Plain Virtualization

Few months back, I wrote on how you can enrol to help in contributing VMware certification exams. If you are interested do just head over and sign up. Now, VMware has announce the availability of VCP 6.5 for Data Center Virtualization.  This include the full exam with foundations and the delta exam. It was lots of effort to get this exam going live and been part of developing the exam, hope that what we ask for are the required knowledge based on the product and your experience. To those taking or renewing your certification, all the best.  Follow the blueprint as always and understand what you need to know and understand what you need to improve on. Good Luck!

Starting from vSphere 6.5 Update 1 and next major release, VMware will discontinue 3rd party vSwitch Program.  A kb that has stated this is found here . 3rd party vSwitches including Cisco Nexus 1000V, Cisco VM-FEX, Cisco AVS, HPE 5900v and IBM DVS 5000v. VMware has release a migration tool which can be found here . A blog post of what is the strategy forward in terms of virtual switch on vSphere is mentioned here which include virtual Standard Switch (vSS) and virtual Distributed Switch (vDS) and Open Virtual Switch (OVS). For customer who are on 3rd party virtual switch, you might have to change back with your vendor for your support in future vSphere version.  Understand Cisco has mention to their customer that they will continue to support the use of Nexus 1000V.

VMware today announce the end availability of vSphere Data Protection (VDP) here .  vSphere 6.5 will be the last version of VDP provided. Abit of history, VDP was included since vSphere 5.0 to replace VMware Data Recovery (VDR). For existing VDP deployment, please check the respective version end of general support here .  Customer can continue to use any backup solution that utilize vSphere Storage APIs – Data Protection framework (VADP). Since VDP is an OEM from Dell-EMC Avamar, the closest product is Avamar Virtual Edition. Customers are recommended to take advantage of a Dell-EMC special migration offer to transition VDP VM protection to Dell-EMC Avamar Virtual Addition.  Check this with your local Dell-EMC team and read about it here .