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Author Archives: Bjorn Houben

VMware VCP5-DCV Delta Recertification Exam (VCP550D) available until March 10th + resources to prepare for it

04 Mar

Again I want to stress that I don’t agree with the way VMware is enforcing the recertification in this case as I’ve described in more detail here. Nevertheless I had to take the exam to keep my certification status, contribute to my company’s partner status and to prevent having to take another expensive course in the future to get certified. I have to admit I did learn about a couple of new things though.

But enough about that. Until March 10th it is possible to take the VCP5-DCV Delta Recertification Exam (VCP550D) that is based on new material between the vSphere 5.0/5.1 and vSphere 5.5 exams. Another benefit is that it is cheaper (90 euros) and that it can be taken online from any location.

I took the exam and passed, so I’m good for the near future. I am thinking about postponing vSphere 6.0 certification due to this re-certification policy though.

Here are the resources I used to prepare for the exam:

I know Veeam also provides VCAP5-DCA and VCP5-DCV study guides, but I haven’t used these yet.

I hope it’s useful to you. If you have any other useful resources or feedback, please leave a comment

 
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Posted by on March 4, 2015 in ICT, Learning, VMware

 

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TreeSize Free, an already great tool got even beter

25 Feb

One of my favorite tools for years has been TreeSize Free. It is a small, easy, fast and portable tool that can be used to determine disk space usage of folders and files on a volume.

In the past it had some limitations that hindered me, but with the latest updates they’ve added great features that I really love:

  • TreeSize Free now scans network drives (except Windows servers and network drives within a Windows domain).
  • TreeSize Free provides a touch-optimized user interface as an option for Windows 8.0 and higher.
  • Users can now search for folders in the directory tree.
  • TreeSize Free supports selection of multiple files now, e.g. to delete or move them.
  • The scan performance on local NTFS drives (especially on SSD drives) has been increased.

So be sure to check out TreeSize Free if you hadn’t already or if you’re on an older version, download the latest version.

For those that run into the limitations regarding network drives with TreeSize Free, take a look at the commercial versions of TreeSize or other free disk space analyzer programs like Space Sniffer, WinDirStat, JDiskReport, Disk Analyzer Pro, Daisy Disk, Space Gremlin, etc.

 
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Posted by on February 25, 2015 in ICT, Tools

 

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Get Windows 8 MCSA certified between February 15th and May 31st and get a free Windows 10 exam

24 Feb

Microsoft has started a new campaign offering people that get Windows 8 MCSA certified between February 15th and May 31st  to get a free Windows 10 exam (697) when it is released. For more information about the offer see: https://borntolearn.mslearn.net/b/weblog/archive/2015/02/19/how-to-get-a-windows-10-exam-for-free

Based on the comments on the born to learn website it seems that this offer does not extend to people that are Windows 8 MCSA certified before February 15th … but I might be wrong. An alternative is to try to get access to free Microsoft Beta Exams by signing up as a Subject Matter Expert (SME) as described here: https://blog.bjornhouben.com/2012/09/17/how-to-get-access-to-free-microsoft-beta-exams/

 
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Posted by on February 24, 2015 in ICT, Learning, Microsoft, Windows

 

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Dropbox users get another 100GB of extra Microsoft OneDrive storage for free for 1 year

22 Feb

For those looking to get 100GB of extra Microsoft OneDrive (prevously named Skydrive) storage for 1 year, click the following link:
https://preview.onedrive.com/bonus

For those who missed it, you can also get an additional 100GB for 2 years. To see how, read my previous blog post.

 

 
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Posted by on February 22, 2015 in Cloud, ICT, Microsoft, Public Cloud

 

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Pluralsight is offering free access to 13 courses

19 Feb

Pluralsight is offering free access to selected courses. The offer is only available through April 30, 2015 and can be found here: https://offers.pluralsight.com/technet

There are 13 Pluralsight courses included with the TechNet benefit and I’m personally very interested in the ones about Azure. Here is the full list of the courses:

Microsoft Azure

Beginner

Intermediate

Windows Server 2012 R2

Intermediate

System Center 2012 R2 

Advanced

 
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Posted by on February 19, 2015 in Cloud, ICT, Learning, Microsoft, Private cloud, Public Cloud

 

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Free PowerShell Desired State Configuration (DSC) training on February 25th and 26th

17 Feb

Microsoft Virtual Academy (MVA) is hosting 2 PowerShell Desired State Configuration (DSC) training classes on February 25th and February 26th:

  1. Getting Started with PowerShell Desired State Configuration (DSC)
  2. Advanced PowerShell Desired State Configuration (DSC) and Custom Resources

The links above provide include a course outline and a link to register for the Jump Start. And even if you can’t join live, the recordings will always be made available at a later time so you can watch whenever it suits you better.

PowerShell DSC is becoming increasingly important and I personally also still need to learn more about it and look forward to it.

I hope it’s useful to you as well.

 
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Posted by on February 17, 2015 in Automation, ICT, Learning, Microsoft, Powershell, Windows, Windows 2012, Windows 8

 

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Get 100GB of extra Microsoft OneDrive storage for 2 years

13 Feb

For those looking to get 100GB of extra Microsoft OneDrive (prevously named Skydrive) storage for 2 years, click the following link:

https://login.live.com/oauth20_authorize.srf?client_id=000000004C12B387&scope=wl.signin%20wl.basic%20wl.emails%20wl.skydrive%20wl.onedrive_provision_quota&response_type=code&redirect_uri=https://preview.onedrive.com/callback.aspx

Previously I though this was only working for the United States (or from somewhere else using a proxy), but this worked fine for me from within the Netherlands.

Enjoy your extra cloud storage.

 

 
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Posted by on February 13, 2015 in Cloud, ICT, Microsoft, Public Cloud

 

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VMware announces version 6.0 of their products (and why I hate the recertification program)

03 Feb

VMware version 6.0 products announced

Yesterday VMware announced version 6 of their products including vSphere 6, Virtual SAN 6, etc. I’ve read a bit on some of the products and to me it seems more of an evolution and less of a revolution. I’m also seeing similar concepts being introduced that Microsoft already implemented in Hyper-V. All in all I think the competition is good for the consumers. If you want to learn more about the VMware version 6.0 products, take a look at these sites:

Why I hate the recertification program

For some time now I knew that VMware would release version 6.0 of their products, but in the meanwhile I’m required to recertify before March 10th. I would’ve preferred to spend my time on version 6.0 of their products instead or on other technologies instead of being forced to focus it on version 5.5 to keep my certification status. Therefore my suggestion to VMware is to ensure that the recertification requirements take into account releases of new products. The ICT work field is already moving at an extremely fast rate and it is already hard enough to keep up without having to recertify (for multiple vendors and certifications).

 
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Posted by on February 3, 2015 in Cloud, ICT, Private cloud, Public Cloud, VMware

 

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2014 in review

30 Dec

The WordPress.com stats helper monkeys prepared a 2014 annual report for this blog.

Here’s an excerpt:

The Louvre Museum has 8.5 million visitors per year. This blog was viewed about 180,000 times in 2014. If it were an exhibit at the Louvre Museum, it would take about 8 days for that many people to see it.

Click here to see the complete report.

 
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Posted by on December 30, 2014 in Uncategorized

 

Brocade Certified vRouter Engineer Exam 170-010

01 Aug

As I mentioned in a previous blog post, Brocade is offering free courses and exams.

Even though I’m not actually working in networking, I decided to brush up my networking knowledge by taking the 170-010 Brocade Certified vRouter Engineer Exam. I haven’t really done much with networking and CLI configuration in the last 7 years, but I still know the concepts from school where we did CCNA, CCNP, CCDA, CCDP. It took me about 2 days to study and I passed with 76% (passing score = 62%). In hindsight I should have played around a bit more in the vRouter itself 🙂

The exam wasn’t that hard, but a little knowledge about networking is expected, because the information provided by Brocade does not cover everything (or I missed something). For people who want to take the exam, you can use the resources described below. Make sure you’re very familiar with routing, OSPF, NAT and firewalling.

Brocade Certified vRouter Engineer Exam 170-010 Exam Objectives

Brocade Vyatta vRouter System Operations

  • Describe show command system usage
  • Identify key CLI operations
  • Describe the commit and save processes

Ethernet Concepts

  • Identify Ethernet operations
  • Identify VLAN operations and settings
  • Identify bonded interface operations
  • Demonstrate knowledge of configuration and operation using show commands

TCP/IP

  • Demonstrate knowledge of the relationship between Layer 2, IP and TCP/IP
  • Identify TCP and UDP differences
  • Identify address subnets

DHCP and DNS Troubleshooting

  • Describe troubleshooting of DHCP operations
  • Describe troubleshooting of DNS forwarding

Routing

  • Identify uses for routing
  • Identify show commands for use with routing
  • Identify configuration of different types of static routes

Firewalls

  • Describe firewall operations and troubleshooting using show commands
  • Describe firewall rulebase operations

NAT

  • Describe NAT concepts

Upgrades

  • Describe the Brocade Vyatta upgrade process

Logging and Packet Captures

  • Identify logging options for firewall and NAT operations
  • Identify methods to verify operations and troubleshooting

OSPF Single-Area

  • Describe OSPF show command output

 

Generic information

Collision & broadcast domain

 

Generic Brocade Certification information

Brocade Certification FAQ

Brocade Certification Exam information including number of questions, time and passing Scores

 

Brocade Certified vRouter Engineer Exam 170-010 resources

Free course and exam offer page

Brocade Certified vRouter Engineer 2013 (BCVRE) Exam : Objectives, Prerequisites, Curriculum, Study Tools & Testing

BCVRE in a Nutshell Study Guide

Vyatta 5400 vRouter product page , data sheet, trial download, licensing

Vyatta 5400 Manual Software Documentation

Firewall Basics Command Quick Reference

List of Useful MIBS

Management and Logging Command Reference

 

 

  • Describe how to configure OSPF
 
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Posted by on August 1, 2014 in Hardware, ICT, Network

 

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