Don't think my head can take much more

OK, my study plans are all out of the window for now.

It all started a month ago when I decided I would take a look at Vista next, a week in and I was asked to get on Citrix Xen Desktop as quick as possible. I started studying and got bored (the e-learning is very dull) so decided I would be able to postpone for a short period to take a crack at the Citrix Xen App 5 beta exam, a week in and I have been told to get a VCP quick. In fact I was told on Thursday afternoon that I will be going on a course from Monday.

In short my head is all over the shop and I've had no time to find out what to expect from next week.

I will be attending the VMware Infrastructure 3.5: Install and Configure (4 day) course, but I have not had enough time to prepare (due to very short notice and working too hard). I am looking to know if there are any general gottchas that I need to be aware of, this course would be a good time to lab it up and ask questions.

I assume that I will only have a couple of weeks before I am expected to have taken and passed the exam too. Are there any areas that are not covered very clearly on this course that I could lab up at home?

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

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Comments

tiersten

Not really. The I&C course should cover most things you need to do. It will cover installation and configuration (no surprise there) from scratch and the course books are pretty good. If you're clear on what a VM is, the role of a hypervisor and general Linux/Windows admin then thats pretty much all the prep work you need for the course.

Its generally recommended that you read some of the VMware whitepapers before doing the exam however. Install the trial of ESX and redo some of your labs before the exam.

stupidboy

tiersten wrote:

If you're clear on what a VM is, the role of a hypervisor and general Linux/Windows admin then thats pretty much all the prep work you need for the course.

I think I can manage that, I passed Citrix Xen Server a month ago and I am sure my Windows and Linux (and other Unix like OSs) should be good enough.

I like to be organised, aim to understand what it covered and what I need to know. Without this I feel a little over exposed

Thanks for you input, its made me feel a little more settled.

dynamik

They do encourage you to read some of the other guides and some people who have passed recently have said those were the only places they found some of the material. See my post here for more information: http://techexams.net/forums/viewtopic.php?p=262351#262351

Good luck! I think you'll really enjoy the course.

stupidboy

dynamik wrote:

They do encourage you to read some of the other guides and some people who have passed recently have said those were the only places they found some of the material. See my post here for more information: http://techexams.net/forums/viewtopic.php?p=262351#262351

Good luck! I think you'll really enjoy the course.

Nice one thanks, I'll have a scan though tonight.

I really hope I enjoy the course, instructor led training really does not suit me.

dynamik

stupidboy wrote:

I really hope I enjoy the course, instructor led training really does not suit me.

Same here. It's the only course I've ever taken, and I only did so because it was required. After the first day, there is a lot of hands-on and other exercises. You don't have to just sit and take notes for eight hours straight. I wasn't looking forward to it at all, but I really enjoyed it in the end. Hopefully you'll have a similar experience.

astorrs

Here's a good thing to bring to class as well, just print it out duplex and it's an awesome reference card: http://www.vmreference.com/downloads/vmreferenceVI3card1.2.1.pdf

bwcarty

I had the class taught by Jerry Davis last week, and it was pretty good. The book covers all the slides, and I was able to listen to him and just highlight a few things rather than just jot down notes the whole time.

You'll spend close to a full day on SAN connectivity, so if don't deal much with your storage regularly, you may want to brush up on whether you're using FCP, iSCSI, or NFS. They're all covered in the class, though.

As far as the exam goes, I'll be taking it in the near future, so we'll see how well the class translates to the exam.

Andretii

astorrs wrote:

Here's a good thing to bring to class as well, just print it out duplex and it's an awesome reference card: http://www.vmreference.com/downloads/vmreferenceVI3card1.2.1.pdf

Thanks for this notes. Very good resources to add to my list since I don't really like big books lol

HeroPsycho

Honestly, if you don't have any foggy idea about ESX and VI, just go to the course, and study the reference material as you go through the course or afterwards. If your head is swimming that much, reading stuff before taking the course might make it worse or do no good.