vCoffee Links Issue #1 – Monday 4/14/2014

vCoffee Links will be a weekly feature on vHersey.com. vCoffee Links will feature news and links of interest from the past week or so. If you have something interesting to add please submit it in the comments or hit me up on Twitter @herseyc.

The inspiration for the vCoffee Links comes from a regular group of twitter friends: @coolsport00, @tscalzott, @susangude, and @mattvogt. We wish each other a good day on Saturday and Sunday while enjoying our morning caffeine fix. This is when I am catching up on the happenings of the week so I decided to make a weekly feature of it here at vHersey.com.

The format will probably evolve over time and it may or may not always be on Monday morning. Now on to the good stuff…

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New VCDXs!
Congratulations! Two new VCDXs!

@SandyCloudKSA – Rene Van Den Bedem (VCDX #133) and Alessandro Bruno (VCDX #134) successfully defended VCDX at the Frimley UK defenses. Check out @SandyCloudKSA’s write up on his defense experience – VCDX Recipe for Success.

Gregg @GreggRobertson5 also defended but unfortunately was unsuccessful. You’ll get it next time Gregg! Gregg posted an excellent write up on his VCDX defense experience here.

Michael Webster (VCDX #66) @vcdxnz001 had a great post this week on the VCDX process with some tips on preparing and successfully defending. Great advice for anyone planning to (or even just thinking they might) work towards the VCDX certification.

vExpert 2014
Congratulations to all the 2014 vExperts! WOW 767 or so vExperts for 2014! That is AWESOME!!! The VMware community is fantastic and it is great to see so many people contributing. I was also chosen as a vExpert for 2014, this is third year and I am honored to be part of such a great community. If you are a new vExpert (and there are like around 400 or so new vExperts this year). Don’t forget to set up your profile in the vExpert directory.

There are number of folks that provide special benefits to vExperts (NFR licenses, demos, etc). Wojciech Marusiak has listed many of them on his blog here. Here is another great post by Artur Krzywdzinski (@artur_ka) on the benefits of being a vExpert.

A huge thank you to all the folks that provide benefits and NFR licenses to vExperts. A special vExpert shout out to Pluralsight for their generous 1 year of training access to vExperts again this year! THANK YOU!!!

HeartBleed
I am sure you have heard about the OpenSSL vulnerability that has come to be known as the HeartBleed bug. VMware and Citrix (and just about every other vendor) have released information about products susceptible to HeartBleed. HeartBleed has been causing quite a stir (and for good reason), I for one was pretty shocked to find out that the NSA has known about (and apparently been exploiting the vulnerability) for around 2 years. If that is true, yeah thanks for looking out for us…

Here is a fantastic post from Andrea Mauro with a good overview of what a vSphere Admin needs to know about HeartBleed and VMware products.

VMware Horizon 6
Last week VMware announced the release of Horizon 6. You can watch the Horizon 6 announcment video by VMware’s CEO Pat Gelsinger here.

I am not a Horizon/View guy, I stay pretty focused on Citrix products for VDI/EUC/mobility or whatever it is being marketed as now. With that said I am interested in the fact that Horizon now provides the ability to deliver XenApp and RDSH apps and shared desktops using the Horizon Workspace. Checkout this closer look at application remoting post on the VMware EUC blog.

I definitely need to brush up on Horizon/View. Recently the ProfessionalVMware.com vBrownBags had a series devoted to the VCAP-DTD, just need some time to check them out.

VCAP-DCA for 5.5
The VMware Certified Advance Professional Exam for Data Center Administration (VCAP-DCA) has been updated to vSphere 5.5 (VCDA550). The previous VCAP-DCA for vSphere 5 (VCDA510) was based on 5.0. The 5.0 exam is currently still available to take and passing either will earn the VCAP5-DCA certification. Lots of changes to the blueprint for the 5.5 version of the exam so be sure to check it out. When this was released there was a fair bit of excitement on Twitter, especially around the fact that vCenter Orchestrator (vCO) is included on the 5.5 blueprint.

Interesting Posts
Speaking of vCO, if you are not very familiar with it here is a nice post with a links to some great vCO resources.

If you are a vSphere Admin you have probably used RVTools (if not, you should definitely check it out). This post shows how you can schedule RVTools to run periodically by launching it using command line options.

Looking for Visio stencils for VMware vSphere, Microsoft Hyper-V, or Citrix XenDesktop? There is a page over at DABCC with links to some nice sets of Visio Stencils to use for your documentation or presentations.

Jeramiah Dooley (@jdooley_clt) posted a great how-to with tips on marketing yourself on social media.

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Hopefully you found something that peaked your interest. Enjoy your coffee. Have a great morning and a fantastic week.

Have anything interesting to add? Post a comment below or hit me up on twitter @herseyc.