VCDX-NV – Defence Scenario

March 20, 2020 Chris Noon 2

Due to the virus outbreak, my VCDX defence has been postponed until the next window, which is June. The VCDX board decided, understandably, to keep their panellists and applicants as safe as possible. That said, I thought I’d continue the blogging trend and discuss another area of preparation. Still excited as 3 months will fly by! I’ve discussed the document and design defence. Now let’s look at the defence scenario. What is the Defence Scenario? The defence scenario is 1 of 2 defences I will have to complete to successfully become a VCDX. The first task is the design defence, which I’ve spoken about here. The second is the defence scenario. This is a 45-minute window where my 3 panellists […]

VCDX-NV – Design Defence

February 20, 2020 Chris Noon 3

I am waiting to hear back on my defence invite, but am preparing like I’ve been invited.  Solid advice any VCDX will give you. The design defence is an invitation to Palo Alto, Staines or Sydney to defend your design and run through a scenario.  In today’s blog, I am going to talk about my experience when preparing for the design defence. The design defence is you defending your submitted design.  This is a 75-minute window for you to present your submitted project and defend your design choices.  While it’s a 75-minute window, its recommended you prepare a c15-minute presentation.  The other 60 minutes will be used by the panellists to ask questions about anything relating to the submitted design. […]

VCDX-NV – Document Submission

January 20, 2020 Chris Noon 3

To start my blogging career, I thought I would talk about my VCDX-NV journey. I’m currently in the waiting stage after submitting my documents.  Waiting for a VCDX panel to determine if my documentation warrants an invite to defend. Whilst waiting, I thought I’d take this time to share some advice that I found useful on my journey.  Firstly, read and understand the blueprint this can’t be stressed enough.  During your journey; you will find all VCDXs repeat this phrase to you, and it’s true.  The closer you get to the submission date the more the blueprint resonates. Read the submission document.  I read this at the very end, but I wish I had read it a few months before.  […]

CAL! Center for Advanced Learning Advanced Architecture Course – Day 1

June 11, 2019 Kim Bottu 0

Introduction Changing employer to one of the major players in the Benelux, has nice perks. One of these is being able to attend a course where there a specific prerequisites prior to be able to attend to it. The Advanced Architecture Course by the VMware Center for Advanced Learning is such a course. I had been hoping to be able to participate in it ever since I attended a presentation about it at VMware Empower last year and I am very happy that I have been giving the opportunity! Day 1 Day one started very early. We had to be at the campus at seven AM for all the formalities and administration. A pity no one thought about giving us […]

How the VCIX-NV changed my career and life

December 4, 2018 Manny Sidhu 0

About two and a half years ago, I used to be in a VCDX prep Slack group comprising of the likes of Grant Orchard, Niraj Naidu, Anthony Spiteri, Tim Williams, Craig Waters, Jeff Wong and a few others. In those days, I was looking for a study group to join to work towards the VCDX. I happened to talk to Craig about it and he suggested I join this Slack group he was a part of. After the introductory banter by the guys already in the group, I settled in and began spending some time towards the VCDX. Back then, NSX was a relatively new thing, at least in Australia it was, and Anthony was working towards his VCIX certification. […]

VCDX – Mock Design – How to attack it?!

October 13, 2018 Jason Grierson 1

Hey, Just wanted to make a quick blog post around some tips and tricks around the mock design question in the VCDX exam.  In the past this gets over looked due to prioritizing your presentation or not practiced enough.  I get a lot of feedback from VCDX candidates either stating this is where they felt they fell a little short in their first defense, or I get a lot of questions on how to attack it. My aim for this blog post is to help give some tips from my experience on how to attack the mock design question and as always generate conversation some good conversation around it.  As the more ways you see people attack it the better […]

VCDX Journey – Part 1 – Lessons Learned

May 10, 2018 Manny Sidhu 0

There’re a lot of blog posts and videos out there of people describing their path to the VCDX. They’re all good reads/views and you can glean some valuable information out of them. What hasn’t been done enough of is how you shouldn’t do this, where people tripped and what they learned from the process. After all, it’s the “I did it..” posts that make music. This post describes some bits of my journey towards this credential and more importantly, I’ll make an attempt at telling you what I did wrong or not enough of or too much of. Given the VCDX is about real world designs too, this post might be helpful in everyday jobs. Before anything else, I’ve got […]

VCDX Journey – Part 3 – Design Scenario

May 10, 2018 Manny Sidhu 2

Part 3 of this series will go over the oft overlooked design scenario. My advice with scenario is to (while keeping in mind I haven’t achieved the number yet): Listen carefully and keep prying out information from the panelists. They’re playing the role of customers, sometimes difficult customers. Maybe one of them won’t speak at all only to throw that wrench in when you’re about to clinch it. Watch out for that silent panelist 😉 If that wrench is thrown, tell them you’re going to erase a certain section of the whiteboard because the information you wrote on there is now irrelevant because of a changed requirement or a new constraint you’ve discovered as a result of that wrench. Make […]