Sean Crookston

VMware vSphere Design Workshop Review

January 19, 2011

Sean Crookston

1 Comment

Last week I attended the VMware vSphere Design Workshop and would highly recommend it to anyone looking to gain more design experience or those who enjoy talking and discussing the implications of design decisions. The course is also listed as a recommended course as preparation for the VCAP-DCD which I plan to take at some point in the near future.

One aspect of the course that I hope does not change is that it is an in-person only course. This was the first live course I have attended since early 2007 and find it hard to imagine it being successful in an online format. The course serves as more of an open discussion at time with the instructor guiding the course along. Fortunately we had an excellent instructuctor who not only provided valuable information but also guided the course so we got the most out of it.

My one big gripe would be around the labs and the length of the course. The labs provided a great deal of discussion amongst the people in the broken out groups, however they took a long time. The long times were the result of the way they were written(in my opinion) and they seemed at times unrealistic and lacking information. If there was less time here there would have been more time to go deeper into some other areas of design.

Also be aware that disaster recovery and business continuity is not a part of this course. It is a separate four hour e-learning course you can purchase from VMware for about 200$. This is part of the blueprint so it will likely be part of the VCAP-DCD exam.

Overall I feel like I came out with a great deal of knowledge and more importantly a number of questions to answer for myself when thinking about designs in the future.