed inline here) you can get this for free. I’ve heard rumor this expires at the end of this year so get it done STAT! I also heard rumor it expires at the end of November, again knock it out!

You can start out by visiting the VMware Pearson Vue site located at http://www.pearsonvue.com/vmware/ which gives you a handy dandy screen like this..



Below this little list here includes a whole bunch of links you can use to go and register for Authorization and Register for Exams.  If you read a previous blog post A Must-Read before taking your next #VMware VCP or VCAP Exam!!! it included the steps of how to go about requesting authorization to take an exam.   But I’ll mention it here, you’ll need to request authorization to take the exam before you can even register for the exam, and thus schedule the exam respectively!

• Free Online Training Resources:
  • VMware Certified Associate – Data Center Virtualization
    • VMware Data Center Virtualization Fundamentals
  • VMware Certified Associate – Cloud
    • VMware Cloud Fundamentals
  • VMware Certified Associate – Workforce Mobility
    • VMware Workforce Mobility Fundamentals

This little list here not only includes a link to take you directly to the FREE training videos, but the grouping below also takes you to the individual sites for each track to Request Authorization and Register for the exams!

Simply click "Request Authorization" for an exam – and then choose the "Register for the Exam" option!





Then click "Schedule an Exam" after which you select the “Associate and Professional Level Exams” and you’ll need to login then!





If you’ve never done an Online Pearson Vue exam you should create a web account. The process whereby you requested authorization will supply you with the Candidate ID which is required to make this setup complete! I ran into the problem whereby my account was sort of messed up and tied to another account which did not let me login. As I know that VMware Education is so good at cleaning up and merging accounts…. I opt’d to create a new account on a different email alias of mine which also created ANOTHER Candidate ID, but at least it let me register then! :)

After logging in you should have the option to Register for a Pre-Approved exam!





WARNING! Unless you’re rocking your Chinese … Change it from the DEFAULT!



OMG ITS $120 YOU LIED TO ME! YOU SAID IT WAS FREEEEEEEEEE!!!!!!!! whoa, hold on there!



MORE LIES! YOU SAID ITS FREE NOW ITS ONLY HALF PRICE!@#!@#$@#!@#  Don’t fret yet… wait until you get to the Payment Screen..



Enter this handy dandy code “VCA13ICS” which I’ve borrowed from my dear friend Rasmus Hedlund from his blog post VMware VCA exam experience plus FREE exam voucher

Additional discount / voucher codes available at Free VMware VCA Certification Voucher! thanks to @FrankBrix ! Look below as well.

Coupon Codes:

• VCA13ICS (Expires November 15th)
• VCA13BCN (Expires end of November)
• VCA13GKN (Supposed to be good until Jan 31 2014)
• VMRT6B404C7B (Expires January 31st)



OMG OMG OMG ITS FREE FREE FREE! Yea. Get it while you can! For some reason mine said mine is only able to taken over the next 2 days which scares me into thinking OMG this won’t last… So get out there and register!

Well it is finally here! Are you excited? You ought to be!

Who or what IS Infinio?!?

So I know what you’re thinking, WHAT exactly is this?!  I first came to know Infinio earlier this year when I saw just how awesome this solution is.  Imagine a solution using server-side caching to minimize and off-load I/O requests so only what is required is sent back to the your shared storage.   It essentially takes 8GB of idle memory on your ESXi hosts and creates a deduplicated cache in memory.   Okay, that’s a lot of jibber-jabber, what exactly does that mean?

If you’re using NFS today you can simply download and deploy the tool in minutes.  And then all of a sudden you’re ready to rock and roll!

The installation is as easy as this.  And then you’re ready to go with your NFS datastore being accelerated.

I’ve talked with the engineers and creators of this product and I was excited for this when it was in Alpha and Beta.  With it being GA this is infinitely more exciting!  The coolest part is, this isn’t simply a one-off solution which will impact your operations individually.  It scales with more installations!

Fortunately unlike most products these days, the dashboard doesn’t look like a disgusting pile of sin.  It’s pretty and provides relevant information!

Couple of cool things associated with this release!

• No new hardware. No reboots. No interruptions in service to install or implement.
• Accelerates all workload types
• Download on a 30 day trial and license when complete – The true “Try before you Buy”

This can basically turn your NFS into providing Flash-like performance accelerating whatever your backend storage happens to be.   Hey, worst case you can give it a try and see it for yourself!

For more details you can check out the Tech Field Day earlier this year where  Peter Smith Demonstrates Infinio Accelerator

In addition today with the special announcement day there will be a Live Webinar with Q/A today Nov 5 at 3PM EST.

I’ll unfortunately miss this awesome announcement webinar because… well, Afghanistan, timezones and I’ll be asleep at the 1AM or so that it’s at! :)

So check it out, be awesome, and rock rock rock!