Storage on the VCAP-DCA

[ukznmcl]

Hi,

I am currently studying for the VCAP-DCA and i have a question in regards to storage. In my test lab at home and also at work we use iSCSI as storage so i havent had a lot of experience with FC.  Now obviously i cannot pratice with zoning or any of the fibre channel features. I am using openfiler in my lab at home.

When it comes to the exam is there any configuration to be done on the storage side. Obviously i dont want to break any NDA's so please give as much info as you can

Also do you know how long the VCAP-DCA4 exam will be available for? i.e. When VCAP-DCA5 is released later in the year will you still be able to take the VCAP-DCA4 exam?

Cheers

Neil

[weinstein5]

Look at the VCAP DCA Blueprint that will indicate to what depth you will need to know FC storage but I do not think the configuration of the storage will be covered in the exam just because there are too many storage manufacturers that are supported by VMware but with that being said I would definitely think you should know the difference between zoning and masking etc

There will be an overlap when both exams will be offered how long that period will be I do not know -

[scott28tt]

The lab environment in the exam matches the storage as mentioned in the blueprint.

We don't know yet when the DCA5 will be released, what the "upgrade" path will be, what will be in the blueprint, or how long the DCA4 and DCA5 exams will be offered in parallel.

[AndreTheGiant]

Just a hint... think that DCA is a lab enviroment with storage shared across lab... So you can immagine that some exercise are not possible...

IMHO follow the blueprint and try to test as you can of iSCSI that, for a basic usic use, could be similar to FC from admin point of view (and don't forget NFS!).

[Josh26]

Hi,

Whilst I'm not familiar with the exam....

Zoning and other FC features are configured on the fibre switch and on the SAN itself. The closest to zoning that exists on ESXi is the MASK_PATH NMP, which you can lab out with iSCSI.

Likewise, a lot of FC management is about choosing and setting the SATP and PSP, which you can identically do on iSCSI environments.

About the only other management aspect specific to FC is considering that, once zoning is done correctly, LUNs will magically appear on servers without you having to add targets like in iSCSI.

Again I'm not familiar with the exam, but I certainly don't expect VLAN configuration on an ESXi host to ask you how to setup a Cisco switch, and I wouldn't expect any further that you'd be asked to perform zoning on an EMC SAN on any VMware exam.

[JoshuaAndrewsVM]

You will only be expected to manage the vSphere environment, but the environment includes almost all storage supported by vSphere and you will be expected to interact with it.  That said, other than how you identify LUNs there is no functional difference from a vSphere point of view between FC and iSCSI except NPIV, which is also covered on the VCP exam.