I had the opportunity to attend the VMware vSphere: Design Workshop [V6.5] which I took as a Live On-line class. The class was 3 days long and I took the class so I could sit for the VCAP 6.5 Data Center Design Certification. I am still in the process of studying for the exam and hope to sit for it within the next few months. I will probably have a few more reviews to do of some of the study material I used and hopefully I will be able to turn that into a Study Guide of my own that I will be able to share.
The class began like any other with introductions and an overview of the class and course material. They even had a section to cover where I could get coffee .and find the restroom (which I found humorous since I took the class in my dining room, so hopefully I am well acquainted with were to find these services in my home).
My class mates consisted of mostly VMware Employees (TAMs and Systems Engineers) and a few Sysadmins from Partners or clients of varying levels of experience with vSphere. In all I feel like I was in a good group. There was a great deal of discussions had on various topics in the materials and it was interesting to see everyone’s take on things based on their personal experiences.
Our instructor was very knowledgeable and although at the time I took this class I don’t believe he sat for the exam himself he did have the VCAP – DCD 6.0.
The modules themselves were very similar to a book I had ready called VMware vSphere 6.x Datacenter Design Cookbook. Which made me feel better for spending the money on this book before I took this class. Pretty much everything that was covered in the book was also covered in class which made it more of a review for me than anything else.
What was interesting about this class is that all the modules and the labs built off of each other. Meaning if you made a mistake on module 2 it would effect your results in module 7 which can be very frustrating if you do not double check your work. At the end of each day we had somewhere between 45 minutes to 3 hours of homework (labs) that we had to complete (otherwise you would not be able to complete the final lab).
At the end of the class you are presented with you own design which you should have been able to create by doing the labs, however VMware is also nice enough to give you the answers (the real design) for you to study for the exam. I would definitely suggest attending this class if you are going to pursue certification or if you want to get a greater understanding of vSphere Design.