Tag Archives: VCAP-DCA

VCAP study notes – 9.3 Configure vCentre server Linked Mode

Knowledge

  • Identify Linked Mode Prerequisites
  • Identify differences between Linked and non?linked vCenter Server Configurations
  • Identify when a role requires reconciliation

Skills and Abilities

  • Reconcile Roles in a Linked Mode Configuration
  • Create and Join a Linked Mode Group
  • Determine use cases for vCenter Server Linked Mode
  • Troubleshoot Linked Mode Configurations

Tools & learning resources

Continue reading VCAP study notes – 9.3 Configure vCentre server Linked Mode

VCAP study notes – 8.2 VMware Orchestrator

Automation is becoming increasingly popular and important, and VMware’s Orchestrator is another automation/scripting product but with loftier aims – to provide an extendable orchestration platform to enable a dynamic infrastructure. To date it seems to have gained very little traction or attention (most blog and twitter articles cover PowerCLI) but VMware obviously want to promote it – hence it’s inclusion in the VCAP-DCA blueprint.

Knowledge

  • Identify vCenter Orchestrator requirements
  • Identify default Orchestrator plug?ins

Skills and Abilities

  • Install and Configure vCenter Orchestrator
  • Configure vCenter Orchestrator database
  • Configure vCenter Orchestrator LDAP connection
  • Configure vCenter Orchestrator vCenter server connections
  • Run a Workflow
  • Administer Actions, Tasks, Workflows and Policies
  • Administer Packages
  • Identify appropriate Workflow for a given management activity

Tools & learning resources

Continue reading VCAP study notes – 8.2 VMware Orchestrator

VCAP study notes – section 8.1, PowerCLI

PowerCLI has been increasingly popular due to the need to automate larger vSphere environments. This section, more than most on the VCAP-DCA blueprint is one where you have to know what you’re doing – writing code can’t be done in theory, you have to get stuck in and play with it.

The main references for this section are the VMware PowerCLI homepage and the VMware PowerCLI Administration guide. PowerCLI has received extensive blog coverage from numerous people far more experienced than me – check out Virtu-Al, Luc Dekkens, Hal Rottenberg or Jonathan Medd’s blogs for more info than you can handle….

Installing PowerCLI

PowerCLI is simply an extension to Microsoft’s Powershell environment so installation consists of installing Powershell (it’s built into Windows 2008 onwards) and then adding PowerCLI;

Client requirements:

  • WinXP SP2, Win2k3 or greater
  • 32 or 64 bit
  • .NET framework v2.0 SP1 (or greater)
  • Powershell v1 or v2

Server requirements:

  • ESX or ESXi v3.0, vCentre 2.01 (or greater)

Continue reading VCAP study notes – section 8.1, PowerCLI