VCDX Experience

[#1]

New Link Here:

http://blog.cowger.us/?p=34

[Christopher_Kus]

Great coverage man, and above all. Congratulations!

--

Christopher Kusek, CISSP, MCT, vExpert

Technology Evangelist, Consultant, Trainer

Virtualization, Applications, Security, Cloud

christopher.kusek@pkguild.com

www.pkguild.com - Technology Blog

http://twitter.com/cxi - @CXI on Twitter

630.362.1320 Mobile

[DougBaer]

Congratulations -- all good advice. Especially, remember Douglas Adams: "DON'T PANIC!"

[admin]

Well done! Good comments - all really important!

[ealaqqad]

First Congrats, Second great coverage.

Third, I was wondering if you can touch a bit more about what the presentation should cover. Does it has to cover the implementation plan? Schedules? Or just the design. I mean 15 minutes is quite not much. I am currently preparing my presentation to attend the defense in the first week of November & kinda really worried as its not an easy task & having to fly over 20 hours to be able to attend the defense will not make it any easier. Any further tips that you are one of the latest one to defend will highly be appreciated it. I can see my nervous already :).

I hope this help some one, if it does please reward points.

Enjoy,

Eiad Al-Aqqad

System X & Storage Technical Specialist

Founder of http://www.VirtualizationTeam.com

Founder of http://www.TSMGuru.com

[jasonboche]

you provide a 15 minute executive presentation which is flying rough an overview of your design elements. if your preso/slide deck is anything like mine, it will be too long, the panel will sense this, and they'll just start in with the questioning along the way - this is a good thing because if the panelists dont get enough of their questions answered, i assume you wont accumulate enough points to pass. i essentially presented for 70 minutes with questioning throughout. i dont think i got to the last slide in the deck, but the deck itself is an extremely useful tool to have to help answer the questioning, especially diagrams you can reference to help answer questions. expect to perform whiteboarding, you wont get to use your slides for everything.

Jason Boche, VCDX #34, VCPx3, vEXPERT[/i]

[boche.net - VMware Virtualization Evangelist|http://www.boche.net/blog/][/i]

[VMware Communities User Moderator|http://www.vmware.com/communities/content/community_terms/][/i]

[Minneapolis Area VMware User Group Leader|http://communities.vmware.com/community/vmug/us-central/minneapolis][/i]

[vCalendar|http://www.boche.net/blog/index.php/vcalendar/] Author[/i]

[ealaqqad]

Hi Jason,

Thanks for the very fast response, which I am not sure how you managed to do it that fast. Are you some how following the forums feeds

May I ask you how many slides did you have & what kind of info did you include in it. Below is more of the outline of what I am thinking to include. Please let me know what do u think.

1- Summary of Customer requirements

2- Summary of constraint

3- The customer application layout diagram

4- storage design diagrams

5- Network design diagrams

Well I have a total of three cluster in my design where each of them have a totally different layout.I believe between the above I would have plenty of slides for a 15 minutes, so I would like to get your thought if I need to cover anything else. One more thing, do I need to have a slide about my self? Do I need actually to waste any of that precious time introducing my background at the beginning of the presentation as I have seen some blogs advice toward it where others advice against it. I guess its the normal contradiction we have to live with all time in the VCDX process.

I hope this help some one, if it does please reward points.

Enjoy,

Eiad Al-Aqqad

System X & Storage Technical Specialist

Founder of http://www.VirtualizationTeam.com

Founder of http://www.TSMGuru.com

[jasonboche]

I'm subscribed to this thread and so I saw your question via email and had some time to answer it. Forgive previous repy punctuation - it was typed with an iPad via RDP.

Every project and design is going to be different. My preso was less than 20 slides in length including the ubiquitous cover, introduction/background, and Q&A slides. Your job during the defense portion of your VCDX panel is to present the design, defend the decision making process, and deep dive on specific technologies if asked by the panelists. In my preso, I took the approach of touching on requirements, assumptions, constraints. This information influenced many of the design decisions. I also included diagrams such as logical design, host design, network design, storage design. I included a budget slide which can speak to some of the decisions and project architecture (numbers can be difficult to memorize and rattle off in a pressure situation). I also included a roadmap which explained the project phases and deployment methodology.

Feel free to introduce yourself but I wouldn't spend much precious time on that other than giving them your name and the company you work for. I'm sure you don't lose points here but at the same time I'm sure you don't gain points either so I'd keep it brief. I would not recommend going into your blog, your certifications, your family, name of your fish, religion, etc.

Jas

Jason Boche, VCDX #34, VCPx3, vEXPERT[/i]

[boche.net - VMware Virtualization Evangelist|http://www.boche.net/blog/][/i]

[VMware Communities User Moderator|http://www.vmware.com/communities/content/community_terms/][/i]

[Minneapolis Area VMware User Group Leader|http://communities.vmware.com/community/vmug/us-central/minneapolis][/i]

[vCalendar|http://www.boche.net/blog/index.php/vcalendar/] Author[/i]

[ealaqqad]

Hi Jason,

Thanks for your great feedback. I thought my fish name will get me at least some credit, but I will keep it for my self at least on the defense as per your advice :).

You mentioned that you have included a budget slide. did that include just a rough figure for the full solution or did you have to break it down. Is this part really required as getting these number can be a bit difficult in my case as this is a quite old project.

May I know what kind of things did you include in your road map? Did you cover things you have done before delivering the design, or was it more of how you will deliver the design?

I am sorry if I am just asking many questions, but I am just really trying to get all the help & thoughts I can get before I put my slides together as completing this step means a lot to me.

Thanks in advance for all of your help.

Enjoy,

Eiad Al-Aqqad

System X & Storage Technical Specialist

Founder of http://www.VirtualizationTeam.com

Founder of http://www.TSMGuru.com

[jasonboche]

I itemized expenditures for the virtulization project in rolled up categories (Here are some examples, not necessarily from my design specifically: server hardware, SAN upgrades, Licensing, tapes, travel). Your design can be ficticious; the panel isn't going to verify the correctness of your numbers with a reseller. Make the numbers up if you have to. Be creative.

The road map was a high level visual tool like you might see from hardware vendors on their product lifecycles. My project implemented in a phased approach. The road map identified the phases as well as a few of the major milestones in each phase. Think about a software development lifecycle: Project intake, development, Alpha, Beta, testing, Release Candidate, user acceptance testing, GA release, cool down. Each is a milestone yet some can belong together or roll up into a larger phase. All of this in one easy to interpret slide. Don't worry about the details, those get fleshed out in the supporting documentation, particularly the main architecture document which should tie everything together (ie. tell the story).

Jason Boche, VCDX #34, VCPx3, vEXPERT[/i]

[boche.net - VMware Virtualization Evangelist|http://www.boche.net/blog/][/i]

[VMware Communities User Moderator|http://www.vmware.com/communities/content/community_terms/][/i]

[Minneapolis Area VMware User Group Leader|http://communities.vmware.com/community/vmug/us-central/minneapolis][/i]

[vCalendar|http://www.boche.net/blog/index.php/vcalendar/] Author[/i]

[ealaqqad]

Hi Jason,

I am really thankful for your feedback. I was sure asking on the VMware forum I will get some great tips.

Enjoy,

Eiad Al-Aqqad

System X & Storage Technical Specialist

Founder of http://www.VirtualizationTeam.com

Founder of http://www.TSMGuru.com