Just in a few short weeks, we will be kicking off our next VMworld event in digital form. In this post, I’d like to discuss why it’s important to attend this year’s event, especially for our VMware partner and cloud provider community.
VMworld is this week! While I am sad I cannot see many of you in person, I wanted to spend some time to review a few sessions that are rather pertinent for our global cloud providers. I am going to break this out into specific categories. The sessions I list below are not exhaustive in nature as there are over 40+ sessions that are Cloud Provider focused.
VMware and Amazon Web Services are making a significant investment in providing a vSphere experience in a hyperscaler environment and we continue to see adoption for Cloud Service Providers utilizing VMware Cloud on AWS as an offering for managed services.
In this post, I will review my approach, what to expect on the exam, and my raw study notes.
I decided to prepare for the VMware Cloud on AWS Management Exam 2019 (Exam 5v0-31.19) and sit for it. While there’s a lot of great material that I will review below, I wanted to provide my approach for others.
My Approach
Always start with the blueprint. I print this out and go through line to verify I have a base level understanding of the objective and what I need to focus on.
First off, there is some great material already online that I reviewed:
Paul McSharry‘s writeup on the material and his mindmap which is here.
Manny Sidhu did a great writeup of his notes and approach here.
This was beneficial as it covered a lot of the fundamentals including some AWS concepts I was not aware of.
I would highly recommend this for people even new to VMware vSphere as it reviews many of these concepts at a high-level.
Went through the VMware Hands on Lab for VMware Cloud on AWS (1987-01-HBD) – this is great to get your hands-on and experience setting up a SDDC. Walks through many of the same concepts I saw in the Deploy and Manage course.
Exam
It’s 30 questions and is done via the Pearson Vue site online. I thought it was very fair as a skill/badge exam and goes over many of the fundamental requirements. As expected, it’s true to the blueprint.
My Raw Notes
For me, I always prepare a final checklist of things I review before I take any examination. Below is my list of raw notes I used before I took the exam. As they are my raw notes, expect some abbreviations.
Anyway, enjoy the exam and I look forward to the expansion of VMware Cloud on AWS!
VMC on AWS Study Notes:
Use Cases:
Extension of onprem DC to the public cloud to expand resource capacity, increase disaster avoidance and recovery options, or localize application instances.
Consolidation
Peering the private and public cloud that allows for application mobility
Global compliance – ISO, SOC1-3, GDPR, and HIPAA
Many different AWS regions available plus GovCloud
SDDC
Minimum of 3 hosts and maximum of 32 hosts
Up to 10 clusters can be added to a SDDC
Stretched Cluster – between two AZ’s (min of 6 hosts and max of 28)
Host Configuration
2 18 core sockets – Broadwell
512 gibibytes of memory (550GB)
14.3TB of NVMe SSD’s – 3.6TB for flash, 10.7TB for capacity
1 AWS ENA – 25Gbps
vSAN/Storage
Two Disk Groups per host
Dedupe/Compression is on by default
Encryption is happening at the drive level
Two different datastores – WorkloadDatastore (for workloads) and vsanDatastore (management VMs, cannot be modified)
Default policy is PFTT 1, RAID1
Can pick from PFTT of 1 to 3, RAID1/5/6 (if available hosts)
Since All Flash, reads are from cap tier
Stretched Cluster
Sync writes between two AZ’s
Witness host is added and not charged to customer
Pre-reqs
Requires a AWS VPC with two subnets, one subnet per AZ
Smallest SC is 6, largest is 28
Must grow in pairs
Adding hosts trombones between AZs – first one is added to AZ1, next is AZ2, next is AZ1, and so on
Site Disaster Tolerance – default is dual site mirroring
Network
Traffic is separate between management and compute gateways
Amazon Direct Connect allows for low-latency connections between on-prem and AWS.
ENA’s are highly redundant even though there’s a single pNIC per host
Two types of VPCs
One created and managed by VMware – underlying VPC that is created when the SDDC is created
Second – VPC that you create so you can peer with native AWS services
Firewall
Default deny all
Must add rules for vCenter access, IPsec, etc
Firewall Rule Accelerator created a group of rules to accelerate successfully connecting a VPN tunnel
Logical Networks
Routed network – internal communication over a IPsec or Internet connection. Normal overlay network that we are used to.
External Network – utilized for L2VPN connectivity. Requires Tunnel ID. Think of this as a subint
Inter-Networking Scenarios
Compute GW – IPsec for guest OS connectivity
Compute CW – L2VPN for vMotion, same L2 domain
Direct Connect with pub virtual interface – in conjunction with IPsec or L2VPN or Pub Internet. Used for AWS services
Direct Connect with private virtual interface – secured to direct SDDC
Hybrid Linked Mode
Allows for a single management interface between on-prem vCenter and VMC
Pre-req for migration from on-prem to VMC
Same SSO is not needed
Configuration is only done from one of the vCenters to configure HLM. Will only be visible from this vCenter for future management. So, no bi-directional UI support.
Pre-reqs
IPsec VPN connection between on-prem and SDDC management gateway
Network connectivity between your VMC vCenter and on-prem vCenter server and identity source
Same DNS
Less than 100ms RTT
Misc ports needed for successful connectivity
vCenter Cloud Gateway Appliance configured HLM.
HCX
Can do migrations between vSphere 5.1 to VMC
No charge
VPC
Only one VPC can be connected to a SDDC
VPC subnets can only reside in one AZ.
Elastic IP addresses are public IPv4 addresses mapped to the AWS account, not the resource.
Connecting –
Must connect a Amazon VPC or if it’s a single node SDDC, can delay up to 14 days.
Migrating VMs
Cluster EVC and Per-VM EVC
In 6.7, can enable disable or change the EVC mode at the VM level.
Requirements for Hybrid Cold Migration
vSphere 6.5 patch d or later, 6.0U3, vSphere 5.1/5.5
IPsec VPN
HLM but can use move-vm cmdlet
Hybrid Migration with vMotion
Minimum bandwidth of 250Mbps and less than 100ms RTT
vSphere 6.5 patch d / vSphere 6.0U3
IPsec VPN
vCSS/vDS 6.0 or 6.5
AWS DC with a private virtual interface
HLM or move-vm cmdlet
L2VPN to extend VM networks between on-prem and VMC
All FW rules in order.
VM hardware version 9, Cluster based EVC baseline on Broadwell
Per-VM EVC
Must be hardware version 14 or greater
VM must be powered off to change Per-VM EVC
Permissions and Security
CloudAdmin –
Necessary privileges for creating/managing workloads in the SDDC
Does not allow changing the configuration of management components that are supported by VMW
CloudGlobalAdmin –
Associated with global privileges that allows you to create and manage content library objects and perform other global tasks.
I wanted to start off my Monday morning with a bang, so decided to schedule my VCAP 3v0-624 exam for the first in the morning. Well, I passed!
Before walking into this exam, I wasn’t sure if I prepared enough, but I felt kind of comfortable once the exam started. I’d like to share what I did to prepare for this exam, although this is my first ever VCAP-Design.
Summary of Study Material
VMware Education Courses
I took the vSphere: Design Workshop 6.5 course online a few months ago. This was good at providing a fundamental understanding of VMware’s approach to a virtualized design.
However, I’ve taken other design courses (vCloud Director) so I felt that the approach is very similar. While I reflect positively on this class, I think if you’ve taken other design workshop classes and have a firm understanding of the design methodology, you probably can skip (or take another 6.5 class for my next point).
One valuable thing was the instructor was careful to point on what has changed in vSphere 6.5 (or what’s new). This is very important in my opinion for the Design Exam. So again, positive and a good use of time.
Books I read
VMware vSphere 6.x Datacenter Design Cookbook
I thought Hersey Cartwright’s book was solid on giving me a practical understanding of what to expect for a design and items to be thoughtful on.
While Hersey did write this in the vSphere 6.0x days, it’s still very pertinent and covers many of the important business aspects which seem to be overlooked.
IT Architect: Foundation in the Art of Infrastructure Design
While I enjoyed reading this book, I thought there was more VCDX-preparation level material than specific material for this VCAP-Design test. Perhaps it provided me with a well-rounded approach and drove the thought process. Either way, this is one to keep around for any future planning.
Material I used
Print out BOTH the 6.5 Exam Guide AND 6.0 Exam Guide and review both. For my own study method, I ensure I go through EVERY topic and write them out on my whiteboard. I ensure I cover each one to the best of my abilities.
This was AWESOME! I spent quite a bit of time going through each video and taking notes.
I felt this material was very pertinent to the 6.5 Design Exam. Although the Visio drawings are not on the test anymore, the design methodologies remain constant and everyone did a great job of walking through each subsection.
vCommunity Material – honestly, this was a huge component as many others have created some great material out there. This is not in any order, all is good and pertinent.
VirtualTiers Sample Quiz by Jason Grierson – really cool site that provides a sample design. Again, many of the questions are the Visio-type stitching but drives the thought-process around the design.
I think many of the vCommunity members covered a lot of the specific things, but I will point out things that come top of mind.
Know your Requirements, Assumptions, Constraints, and Risks. Practice, practice practice! I had a hard time understanding functional versus non-functional and then it finally clicked for me.
Understand your AMPRS– Availability, Manageability, Performance, Recoverability, and Security. Again, practice these and understand what are the specific metrics and how non-functional requirements can be categorized in each respective role.
Don’t be afraid of reviewing the 5.x and 6.0 VCAP-Design material. Again, all very pertinent.
Be well prepared for anything that has changed in vSphere 6.5. There are many things that may have changed or enhanced so you’ll need to have knowledge of these aspects.
Last of all, make sure you have working knowledge of design scenarios. I think this has to come with experience and dealing with actual customer situations. This does come with time and exposure.
Post-Exam Thoughts
I thought the exam was very challenging, yet fair. Like I said before, this is my first VCAP-Design, so I cannot comment about the Visio-drawings that were required (albeit I heard these were difficult).
Expect a lot of thought process on each question. TAKE YOUR TIME, you will have plenty of time. I had an hour left even after reviewing every question twice.
Expect the multiple choice, select “x”, and drag and drop.
Go with your instinct and ensure you read the questions clearly.
