VMware Press this week released two new books. The first is The Official VCP5 Certification Guide by Bill Ferguson. The book is designed to help professionals prepare for the VMware VCP510 exam, covering all of the topics on the VMware VCP510 exam blueprint, including:
- Understanding how virtualization can best be integrated into today’s real-world IT environments
- Recognizing what to change, and what to leave alone
- Planning, installing, configuring, and upgrading vCenter Server and VMware ESXi Planning and configuring vSphere networking and storage
- Deploying and Administering Virtual Machines and vApps
- Establishing and Maintaining Service Levels
- Performing basic troubleshooting
- Monitoring vSphere implementations
- Managing vCenter Server alarms
- Preparing for the future of VMware virtualization
Beyond simple reading materials on the subjects above, The Official VCP5 Certification Guide provides the common staples of an industry certification book, namely:
- Assess your knowledge with chapter-opening quizzes
- Review key concepts with exam preparation tasks
- Practice with realistic exam questions on the DVD
I probably won’t add this one to my bookshelf as I am already VCP3, 4 and 5, but I think it would be a very valuable resource for anyone not already certified.
The second book just released by VMware Press is VMware vSphere 5® Building a Virtual Datacenter by Eric Maillé and René-François Mennecier. With the increased talk lately of the ‘Software Defined Datacenter’, this title is very time-appropriate. According to the book’s description, “VMware vSphere® 5: Building a Virtual Datacenter brings together all the practical knowledge you need to evaluate, plan, implement, and manage vSphere 5 in your datacenter environment.”
The book covers the following topics:
- Assessing the potential benefits of datacenter virtualization in your environment
- Organizing and managing a smooth migration to the virtualized datacenter
- Anticipating specific challenges and risks associated with datacenter virtualization
- Making tradeoffs to optimize stability, elasticity, scalability, and cost
- Choosing the best installation/configuration options for your environment
- Effectively linking vSphere 5 virtualization to existing datacenter elements
- Driving more value from vSphere 5’s powerful new datacenter features
- Providing storage to efficiently support your hosted VMs, now and in the future
- Managing limited memory and other server constraints
- Leveraging new options for service continuity and high availability
- Using backup architecture as a lever to reduce costs
This is a good book for anyone starting on a vSphere 5 project, as it covers details on budgeting, scheduling, and planning; choosing the right architecture; and integrating vSphere with existing datacenter elements, including servers, storage, clusters, network infrastructure, and business continuity plans. I’ll most likely add this one to my bookshelf once I clear my current backlog of reading.
Grab both books from Amazon now, or pick them up at VMworld next week!
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