DustedInSpace

Certification Domination

After the initial flurry of posts I have been a bit quiet for the past couple of weeks. I believe this is a common theme of blogs in general. Everyone starts off thinking it’ll be easy to keep the creative juices flowing but somehow it all dries up rather quickly. Obviously I am no different so I will have to invest a bit more time and “find my muse man”.

To be honest the first couple of posts where quite cathartic in a way. Just the process of typing my rambling thoughts gave me some bizarre sense of achievement. Feck knows why. Maybe it’s because no-one listens to me, no-one understands me and I had a terrible childhood. Or not.

And so onwards.

VMware Certified Professional (VCP410)

Further to my EMC Cloud Architect Get! (Part Deux) post, I have embarked on a mission towards certification world domination, first EMC and now VMware.

As I stated in the previous post:

“I attended the VMware vSphere:Install Configure and Manage course last summer with the express intention of doing VCP410 around the same time. I put that off at least three times, even to the point of losing my fee on one occasion as I have forgot to reschedule it – DOH!. And before anyone asks – I paid for that exam myself, no wasting public money by this geek. No siree.”

In the flush of success after the EMCCA achievement I booked the VCP410 exam again, taking advantage of the VCP4 Second Chance offer from VMware. Fail the exam the first time then get a second go for free. Perfect for the procrastinator.

Read about it here: http://mylearn.vmware.com/mgrReg/plan.cfm?plan=20120&ui=www

Preparation

I’ve been working with ESX since version 3.0, well I say working, more like looking over @shmern and @apache1311’s shoulders trying to pick up enough to make it look like I know something.

Having responsibility for storage means I have to work closely with the virtualisation/server team. We get on really well and share the same office, it also helps having a common enemy in the networking team. We get on so well that I have access to all their kit: HP BladeSystem C7000/C3000, Cisco UCS, vSphere 4.1 clusters. They even give me very own HP Proliant DL380G5 for a VMware test rig. Can’t argue with that – a right good bunch of guys. They don’t get near my Symmetrix(s) though. No f*cking way. That’s for real men. I let them have a few iSCSI AX4’s and HP MSA’s *spit* to make them feel like I trust them but we know better, don’t we reader *wink*.

I’ll not go through the complete list of the materials I used to prepare, others have tread that path previously, however I want to call out my three most valuable resources.

1) Mastering VMware vSphere 4 : Scott Lowe

Mastering VMware vSphere 4

A stone cold classic. The first tech book I paid my own money for, mainly because I was such a fan of his blog. Every time I googled regarding an ESX issue, Scott’s blog appeared in the results and on many occasions offered fantastic, well written, clear and understandable posts. This book is written in exactly the same fashion. It also has the added bonus of a great storage chapter written by the face melting Chad Sakac. *swoon* Sorry, I had a storage man crush moment there.

It’s a shame the book wasn’t updated for 4.1 but maybe vSphere Next will bring us something, I certainly hope so. Since Scott has moved to EMC his blog posts have become less frequent, understandable considering his skills are probably in great demand by EMC’s customers. They should let him out every so often though.

Scott’s Blog : http://blog.scottlowe.org/

Amazon : Kindle

2) VMware vSphere 4.1 HA and DRS Technical Deepdive : Duncan Epping & Frank Denneman

HA & DRS:Technical Deepdive

This isn’t the first resource I would suggest to anyone studying for VCP *however* I would suggest every vSphere admin or wannabe admin read it once they think they have an understanding of HA and DRS. I thought I knew about HA and DRS until I read this book. Having a more in-depth knowledge of the topics it allows for a better thinking process when trying to figure out those tricky questions. Indispensible

Amazon : Paperback / Kindle

Duncan’s Blog : http://www.yellow-bricks.com/

Frank’s Blog : http://frankdenneman.nl/

3) The SLOG:SimonLong/Blog

SLOG

Simons Blog has a great VCP4 study section: http://www.simonlong.co.uk/blog/vcp-vsphere-upgrade-study-notes/ , as well as some utterly indispensable practice and configuration maximum tests: http://www.simonlong.co.uk/blog/vcp-vsphere-4-practice-exam/

Exam

To be honest I have been very busy this month, in work and at home so I completely forgot about the exam until Friday past. I was able to take a day out to study and pretty much did nothing else all day Friday and all day Sunday. Saturday was reserved for beer and football. Manchester United Football Club. League Champions. 19. A good day.

So I tootled along to the Pearson Vue Centre again, not really confident but happy in the knowledge that at least I had a free go in the back pocket so to speak.

85 questions and not a damn single configuration maximum question or ESX partition configuration question. I had memorised ALL of them, I practised them so much that I probably used up all Simon’s bandwidth over the past few days. Let it be noted that this was the bit of the exam preparation I hated the most. Detested it. And not a single question. That’s ironic as Alanis Morissette would sing.

As for the rest of the exam, overall it wasn’t too bad. Everything as expected, apart from the aforementioned non-appearances. Thankfully I passed and won’t be needing that free go now.

I now have that winning glow. A bit like these guys:

Champions

Finally

Next stops on the certification world domination journey: EMC Symmetrix and CCNA. Cos I am going to own that data centre.

All your private clouds are belong to me.

Marathon

Today was the first time I have ever attended a marathon, the 30^th Belfast City Marathon. The biggest Belfast Marathon to date with 21,000 entries. Not bad for a nation where many would consider this to be the national dish.

Note the word attended, I wasn’t running, I was there offering support to my wife. Her aim was to run a 7 mile leg as part of a relay team in support of the Integrated Education Fund.

From their website:

“The Integrated Education Fund aims to make integration, not separation, the norm in our education system. The Fund supports the continued growth of integrated school places and encourages all schools to provide their pupils with the opportunity to engage meaningfully with children from different cultural and religious backgrounds.”

I know that may seem strange to some people however it’s Northern Ireland we are talking about here. Whilst a lot has changed for the better over the last 15 or so years, our education system is still pretty much divided down religious lines. Have a read here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Education_in_Northern_Ireland

Trying to change the status quo is difficult so starter/changing schools need all the help they can get. The IEF is a charitable organisation that:

“seeks to bridge the financial gap between starting integrated schools and securing full government funding and support.
financially supports the establishment of new schools, the growth of existing schools and those schools seeking to become integrated through the transformation process. “

We do have a vested interest: my wife teaches in an integrated school and our three year old, Evie, will be starting her educational journey in that same integrated school starting September 2011.

Small acorns and all that.

Anyway, enough of the serious stuff, on to the marathon.

The closest I have been to a marathon is annually watching the London version from the cosy confines of the Dusted bed, usually in the fugue of a hangover. God bless the BBC (for the wonderful coverage, not the hangover, they have nothing to do with that.) Like everyone else I have marvelled at the endeavour and sheer will power of man (and woman) in his (or her) quest to beat the odds.

However, it’s even more awesome in person, there really are some fantastic runners with amazing causes and seeing it up close is inspirational. No other word for it.

Being a spectator is great fun – seeing people physically lift when you shout encouragement is hard to beat. There was a middle aged lady behind me who reserved her best cheers for the fellas in skirts and tutu’s. All kinds of wrong. It was great craic.

There really are some crazy people. Imagine trying to run 26 miles in this get-up:

Or with a rucksack:

Look! It’s a stereotype:

And look at this guy. Does he look like he is enjoying it? He looks like he has sucked a bagful of lemons. And stuck a couple down the front of his spandex to impress the ladies:

No, its my good friend Ferg (@blackwaterswim). Musician extraordinaire, SharePoint guru and all round good guy. With lemons in his pants.

He finished his second marathon this year in a totally envious time. I want to be like him. Minus the lemons.

Check out his band BlackWaterSwim. Its a veritable Sonic Cathedral of Sound.

And here is the lovely lady herself (middle of shot), after 7 miles in just over an hour and looking fresh as a daisy:

Post-run elation with Evie:

I am so proud of her, it was an all round brilliant day. Congratulations to all those who ran and achieved today, I hope you made loads of money for your good causes, you deserve to.

Get yourselves out to your local marathon, participate or support. Its great fun and INSPIRING.

Footnote: I had intended running however I damaged my calf/achilles 8 weeks ago which ruled me out. I WILL run next year.

DustedInSpace:Origins

Obviously I have new blogger enthusiasm. Another day, another post.

I was showing the wife my new pride and joy last night (ooh, err missus) and she asked where the domain name came from. Except she didn’t, she doesn’t have a clue what a domain name is. She saw the headline banner and asked “DustedInSpace? That’s a stupid, geeky name. Where did that come from?”

“Um, yes it is dear, calm down…”

I’ll explain.

Back in the heady days of 1996/1997 myself and @Shmern were heavily into Quake and QuakeWorld. To the extent that we stayed in work every night until about 7.30PM and were even known to travel to work on Saturday afternoon to partake in Clan matches. Hardcore.

Obviously playing on-line you had to use a cool handle, something to strike fear into the heart of your opponents. Or something like that. My friend Shmern has always been Shmern for reasons I have never been able to find out. Even his wife calls him Shmern. It keeps him happy so what do you do?

I didn’t have a handle other than Player1 which as anyone playing at the time marked you out as a complete NOOB. Cannon fodder. Top 1996 tip – never enter an online game with the default player name.

At that time I was a big fan of the band Throwing Muses (still am). One of the founding band members, Tanya Donnelly, had an offshoot band called Belly whose first LP Star had a track on it called Dusted. I loved the song and thought the title would make a great handle, so there you go. From that point on my Internet name was defined.

Here’s a video and lyrics, which are a bit dark, now that I read them:

“Baby’s playing dead in cellar.
Gave her water just got paler.
Grass stains, backburns, she’s a screamer.
She’s just dusted, leave her.
If you see her, don’t upset her.
Never seems to get much better.
Grass stains, backburns, she’s a screamer.
She’s just dusted leave her.
Mmm mmm, goes to your heart.
Mmm mmm, sticks in your head.
Mmm mmm mmm mmm, yeah.
Baby’s playing dead in cellar.
Gave her water, she got paler.
Grass stains, backburns, she’s a screamer.”

That accounts for the Dusted bit, but what about InSpace? Another long winded explanation.

An integral part of the Quake scene at that time was IRC. (Go and look it up on Wikipedia you youngsters with your IM clients and MSN and whathaveya – we were LOLing before you were even born.) Obviously Dusted was my nickname on there but you also had to have a sign off message made up of loads of obscure ASCII characters and a witty saying. It seemed important at the time.

Another band I am a big fan of is Spiritualized, who in 1997 released an LP named Ladies and gentlemen we are floating in space. This LP is a stone cold classic. No discussion. For me it’s up there with yer Pet Sounds, Sergeant Peppers and OK Computers. If you have never heard it, download it from your site of choice. Then buy the CD. Get the blister pack if you can. Treasure it.

“Ladies and gentlemen we are floating in space” was my IRC sign off message.

Here, have a listen to the original Elvis mix of the title track, you won’t regret it.

“All I want in life’s a little bit of love
To take the pain away
Getting strong today
A giant step each day
Wise men say
Only fools rush in
Only fools rush in
But i, I can’t help
I can’t help falling
Falling in love with you

I will love you till I die
And I will love you all the time
So please put your sweet hand in mine
And float in space and drift in time

All my time until I die,
We’ll float in space just you and i
And I will love you till I die
And I will love you all the time
So please put your sweet hand in mine
We’ll float in space just you and i

Wise men say
Only fools rush in
But I can’t help
Falling in love with you.”

Georgeous.

Anyway the blog name is a combination of the two. Cos the internet is like space innit? And I am in it, innit?

Whatever.

Its my birthday today. I’m 42. It Shmern’s birthday as well. He is also 42. We aren’t related, its synchronicity. Happy birthday mate.

TFS Forever.

EMC Cloud Architect Get! (Part III)

You couldn’t make this up but no sooner had I hit the Publish button on my last post than the doorbell rang.

A package from EMC ? For me? Why thank you.

Its an EMC Proven Professional (Specialist) polo shirt. You’ll get one of these when you pass your first EMC Specialist exam, obviously passing the E20-018 exam qualified me for this. (The exam does qualify you to use the SPECIALIST logo – confirmed with EMC). I also got a nifty pin badge as well, you can see it just above the embroidered logo.

I had asked for a large shirt cos that usually does me, medium is a bit tight across the gut these days. However, it appears its, emm, how can I put this politely, US style large. IT COULD FIT A WHALE!

This is it housing my daughter Evie. She is 26. (Actually she has just turned three.)

The future

Nevermind, modesty forbids me from wearing it anyway. More to the point I’d get the piss ripped out of me if I wore it to work. I’d also have to purchase a pair of chino’s to go with it. It will most likely end up in the “painting pile”. Sorry EMC but thats the way we roll in Belfast.

EMC Cloud Architect Get! (Part Deux)

As promised a follow up on my post from yesterday. Well, two days ago, I don’t get paid to do this stuff and I have a real life. (Yes, I was playing Bulletstorm on the 360 instead.)

I took the exam without attending the course so it may be of some benefit to relay my experience and thoughts. Some of this originally appeared as comments on Christophers Kusek’s (@CXI) post here : First Industry Cloud Certification: EMC Cloud Architect class and E20-018 EXPOSED!!! Christopher’s post gives a great overview of the course and prerequisites, if you are going to take the exam then I STRONGLY suggest you read it. I have no doubt it would have assisted me had it been available.

Experience

I have been working in IT for 20 years now but have only got round to taking certifications in the last year or so. Call it my mid-life crisis. Other guys buy motorcycles and fast cars, I decide to take certs. Go figure.

I work in a senior position in a team responsible for the virtualisation/server stack, EMC storage, Cisco UCS, VMware vSphere and Citrix technologies. We currently manage about 200 physical and 600+ virtual servers. We are on the route to full data centre virtualisation with just a few tier one applications left to go (Oracle/Exchange).

Why Certification ?

My reasons for taking the exam were threefold:

1) Validation/Achievement

I have been working in this industry for a long time and whilst I have achieved a lot professionally I never had that experience validated (for want of a better term).

Real world experience alongside recognised certification – take note prospective employers!

2) Professional Recognition

I have been called on to present on a number of occasions and often felt like a bit of a charlatan amongst all those VCP/CCNA/MSCE consultant presenters. I have implemented this stuff in the real world not just talked about it and now I am able to put one of those EMC Specialist logos on my slides. Makes me feel much better and hopefully shows I can talk AND walk….

3) The chance of a free EMCWorld ticket. Its in LAS VEGAS baby !

Preparation

I took the practice test a few times and worked out which areas I needed to focus on. I am currently studying for VCP4 and felt I was pretty solid around the virtualisation topics. Having already passed the EMC ISA exams was obviously a great primer and working with EMC/VMware/Cisco stuff day to day does help. I asked a few people on Twitter regarding their experience (@mpyeager, THANKS !) and as I said in the previous blog post, took a few pointers from Bas Raayman’s (@basraayman) blog post : How about them cloud architects?

I’m a bit of a procrastinator (aren’t we all) and felt that if I didn’t schedule this exam as quickly as possible I would just put it off, and off and off. At this point I should point out that I attended the VMware vSphere:Install Configure and Manage course last summer with the express intention of doing the VCP4 around the same time. I have put that off at least three times, even to the point of losing my fee one one occasion as I have forgot to reschedule it – DOH!. And before anyone asks – I paid for that exam myself, no wasting public money by this geek. No siree.

I booked the exam at my local Pearson Vue Centre, giving myself a week to prepare for the exam. I would estimate that I studied for around 25 hours total. I have a 45 minute train journey each day to and from work so a good bit was done during that time. I also read quite quickly, that always helps.

The main areas I felt I had to concentrate on were Cloud definitions/”aaS” models and everything around Governance, Risk and Compliance (GRC). I didnt limit myself to those, I made sure that I read up on some aspects of storage virtualisation theory and technologies (e.g. EMC VPLEX).

Some helpful sites with resources I used are as follows:

NIST : NIST Definition of Cloud Computing (Draft Special Publication 800-145) (PDF)

ENISA : Cloud Computing Security Risk Assessment (PDF)

EMC : Building Secure SANS (PDF) / Extended Distance Technologies (PDF) / IT’s Journey To The Private Cloud (PDF)

GRC-Resource : A frame of reference for research of integrated Governance, Risk & Compliance (PDF) / A process model for integrated IT governance, risk, and compliance management (PDF)

SearchVirtualStorage : Storage Virtualization Essentials (PDF – needs registration)

After studying for a bit I had got up to around 85% (not the 100% of @CXI – swot!) on the practice so I thought I was was as prepared as I could be.

Exam

Like all good students I turned up 20 minutes in advance of my exam appointment and was dealt with in the usual professional way by the staff at the Pearson Vue Centre. Usual Passport/Driving Licence check followed by the capture of my ugly mug which apparently is now attached to my certification record. This added piece of security now means you can’t pay me to do the exam for you. And I can’t pay someone else to do my VCP4. Pants.

The real exam was a lot harder than the practice. Talk about lulling you into a false sense of security! On initial viewing of the first 20 questions or so it really was squeaky bum time. No shame in admitting it, I thought I had no chance, the only consolation I was taking at this point was at least the exam was free and I hadn’t told any of my work colleagues. After about 2 minutes I thought:

“You choker !!!”

Annual Choker

Giving up quicker than Arsenal on a title run in! Channel the MUFC winning spirit my friend and you shall overcome!”

Legend

Once the choking, loser, Arsenal-like feeling passed and I read the questions a few times I was able to make sense of things. Thankfully my virtualisation experience was invaluable. You need a good grasp of virtualisation technologies and capabilities, maybe not up to VCP4 level but a really good understanding. There was a mention of “Live Migration” at one point. Eh? Oh yeah its an open course… Hyper V is included. *spit*

I had to really think about the GRC stuff and pull from the deepest recesses of my tiny mind. A lot of answers are pretty sensible/obvious. I also guessed a few in the “Ah that answer looks rubbish, so does that one. Eeny meeny..” One tiny tip – CAP Theorem. Know what it is.

As has been mentioned by others, *READ THE QUESTIONS CAREFULLY*, some of the question wordings are *WEIRD*. No other way to put it. They almost seem designed to cause FUD and make you question your own understanding of the topics. I guess all good exams should do that to an extent, they are called TESTS after all, but this one was, erm, downright strange at times.

Overall

In my opinion EMC are to be applauded for building this certification track in an “open” manner. (I say “open” but being an EMC course it certainly doesn’t hinder you to know a bit about some EMC technologies.) Also it covers all the aspects of “Cloud” as commonly understood; most notable for me is the stuff around Governance, Risk and Compliance (GRC). Being a techy hardware geek kind of guy those are the things I normally leave to someone else. Having to study this area and focus on those aspects has definitely given me a better perspective.

Bas makes some very valid points about the US-centric nature of some of the GRC portions, particularly for those of us from the UK/Europe. Nonetheless I found the GRC topic very interesting. If I had attended the course this would be the part I would be most interested in.

I can’t believe I just typed that sentence. There you have it, I found GRC enjoyable. Nerdy.

Anyway, bringing all this information into a coherent training program/certification is no mean achievement. I hope that the EMC Education builds on the experience and views of those bloggers and customers who have taken the course and exam.

As I stated earlier I didn’t take the course and having listened to the experience of those who have I am glad I didn’t. Controversial eh? Not really. I’m a hands-on kinda guy and I KNOW I would not be able to take that amount of no-hands on lecturing. I once had to attend a 3 day ITIL course. It scarred me for life. VILT would be the way to go for me at my own pace. You may enjoy the days out of the office.

I wouldn’t say I enjoyed studying and taking the exam (hey, who does?) however it was extremely worthwhile, particularly opening my eyes around the GRC components, and it helped to solidify the whole “Cloud” concept in my mind. Certainly was more useful than that ITIL course *shudder*.

Would I recommend it?

Yes – Some of my colleagues have just registered EMC passports and I have encouraged them strongly to take the VILT for this track and complete the certification. (I may have a masochistic look at the GRC section myself!) . Whether or not it becomes an industry standard, who knows? As with all new initiatives of this type, time will tell.

Congratulations to EMC on actually trying to do something though. I am an EMCCA and you can’t take that from me !

Footnote

BTW I was one of the first 50 and did get a free pass to EMCWorld ! In Las Vegas ! Worth $2195 !

I refer you to my previous post though - “I am employed by a public sector organisation which, in these times of austerity, has a clampdown on all unnecessary travel and expenses.”

I put in a request for travel expenses a few days ago and got the reply yesterday. DENIED. Ah well. Still have the cert though, prospective employers

EMC Cloud Architect Get! (Part Uno)

I recently took the EMC examination E20-018 : Virtualized Infrastructure Specialist Exam for Cloud Architects (yep thats a mouthful).

I was alerted to the exam and course via an email from EMC and read about it at the EMC Education site. I had already passed the pre-requisite, E20-001 : Information Storage and Management exam sometime last year.

To be honest it looked an interesting proposition: trying to create an industry recognised qualification around the nebulous (see what I did there?) subject of “Cloud” and all that means. I work with storage on a daily basis, was already studying for VCP and making eyes at CCNA so I thought “Well why not go for it?” It fits my profile. In the words of my Latvian friend Raimonds (@rmartinovs) “What is worst can happen? Right ?”

Fortunately I have an EMC Training Subscription which allows me access to an amount of training and gives me 3 EMC Proven Professional exam entries. The flip side is that I am employed by a public sector organisation which, in these times of austerity, has a clampdown on all unnecessary travel and expenses. Sensibly in my opinion. Except when it impacts me. Bastard Tories.

Effectively this meant I couldn’t enrol for a course as they are all in that London. I had also used my 3 VILT entitlement so for this one I was on my own with whatever resources I could find.

I cashed in one of those exam ticket babies and enrolled, giving myself a whole week to prepare (cf. Rai). I had a look about the web and to be honest there weren’t too many resources available other than this post from Bas Raayman (@basraayman) : How about them cloud architects? (UPDATE – Fixed spelling of surname!) The EMC site didn’t give too many clues as to what to expect other than the course outline and the practice test. I asked a few questions on Twitter and the helpful @mpyeager gave me a few pointers. And for clarification, there weren’t any other resources available for the less scrupulous of you. Not that you would go down that path reader. No way. Not you.

Anyway I passed (thoughts in my next blog post) and am now one of yer actual certified EMC Cloud Architects (EMCCA). Apparently this means I should be able to use this lovely logo on my blog and slides and wherever else takes my fancy:

This replaces the EMC ISA logo I was previously authorised to use after passing the E20-001 Information Storage and Management exam:

Notice the difference ? Look closer. In the blue bar. SPECIALIST !

Well it makes me happy, I don’t care about you.

However, not quite yet according to EMC CertTracker:

I am sure this is an oversight on behalf of EMC (I hope it is, I kinda like that SPECIALIST strapline, it gives me a warm fuzzy glow) , I’ll ping an email and update in due course.

On a final note, the inspiration for this, my first ever blog post, was Christophers Kusek’s (@CXI) post here : First Industry Cloud Certification: EMC Cloud Architect class and E20-018 EXPOSED!!!

I left him a long reply which I thought was a bit tl;dr so I am going to steal my own comments for another post.

EMC Cloud Architect Get! (Part Deux) coming soon to a screen near you. Probably.

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