Recommendation on Linkedin - Yes, I need it !

Hi All,

I never thought about this before to write a blog post of about requesting the community members and friends and others who are in touch with me one or the other way, to provide recommendation to me through Linkedin.  Now  a days Social media is the way to reach out to mass and seems to be very effective too.

After serving 8 years at VMware, now I am in a position where I am searching for a new challenge so at the same time feeling necessity about having Recommendation of my Work done in that duration.

If my contribution / reply / update / pointers helped you in any way or at least put you in the direction you want, then please just take few minutes to provide a Recommendation as its very valuable for me a lot. I would say it will be priceless.

As everyone knows Linkedin is the platform for all professionals to be in touch with each other and this is a most respective way in our professional world where one can find out everything about other person in this very space.

I have provided recommendations to those who needs them time to time and never thought of the need at that time but now I am in the same boat as them. Time is same for everyone and you never know when it will change. As it changed for me, I humbly request to provide the same at your earliest convenience and me and my Family are truly grateful to you for your time and help.

So please feel free to reach out to me if you need the same and I am happy to provide it as well.

This is a general stand I am taking to get the recommendation as it will take lot of time to reach out to people individually (in fact I am doing that too) but as the person might be busy or not checking his linkedin, the message may be sitting there idle. I have seen few messages like that in my inbox which I just acted and agreed that they were requested by the person/s almost a year back. Now providing the recommendation at present, may or may not help as it was not done on time (may be they need at that time) and I have provided today. So please check your inbox for such message and at least let the person know the status about it. Going forward, I will be taking care of it for sure as now realized the importance of it. As everyone has their own priorities to do things so please dont take this as any advice or such. but consider it as a general thought of a person who is in need at the moment.

If you are not in my circle then just send out the request on my way and my doors are open.

If you see any request from me about the recommendation then once again, just requesting few minutes of your busy schedule to provide it.

Community is all about help and hence this blog post.

Hope you will help and also spread the message to others.

Thanks for your time and help

Please share and care !

Wish me luck !

VCAP5-DCD cleared and now one step closer to VCDX !

Hi,

All the readers out there who has been through the journey of VCAP-DCD will know the feeling of pressing the button "End the Exam" and which gives you the one moment of shock, which runs through your whole body and every single tissue of the body is waiting for the next screen.

"Congratulations you have passed the VCAP-DCD Examination"

That screen gave me immense pleasure and for minutes,hours and now days its still giving me the same pleasure in installments :-).

Wow, what a journey. The DCD and DCA are one of the most difficult exams I have ever taken and everyone can vouch the same who has been through the journey as me.

Thank You Note

I really want to thank my friends and colleague who have helped me through this DCD Exam journey and contributed their knowledge and their invaluable time they have provided. We have formed virtual study group and exchanged ideas and prepared to tackle this challenge.


Bas Raayman - @BasRaayman

Gregg Robertson - @greggrobertson5

Marek Zdrojewski - @MarekDotZ

Bobby Stampfle - @BobbyFantast1c

Alex- Correa - @AlexCorrea305 and his friends.

Michael Webster - @vcdxnz001 is my mentor and guided me through this journey.

Exam experience:

I went to another Pearson Vue location for a change for this Exam which I gave based on version vSphere 5.1 and Bingo ! Found it lucky ! :-)

BTW this Exam is retiring today itself so no more vSphere 5.1 but going forward only 5.5 version is available at this time. So many people have asked about the same through Twitter so thought to clarify as everyone is interested in knowing the experience for 5.5 version. Hopefully someone who has passed the version 5.5 can put their experience for others.

It was a new center opened in West of Toronto and 30 mins drive was not far. and went through regular security check in process and get started. No hick ups in the Exam except on time the Adobe Flash decided to stop responding and I just waited for few seconds and it came back normally and yes this was during making a 3rd Design. I almost finished 100 questions leaving 1.25 mins to spare. So thought to take a scheduled break, 1st time I took this break as this was my 4th Attempt :-). Yes I never gave up. This is a Devil exam if you ask me. Especially the content is not what you do on daily basis so you WILL find it more challenging than others who are not in the same boat as you.

So I used that extra time and started reviewing the questions again from # 1. Made some changes in my selection of the answers too while thinking over the options I have selected in MC, and D&D type questions and actually one Design Question as well. But at the end, everything was worth to get a Pass.

"A Pass is a Pass" - as they say, but getting 317 is little more to satisfy myself as just not at the Edge.

Exam Preparation/Tips and Resources

Now for the preparation, I took long time as busy with Family, personal matters, other certification exams time to time with various tracks etc. but I gave myself a break of few months between the attempts and literally spent my own time in preparing for the same. I have seen that most people don't do that (spending vacation time) to prepare for an Exam so in that regard  I have to say a big "Thank You" to my wife and my family to support me through this journey and also in advance for the VCDX. With two little kids it IS difficult to study in breaks and give such tough exam, But my friends, hard work pays off. Period.

For the resources I have used all known resources which are available freely to everyone but will still list out here for the reference.

1) Official vsphere Design Workshop material - Student Guide and Lab Guide
[The courseware is more than enough for this Exam :-)]
2) Official blueprint to keep track of the subjects and reading
3) 2nd Edition vSphere Design book by Scott Lowe
4) Pluralsight videos by Scott Lowe on vSphere Design
5) Managing and Optimizing vSphere Deployments - by Harley Stagner and Sean Crookston
6) VMware vSphere Building a Virtual Datacenter - by Eric Maille and Rene-Francois Mennecier
7) VMware vSphere 5.x Datacenter Design Cookbook - by Hershey Cartwright
8) vSphere Design Best Practices - by Christopher Kusek and brian Bolander
9) Storage Implementation in vSphere 50 - by Mostafa Khalil
10) Gregg Robertson has listed most resources here for DCD so check them out.

10) There is a visio like tool used in the DCD Exam to draw the design and I found the link on Josh andrews' blog  which led me to http://virtualtiers.net/ developed by the community members. I used that to practise the Design questions listed on the site and also tried creating few fictitious designs on my own and use the tool to create a design. This way you can get familiarize with the tool and the time can be minimized for placements of objects in the Exam.

Though this tool is experimental as still undergoing some improvements but its not bad at all. I really recommend to the future candidates who are preparing for 5.5 version to practice the Design items.

11) Some ex-TSEs of VMware has developed a nice Study Guide for VCAP-DCD at http://virtuallyhyper.com so dont forget to check that out. It is very intensive and well written guide covering all the blueprint subjects. You will find some other study guides links as well there.

12) No doubt apart from the reading material you should have experience working in Virtualization architecting and developing solutions and also understanding the terms and technologies to be used.

As the exam is retiring today I wish the good luck to all who are on this path to VCDX for their DCD on 55 version. Once the version 6 will be out it may change as well but time will tell the availability for 5.5 version for now.

Please share and care !!

Wish me Luck for VCDX !

End of Era.... Waiting for new Beginning !

Hi,

This is very unexpected and unfortunate but I received this news today that due to Organizational restructuring my position at VMware got eliminated so now I am open to any position within the SDDC, NSX, cloud computing or any other suitable position if you or someone in your circle knows about it.

Its been solid 8 years at VMware and saw the whole organization very closely including its growth, products, vision etc. etc.

I started in the days of ESXi 2.x onwards and now 6 is almost on the door step this year.

During my journey here I took some challenges apart from my normal routines and got awarded externally with vExpert (2014/2015) and Cisco Champion 2015 recently. so far I am the only TSE in GSS of VMware who is Cisco Champion so that is a proud moment.

Recently also received an award for Super KM Hero for the year 2014 by the Knowledge Management Team of VMware which is given to an individual who has the highest contribution to the Internal/ External KB articles and White Papers/official documentation by providing positive constructive Feedback/s.

Created around 130+ articles in the repository of the articles and got numerous awards over the years too for the efforts I have put it in.

Anyway my Linkedin Profile has all the details but please get in touch with me if you have any position for me and if you know someone who has such opening in the above areas where I can use my knowledge and experience and I am sure I won't let the selection down.

You can also reach me through Twitter (DM) if you are following me.

I am really thankful for your support and hoping to get some gig soon as I am open to any location in US as decided to move from Canada. I can provide more details if you need once we start having conversation.

This is very hard to digest but C'est la vie !!

If you are on my Linked contacts then please feel free to provide recommendation at your convenient time. Also any references you can provide is appreciated (personally/professionally).

When one door closes, another one opens. This is what I strongly believe and now just waiting for the right moment.

Not feeling anything negatively but staying strong and hoping things changes soon.

Please feel free to reach out to me if you need any more information through email, Linkedin or Twitter or using this blog.