HELL YEAH!, I finally got my VCDX submission review done and I’m scheduled to defend my design during the first week of November in Cambridge, MA.
Right now I’m feeling like this:
I really can’t believe I made it through this, when I was filling the application and writing the project material back in august I always had the impression that somehow something was missing and that I was overlooking some fields but that wasn’t the case.
Now I’ll try to prepare for the defense at my best (I already arranged a “grill” session with my colleague Giancarlo ) and enjoy the VMworld Europe that is kicking in next week.
Today an e-mail from the VMware VCDX cert team ended up into my inbox, I was eagerly hoping for a confirmation of my VCDX design submission (still waiting from the 26th of August ) but instead it was an official notification of something I was actually already aware of:
Registration for the VMware Certified Advanced Professional 4 – Datacenter Administration (VCAP4-DCA) exam is now open.
Registrations for the VMware Enterprise Administration on VMware Infrastructure 3 Exam: VCE310 have been closed. No new registrations for this exam will be accepted.
The final opportunity to deliver a defense in pursuit of the VMware Certified Design Expert on VI3 (VCDX3) certification will be at VMware Partner Exchange in Orlando, Florida the week of February 7, 2011.
As a matter of fact they extended the deadline for those who were already preparing a design defense, and as the next paragraph show us, the last application deadline for VCDX3 is now extended to November 22th:
If you have passed both the VCE310 and VCD310 exams and wish to apply for a VCDX3 certification:
The application will be due on November 22, 2010, at 5:00 PM PST.
This will be the final opportunity to achieve the VCDX3 certification.
Please note that defense slots are limited and will be reserved for candidates who submit completed applications in the order received.
VCAP4-DCD Exam vouchers will be distributed to eligible candidates at a later time.
Included in the e-mail there are some interesting Q&A:
Q. Will my VI3-based credentials be withdrawn or invalidated?
A. No. Holders of VCP3 and VCDX3 retain those credentials in perpetuity. VMware believes that they remain significant differentiators. However, over time their significance compared to vSphere 4-based credentials will gradually diminish. As time goes on, potential customers, employers, or partners will increasingly express a preference for vSphere 4 credentials.
Q. I have been preparing hard for the VCE310 and/or VCD310 exams. Hasn’t all that time I spent been wasted?
A. No. There is significant continuity between VI3 and vSphere 4. As you prepare for the VCAP-DCA and VCAP-DCD exams, you will be able to focus more on new features and differences, and less on fundamentals.
Q. I passed the VCE310 and the VCD310 exams; am I eligible for the discount on the VCAP4-DCA exam?
A. Yes. You are eligible for discount vouchers for both exams.
So basically, if you were desperate to meet the August 28th deadline and decided to give up, you can resume your work and try to submit a design and defend it at the Partner Exchange 2011
Last week I updated my old WWN Decoder page (renamed as “Storage Tools“) with three useful storage widgets: RAID Space Calculator, a RAW IOPS Calculator and a Replication Bandwidth Calculator.
The IOPS calculator is a bit simplistic right now, I’m trying to improve it to include latency and other determining factors in the IOPS calculation.
With the *real* VMworld winding down, the hype for the European event is building up (the event is smaller, but at least we have decent beers here ).
It’s been a LONG time since I’ve been to a VMworld event (it was February 2008), this year will be all different to me, the keynote will be delivered by the new CEO (in 2008 Diane Greene did the opening speech) and there will be a lot of new interesting ecosystem partners on the showfloor.
This year I will travel alone, I’ll stay at the CABINN Metro which is probably the cheapest hotel in Copenhagen from Monday ’til Thursday so if anyone want to join me to do a tweetup or just to share a beer at the (in)famous VMworld party just let me know, you can reach me at fabio@p2v.it or on twitter @fabiorapposelli.
Italians do it better
Se siete italiani, state leggendo il mio blog, e sarete presenti al VMworld Europe vi invito ad aggiungervi a questa lista: http://bit.ly/VMworld2010IT, sto cercando di raggruppare un contingente italiano per condividere le esperienze sulla virtualizzazione e magari riuscire finalmente a creare un VMUG Italiano, se vi piace l’idea fate girare il link!
Doing the VCDX design in these two weeks has been a crazy ride, I spent near twelve hours a day creating, drawing and reviewing a (in my opinion) great documentation.
As many others before me I can clearly say that this is the most challenging part in the whole VCDX experience, sure, the Enterprise Admin exam was tricky, and studying for the Design exam was a thought task (the blueprint wasn’t that clear…) but compiling the Application Form and preparing all the documentation as requested by VMware was a really demanding task. Doing that with a two weeks deadline was an epic job for me, I’m not used to that pressure .
But now that I submitted the design I can sleep tight at night, if the design will be accepted I’ll defend the first week of November in Cambridge, MA.
I wish to thank my wife for supporting me and for yelling at me at 3am forcing me to go to bed
) and enjoy the VMworld Europe that is kicking in next week.
) but instead it was an official notification of something I was actually already aware of:
