VCDX – Pricing Increase

As of April 1, 2017, the cost of the VCDX certification will increase from US$1,200 to US$3,995. Unfortunately for most candidates, this means the VCDX journey will now be an employer sponsored process.

Update: The VMware Education blog post on this subject states that you can purchase a voucher now to be used later and VCDX candidates defending May/June will be charged the current fees. It also mentions prices for “Developing” countries, which is the first I have heard of it, so definitely ask about it.

If you are into HCI, then the zero-fee Nutanix Platform Expert program is also an option.

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Nutanix .NEXT 2017 US registration is now open

nextconference Registration for Nutanix .NEXT 2017 in the US is now open. It will be held from 28 – 30 June, 2017, at the Gaylord National Resort and Convention Center in Washington, D.C.

Last year I really enjoyed Nutanix .NEXT 2016, it was a well organised event and I had some great conversations and was able to catch-up with the vCommunity.

I booked my trip last week and I will probably be there earlier that week to complete my NPX Panelist trainee requirements with the mid-year NPX Defences (date not finalised). Look forward to seeing you all there!

vSAN Design Considerations

I have gone through the vSAN 6.2 Design and Sizing Guide, the vSAN 6.2 Network Design Guide and the vSAN 6.2 Stretched Cluster & 2 Node Guide (230+ pages) and aggregated all of the design decisions, design considerations and best practices into one page of bullet points that is easy to consume. If you read any other articles on my blog, you will realise that I am very fond of condensed lists and summarized bullet points. Here is a comprehensive list of resources for all things vSAN.

If you are interested in Nutanix HCI design, I also have my design decision summary for ESXi and AHV.

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Customer Perspective – Dell-EMC EHC

Whilst I was working for STC in Saudi Arabia, I spent considerable time building their Private Cloud strategy. One of the key decisions I promoted and evangelised was the adoption of Dell-EMC’s Enterprise Hybrid Cloud (EHC, formerly FEHC – Federated Enterprise Hybrid Cloud). This post covers the decision making process I followed, the problems solved and the benefits and mechanics of EHC.

This post is the synopsis of a recent talk I gave for the RoundTower – Dell-EMC EHC co-event that we held in Boston last month, where we (RoundTower Technologies) are on the cusp of achieving EHC Partner status.

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vRealize Suite Link-O-Rama

vrealize-suite-combined-logoThe VMware vRealize Suite Link-O-Rama Resource Page

This is an aggregation of resources for the VMware vRealize Suite.  If I have missed any other resources, reach out to me on Twitter and I will add them.  This page will continue to evolve over time and new content will be marked as “NEW!”.

Since vCloud Director is well and truly alive, I have included it as well.

Until I go through and list each individual blog post from an author, you can click on the author name to jump to their latest content. Continue reading vRealize Suite Link-O-Rama

VCDX – The 60m Multi-VCDX Defence

The 60 minute “remote defence” was added as a requirement for Multi-VCDX in early 2016. This was added to protect the integrity of the Multi-VCDX certification. This post is based upon my preparation and observations for the VCDX-CMA track I defended recently. Parts of this post could also be applied to VCDX candidates that are defending for the second time remotely.

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