Lync 2010 beta cancellation
Has anyone else noticed that their registration for 71-665 has been cancelled by Prometric? Earlier this morning (around 10:30 AM EST) I received an email from Prometric stating that my “testing appointment scheduled with Prometric had to be cancelled due to technical issues. Microsoft is aware of the issue and are currently in the process of resolving this matter.” The email goes on to say that beginning January 5th I can re-register for the exam. At the time I received the email Prometric was still showing my exam as scheduled. However I just re-checked the website (3:30 PM EST) and found that it now shows as “cancelled”
There is a comment on the Born to Learn blog here which does address this and seems to confirm the cancellation but only gives technical issues as the reason behind the cancellation. I’m not sure how re-registration will go on the 5th or if the beta period will be extended past it’s original date of January 20th. There were similar issues like this regarding the SharePoint 2010 beta exams wherein the voucher was posted on the Born to Learn blog causing some of us who were legitimately invited to the beta through our MSL SME profiles to miss out on taking one ore more of the exams due to the influx of registrations from the blog. Hopefully those of us who are supposed to get the opportunity to re-register on the 5th will be able to do so without much hassle.
VCP4 Certified!
This past Friday, after a bit of delay, I took and passed the VMware Certified Professional (VCP) 4 exam. VCP certification has been a goal of mine for a while but until now hadn’t been possible. VCP is one of the only ’common’ IT certifications that I’m aware of that you’re required to attend a class for. For any other IT certification it doesn’t matter how you study or prepare, as long as you can take the exam and pass it – you gain the certification. With the VCP you’re welcome to sit for the VCP exam without attending one of the classes but you’re not awarded the actual certification until you complete the class. VMware offers three classes that qualify towards the VCP, a 4 day troubleshooting class, a 4 day install/configure/manage (ICM) class, and a 5 day ‘fasttrack’ class. As of September 2010 the 4 day ICM class has been extended to 5 days (appx 8 hours each day, VMware quotes ’38-40 hours of training during a 5 day classroom setting’) and the FastTrack remains the same (5 days, appx 10 hours each day for a more bootcamp like feel.)
About the class:
I took the 5 day FastTrack class in St Louis, MO back in August. True to it’s bootcamp description we did 5 days, beginning at 8 AM and going until 6PM. Two very short breaks were provided, one in the morning around 10 AM and one in the afternoon around 3PM. Lunch was provided by VMware and we were generally given a few minutes to take a break and get food and then returned to our workstations for lab time. I came in feeling prepared and was aware of the ‘bootcamp’ style atmosphere and that a large amount of information would be covered in the course. I was not however aware of the 10 hour days (my class documentation from VMware only had a start time) and by the morning of day 5 I was pretty burnt out on VMware. As I was spending the week 5 hours away from family and work I had planned on studying as much as possible for the VCP exam and possibly taking it very soon. My thought process was that the class and any additional studying I could do after hours would be ample preparation for the exam. However the goal of the class seems to be to cram as much information on as many topics relating to vShere as possible in 50 hours. It was obvious to me by the end of day 2 that I would need some time to decompress and study some more before I was ready to take the exam.
The Exam:
Immediately following my FastTrack course I had some work and family obligations to take care of and got a bit off track by taking the OCS 2007 exam. I was finally able to get engaged with the study materials again and schedule my test. I won’t say that the exam was easy, it’s a very difficult exam and in some points the level of detail being asked for was pretty astounding. But in comparison to Microsoft exams (which is what I am most immediately familiar with) I felt that preparing for the exam was actually very easy.
The Exam Blue print (available here) is 25 page document detailing *EVERYTHING* that may be on the exam. Compared to the Microsoft alternative which is always a one page document wherein each line begins with “the content on the exam may or may not be comprised of (either wholly or in part) …” the VCP Exam Blue print is a GOD SEND! There are a few books that cover vSphere and/or the VCP exam and will assist in your preparation. I personally made use of Scott Lowes “Mastering vSphere 4″ book. It was not my primary method of study but does contain a wealth of information and was useful for filling in the gaps on certain items that I needed help understanding. The book is nice because it has at least a bit of information on nearly every topic on the blueprint. It was my go to resource for any additional information I needed about a specific topic and was nice as I could just grab the book and hit the index instead of trying to search around for blog posts or the official VMware documentation. The community surrounding preparation for the VCP is AMAZING. I’m sure you’ve already found some great resources but heres what I used
- My main source of reference (besides the blue print) and one that I haven’t seen linked many places is the study guide put out by Chris McCain and is available from his blog. As I understand it, Chris is a VMware Instructor and created the guide to handout to his students. I found someone making mention of the guide who said Chris was his instructor and I tracked it down on Chris’ blog.
- Secondary to that I made use of Matthijs van den Berg’s VCP study guide. He’s taken the exam blue print and went through it providing information and links for each item.
- In no particular order I also found these helpful:
- Berry Coombs vSphere 4 cue cards
- Forbes Guthrie vSphere 4 notes (link to the actual notes is at the end of his post) – Forbes also makes a “vReference” card which I printed out several copies of and left around the house (bathroom *hint hint*), at my desk, in the car, etc
- Simon Long VCP4 vSphere 4 Study Notes – Simon also has some great practice tests on his sites that are very highly reviewed, though I didn’t get a chance to use them
A quick note about the config minimums and maximums (officially available from VMware here). Theres a lot of talk about which version of vSphere the test covers. From my experience they were asking for 4.1 config minimum and maximum information and everything else was straight off of the exam blueprint which does not contain any references to 4.1, yet. The numbers do differ a bit from version to version and I actually found some discrepancies even in the study material I used (probably owing to the different compilation times of each item) and would refer back to the actual 4.1 document if needed. My main source of study material for the config information was the vReference card from Forbes. For the weeks leading up to my test I didn’t go anywhere without a copy of Chris McCain’s study guide or Forbes’ vReference card.
My personal study plan was mostly to review the blue print and locate the item in Chris’ study guide. Depending on the level of detail needed I would find additional info and then annotate Chris’ guide and make my own notes. I’ve got a pretty heavily highlighted and annotated version with my own notes of that I’ll eventually scan and provide to anyone wanting it.
All in all I’m very happy that I passed and I am finally a VCP. I felt it was particularly important for me to do well as I finally had been given the opportunity to take the class, which was necessary for the certification and wanted to make the most of the situation. Next up I need to finish up 70-643 (Server 2008, Application Infrastructure) and 70-680 (Windows 7, Configuring) and since I’ve already taken everything else including the actual 70-647 exam itself I’ll then be MCITP: EA certified. Following those, if theres time before the end of the year I’d like to take a look at the Security+ as CompTIA has announced that beginning Jan 1, 2011 all of their certifications will have an expiration date of 3 years after passing. My plans for early next year are to take the 70-668 (PRO SharePoint 2010 Administration) exam along with the 70-573 (TS: SharePoint 2010 Application Development) exam. Having ZERO background in development I’m sure that last one will be fairly difficult. After that .. who knows? CISSP is on my radar though
MOSS Deployment Failures
I was working with one of our developers to deploy an updated solution into one of our farms today. Generally when upgrading a solution I'll go ahead and completely back it out (retract the solution from each webapp and the delete from the solution store) before doing a fresh install of the updated code. I was in a bit of a hurry today (the solution was deployed to numerous, but not all of our web apps) so I used upgrade solution:
stsadm -o upgradesolution -name Solution.wsp -filename c:\Solution.wsp -immediate -allowGacDeploymentObject reference not set to an instance of an object.
This is usually a permissions issue - but I'm running stsadm as the farm admin account so I'm fine. Must be an issue with the old code (it wasn't working properly, which is why we were updating it in the first place) so I'll go ahead and just do it the hard way. Again - in a hurry I decided to use central admin to retract instead stsadm. Central Admin > Operations > Solution Management > Solution.wsp > Retract Solution > Now, All content Web applications. A short time later I checked and saw that the retract had failed. I decided to give it a go from the command line
stsadm -o retractsolution -name Solution.wsp -url http://to.the.web.app"A deployment or retraction is already under way for the solution …"
Ok - I'll go check for timer jobs, back to Central Admin > Operations > Timer Job Status and sure enough the job is there "Windows SharePoint Services Solution Deployment for farm-Solution.wsp" and it shows as failed. I try to re-run it with 'stsadm -o execadmsvcjobs" but that fails too. I go back to the operations tab and select Timer Job Definitions, select the job and the try to use "Delete" - but it just pops up a new page that says "error" I restart the "Microsoft SharePoint Services Timer" service on the central admin server and again try to delete the timer but no luck. I try a few other things such as re-adding the solution (fails, … already exists in the solution store" and deleting the solution (fails, … the solution cannot be removed when a job is scheduled or running.) Then I stumble on stsadm -o canceldeployments which requires the deployment id, so we use
stsadm -o enumdeployments
which spits out some xml with one of the values being: <Deployment JobId="e64c96e7-4f55-4b5c-b4ea-d28f1be9aa98"> then we can run
stsadm -o canceldeployment -id "e64c96e7-4f55-4b5c-b4ea-d28f1be9aa98"Object reference not set to an instance of an object.
that same error message from the first stsadm command we ran. I re-double double checked to make sure I was a farm admin (I was) and that I had access to the db (I did) and then I remember what I saw in solution management and timer job status - the job had failed on several servers. On a hunch the timer job had last failed on another server in the farm - so I reset the sharepoint services timer job on that server and then tried the following:
stsadm -o deletesolution -name Solution.wsp -overrideThe solution cannot be removed when a job is scheduled or running.Solution.wsp: The removal of the solution failed.
Interesting … how about ...
stsadm -o canceldeployment -id "e64c96e7-4f55-4b5c-b4ea-d28f1be9aa98"The job referred by 'e64c96e7-4f55-4b5c-b4ea-d28f1be9aa98' could not be found.
I might really be in trouble here ….
stsadm -o enumdeployments<Deployments Count="0" />
Checking back in Solution Management I found the solution fully retracted and the timer job was missing from status and definitions. I was then able to delete the solution and then re-add the newer copy
Certifications and Experience
My background in IT comes from several years of general helpdesk / break fix and system administrator experience. My most senior position has been as a Sr Network Engineer jockeying routers and ap's all day long. I usually tried to spend as little time in front of a Windows server as possible - and my exposure was usually related to on call incidents and hardware problems. So it's a bit ironic I find myself as a systems analyst specializing in web technology. I'm now knee deep in Windows server, IIS, .Net, SQL and some strange thing called SharePoint (or maybe it's MOSS.)
Day to day I work for a consulting company and am contracted to a major pharmaceutical firm here in Indianapolis. I work on their solutions delivery team for their SharePoint based intranet. My specific role is to work with business areas to bring solutions into our environment and with their developers to guide their code through the development and testing process. I also assist my co-workers with general SharePoint consulting on the various farms through out our enterprise and act as a backup to the team member who is dedicated to infrastructure related needs.
My current employer requires all personnel to have an individual development plan and pass two certification tests a year. We live, eat, and breathe SharePoint and as such my first certification was dictated as 70-630 Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007, Configuring. By taking and passing that exam I would become an MCP (Microsoft Certified Professional) and also a MCTS (Microsoft Certified Technology Specialist): Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007 – Configuration. I started my job when my son was only a week old and in the beginning of July, and was told that since the year was half over I would only be required to take the one cert this year. So 70-630 it was and I had 6 months to do it in, only I didn't. I kept putting it off as my son got bigger and started sleeping through the night - and even past the holidays, ripe with perfect studying time. Eventually I got myself in gear, only a few weeks before the now extended dead line and passed the test with flying colors. I enjoyed the test taking experience but found it very difficult to study. I was quite nervous the week leading into the Friday of the test - more so I think than when my son was born. Overall the testing was positive and the experience was fine, but studying was down right terrible.
I've spent the past few weeks researching various certifications and the study material relating to them. I've become fascinated with cataloging the numerous resources available to certification seekers. I can't wait to get the next one under my belt and would love to start a dialogue with anyone about the process and their experiences. I'm very interested in the methods they use to study, what materials they use and what their motivation for gaining certification is. I promise to follow up with further posts like this one as I progress towards more certifications.
