About the Journey
A career that began teaching Word Perfect for DOS classes (92), building computers for local VAR (93-94), repairing computer hardware/troubleshooting software (94), installing and maintaining Novell Netware Systems/Networks (95-98), and starting/owning both an Internet Service Provider (ISP) and a VAR/Systems Integrator company (95-03) has led to a very fulfilling career. Skipping forward this leads into my journey with VMware and why I have chosen to take the journey even further. Certification to me is validation of a skill set and loving VMware products has been at the forefront the last 12 years. I have maintained at least one VCP certification(s) since 2009.
Wanting to further validate the design or architect skills it became apparent that the VCAP was the next logical step. I started studying for 3V0-624 after completing 2V0-622D exam on Feb. 5, 2019. I took a fast track thinking I was prepared to take 3V0-624. I scheduled the exam for merely one week from the 2V0-622D exam. After failing the exam on Feb. 12, 2019, I started studying furiously (see below for resources used) and scheduled a second attempt. On March 7, 2019 I passed 3V0-324 to earn the VMware Certified Advanced Profession 6.5 - Data Center Virtualization Design Certification. I hope this information helps someone increase their knowledge and pass the certification.
Resources
Book: VMware vSphere 6.X Datacenter Design Cookbook - Second Edition
Book: It Architect: Foundation in the Art of Infrastructure Design: A Practical Guide for It Architects
Other VCAP Study Sites Used (excellent resources) “Big thanks to these individuals”
Zlatko Mitev - VCAP6.5-DCV Design Prep-Guide
Gregg Robertson - VCAP6-Deploy & Design
Daniel Paluszek - Achievement Unlocked: VMware VCAP 6.5 DCV 3v0-624 Exam – Summary and Tips
David Stamen - VCAP6.5-DCV Design Experience
BuildVirtual.net - VCAP6-DCV Design Journey
There is a need to understand this Information
CADs : Constraints, Assumptions (Risks, Requirements) & Dependencies
Design Examples
Configuration Maximums
High Availability – Understanding the amount of downtime percentage that equates to year, month, week, day per calculation.
VMware vSphere basics: understanding Resource Pools
vSphere 6.0 - Configure and Manage Resource Pools
Online Video Resources
#vBrownBag VCAP6-DCV Design 3V0-622 Obj 1.1 with #VCDX’s @JasonTweet7889 @GreggRobertson5
#vBrownBag VCAP6-DCV Design Objective 1.2 with Mark Gabryjelski @MarkGabbs
#vBrownBag VCAP6-DCV Design 3V0-622 Obj 1.3 with #VCDX @RebeccaFitzhugh
#vBrownBag VCAP6-DCV Design 3V0-622 Obj 2.1 with #VCDX @PCradduck
#vBrownBag VCAP6-DVC Design Objective 2.1 with Paul Cradduck @pcradduck
#vBrownBag VCAP6-DVC Design Objective 3.1 with Joe Clarke @elgwhoppo
Practice Tests
vMusketeers Unofficial Test for VCAP6-DCV Design
Elastic Sky Unofficial Tests
My Notes
IBFT - iSCSI Boot Firmware Table
VMCP - Virtual Machine Component Protection
VAAI - vSphere API for Array Integration Offload certain operations like cloning, deploying VMs from templates, storage vMotion
VASA - VMware API for Storage Awareness
VVOL - Supported FCoE, iSCSI, NFS (Not Supported: RDM SIOC SDRS) VASA required, storage provider required
Functional vs Non-Functional
Functional - Does it do something, yes or no? A functional requirement specifies a function that a system or component must be able to perform. It is more of a business function, not really a technical function
Examples:
1. Does the solution provide a platform that is supported by the application vendor.
2. The design must be PCI 3.0 compliant
Non-Functional - Requires a specific criteria to judge the system, how well or fast does it do it? A non-functional requirement is a statement of how a system must behave, it is a constraint upon the systems behavior. More of a constraint and generally have metrics.
Examples:
- Enough storage throughput in IOPS
- The design should account for 20% growth of CPU/Memory/Network and Storage over the next 3 years
RCARs = Requirements, Constraints, Assumptions, Risks
Requirement - Must be provided and a solution must achieve these requirements.
Constraint - Conditions that provide boundaries to the design. Things that limit my choices!
Assumption - Conditions that are believed to be true, but are not confirmed.
Risk - Factors that might have a negative effect on the design. The design must do!
Example Questions from vBrownbag
| Requirement |
The design should provide a centralized management console to manage both datacenters |
| Assumption |
The customer provides sufficient storage capacity for building the environment |
| Constraint |
The storage infrastructure must use existing EMC storage arrays for this project |
| Requirement |
The platform should be able to function with project growth of 20% per year |
| Assumption |
Active Directory is available in both sites |
| Requirement |
Solution should leverage and integrate with existing directory services |
| Risk |
Both server racks are subject to the same environmental hazards |
| Assumption |
BC/DR plans will be updated to include new hardware and workloads |
| Requirement |
The SLA is 99% uptime |
| Constraint |
External access must be through standard corporate VPN Client |
RAMPS = Recoverability, Availability, Manageability, Performance, Security
Recoverability – Requires the ability to recover from an unexpected event which affects the availability of a system or environment. Backups, business continuity, and disaster recovery are to be addressed here.
Availability – This requires deliver of highly available solutions that comply with SLAs, as measured by percent uptime of relevant components. Example: requirements that concern High Availability.
Manageability – Anything about managing the environment and maintaining normal operations. Items such as ability to scale or how elastic the system is. This could cover topics such as logging, alerting, and reporting.
Performance – Requirements around responsiveness of components of the designed environment. Compute speeds or number of cores, storage space, storage IOPS, network etc.
Security – Any requirement for controls, confidentiality, integrity, accessibility, governance, and risk management, this will usually include some ability to prove or accomplish compliance with regulation.
Ideas -> Business Goals -> Requirements, Assumptions, Constraints -> Conceptual Design -> Logical Design -> Physical Design
Conceptual Design is an early phase of the design process, in which the broad outlines of function and form of something are articulated. It includes the design of interactions, experiences, processes and strategies.
Logical Design is a conceptual, abstract design. You do not deal with the physical implementation details yet; you deal only with defining the types of information that you need. The process of logical design involves arranging data into a series of logical relationships called entities and attributes.
Physical Design is the process of transforming a circuit description into the physical layout, which describes the position of cells and routes for the interconnections between them.
All the Best,
Sean