VCDX Archives -

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. […]

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 […]

VCDX Journey – Part 2 – Where I Messed It Up

May 10, 2018 Manny Sidhu 0

This post will cover those bits where I messed it up. In case you missed Part 1 of this series, check it out here. So in no particular order: Insufficient technical depth This might be a strange one to some, especially the people just starting out on this path. You’ll likely hear – keep your presentation at the logical level – by a lot of people. This is true for the most part and you should absolutely avoid getting tangled in a time-wasting explanation of say how multi-NIC vMotion works. Instead focus on how this decision fulfilled a business need (things like minimizing maintenance windows etc..). But.. I realized after the first two attempts the panelists were prodding me for […]

Mapping the VCDX Defense Genome Part 3: Is All Flash a Trap?!

January 5, 2018 Jason Grierson 0

Hey everyone, So prior to the holidays I was helping mentor some new VCDX candidates for their re-defenses and was coming across a few trends that I wanted to discuss a little as they started creeping up over and over again. These trends were All Flash SAN’s, Oversized Compute, and questions being asked that were not part of the candidates design. We’ll get into the last point a little more but first lest tackle the first two. All Flash SAN Is All Flash SAN a VCDX trap? No of course not the All Flash SAN is obviously a silver bullet when it comes to storage as it greatly reduces the complexity of the storage system while giving amazing performance. Gone […]

VCDX #251 at your service with a smile!

June 18, 2017 Bilal Ahmed 0

So I recently managed to get my VCDX number! waheyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy It was a long process for me, which I am now going to break down. Hopefully this will give people some insight into how everything comes together and I do hope it will give future candidates an idea of how to approach it. The Start So back in early 2016 I knew someone who was considering pursuing the VCDX, and they asked if I wanted to partner up with them. I initially declined…..simply because I didn’t think I had the skill level currently to even consider such a task. Their response was ………..how else are you going to get the skill set? Upon thinking about it, that made perfect sense […]

Why I gave up attempting the VCDX

January 14, 2017 Graeme Vermeulen 2

Note: I’d like to preface this post by stating that I have utmost respect for any individual who’s achieved VCDX-level certification or is in the process of doing so. I wrote this post here a while ago on why I will become a VCDX, and why it’s worth it. I feel that I need to write this post out, if anything, for myself so that I can finally move on from the VCDX and not feel so guilty about dropping it! I’ve been working in the background on a design to submit, despite having a very busy life with my fair share of issues to deal with, all the while still doing my usual day job of consulting. I’ve really found that […]