Free VMware eBook - Hyper-Converged Infrastructure for Dummies

VMware have kindly produced a 2nd Special Edition of the Hyper-Converged Infrastructure for Dummies ebook.

The book covers the benefits of a Hyper-Converged infrastructure.

From the Introduction.

"Hyper‐converged infrastructure (HCI) does just that. HCI evolves the way that compute, storage, and management are delivered and provisioned to help you cut operational and capital costs, increase information technology (IT) and business agility, and improve application performance."

The book is 76 pages long and is written by Michael Haag

Download Hyper-Converged Infrastructure for Dummies and enjoy the read.

VMware - IT Automation for Dummies iPaper

One of the recurring topics in a lot of the cloud courses I teach now is DevOps, or for IT automation.

A lot of traditional IT support staff may see this as putting them out of a job, but I see it more as, making the IT department more efficient.

A lot of us work more hours than we're paid for, so IT automation allows us to regain some of that time.

The fantastic people at VMware have produced a 6 page iPaper entitled:

IT Automation for Dummies - written by Tracie Stamm and David Zolnier

Here's a little bit to wet the appetite.

"Automation is quickly becoming the key industry standard to achieve the agility required for faster access to IT resources. Automation helps organisations accelerate IT service delivery by automating the configuration and provisioning of the networking, security, and infrastructure components that support application development."

VMware Cloud on AWS – Quick Reference Poster

I've been learning all about VMware VMC on AWS, this is a fantastic resource.

Thanks to Jeremiah Megie and Emad Younis for making the following available.

VMware Cloud on AWS – Quick Reference Poster

It covers the following sections, and I've already found it extremely useful.

• Infrastructure Overview: A high-level diagram showing the relationships between the on-premises data center, the VMware Cloud on AWS SDDC, and native AWS services.
• HCX Enterprise Network: A detailed diagram covering the HCX components, connectivity, flows, and ports utilized between the on-premises data center and VMware Cloud on AWS.
• Direct Connect Topology: This section shows the components and overall topology of utilizing AWS Direct Connect (DX) for connectivity between the on-premises data center and VMware Cloud on AWS.
• NSX-T AWS Connected VPC: This diagram presents an overview of how communication occurs between the VMware Cloud on AWS VPC and a customer’s VPC if they are utilizing AWS native services.
• Firewall Rules: The final section includes a list of the common firewall rules used between the on-premises data center and VMware Cloud on AWS for the Management Gateway, HCX, and Site Recovery.

Feature Walk Through - VMware Products

As a VMware instructor, I spend a lot of time looking at resources and trying to find resources that will be useful to my delegates.

The VMware Product Walkthroughs are one of the resources I check quite a bit.

The site has resources for the majority of VMware products in a useful centralised location.

Examples of products include:

VMC on AWS
vSAN
NSX
vSphere

Definitely worth looking at if you find yourself with a few free minutes

VMware Certification is changing

As a VCI, I have to ensure that I stay up to date with the current VMware technologies, and there's a lot of them.

In the past, when I've delivered a course I've told my delegates that they have to renew their certifications every two years.

That has now changed, the following is taken from Karl Childs Blog article, linked if you wish to read more.

"The recertification policy of a two-year upgrade was in place to help you maintain that relevancy through upgraded certifications and up-to-date skills. Recertification is important enough to create policies around, but we’ve heard your feedback and we are making a change. We want the VMware certification program to match the needs of each candidate and allow the flexibility to do what best supports individual and organizational needs.

So, effective immediately, the mandatory recertification requirement will be removed from all current certifications. We want you to upgrade and recertify when it’s important or viable for you."

However, for myself as a VCI, I still have to re certify every two years, but that's the job.

Yet another free e-book from VMware - Operationalizing VMware vSAN

Yesterday, I passed my vSAN specialist exam, I read a lot of books etc

Thanks to VMware press for making the Operationalizing VMware vSAN book available as a free PDF download.

Also thanks to Paul Wiggett and Kevin Lees for writing the book

As a key component of VMware’s approach for helping customers evolve to hyper-converged infrastructure, VMware vSAN™ provides an agile, secure, and high performance solution ready for future hardware, cloud, and application changes. But, to fully leverage vSAN’s capabilities in a sustained manner, VMware highly recommends making adjustments allowing you to optimise the way you operate a software-defined infrastructure. This book intends to provide you with guidance and best practices for achieving that optimisation when operating a vSAN- based storage infrastructure. It not only addresses tactical optimisations such as monitoring and troubleshooting
but also those of a more strategic nature such as the people and team considerations as well as supporting ITSM process considerations. By adopting vSAN technology as well as adapting your operational model, you will fully realise the benefits provided by, and leverage your investment in, software-defined storage.

Prepping for my new courses - A site I use massively - VMware docs

I haven't posted for a while, the reason is, I've got a new job role at my company, and I've had a couple of exams to sit.

Moving on, I've still got yet more exams to sit, and I thought, I just create a quick post on a site I find extremely useful, and a site I do mention to my delegates.

The VMware docs website contains all of the references that we, as VCIs mention at the beginning of the courses.

This week, I'm using the NSX docs massively.

So, if you're ever thinking, "Where shall I get some additional information about the stuff Bryan has been talking about this week?"

Visit VMware Docs