September 2023 – en.vmik.net

Updating the VMware vCenter server from version 8.0 U1 to 8.0 U2 using the Reduced Downtime Upgrade procedure

With the announcement of vSphere 8.0 Update 2 a new interesting feature called vCenter Reduced Downtime Update (RDU) was introduced.

This feature can reduce overall vCenter Server downtime during updates and upgrades.

In a nutshell, RDU is a vLCM feature that creates a new already updated vCenter Server virtual machine and copies all data from running vCenter to the new copy. After data is copied, all we need to do is to switch over to the updated copy of vCenter. Switchover takes less time than the full upgrade procedure and minimizes the downtime of vCenter.

In this article, we will look at how to update the vCenter server from version 8.0 Update 1 to version 8.0 Update 2 using RDU.

Deploying Nutanix Community Edition 2.0 on VMware vSphere 8

This year Nutanix Community Edition 2.0 (CE 2.0) was released, based on Nutanix AOS 6.5 – the most actual LTS version at the time of writing.

In this article, we’ll take a closer look at how to deploy a three-node Nutanix CE 2.0 cluster on a VMware vSphere 8 infrastructure.

VMware vSphere 8.0 Update 2 is out

VMware vSphere 8.0 Update 2 is out with a number of interesting features. If you don’t know what’s new in this release you can start with What’s new article, released right after the announcement of U2.

Release notes for vCenter Server 8.0 Update 2 are here.

Release Notes for ESXi 8.0 Update 2 are here.

Please note, that at the time of writing this post, vCenter Server was released as GA (General Availability) and ESXi was released as IA (Initial Availability). You can read about the differences between GA and IA here.

Preparing for the Nutanix Certified Master – Multicloud Infrastructure 6.5 Exam

Nutanix Certified Master – Multicloud Infrastructure 6.5 is the next certification level after NCP-MCI 6.5, and successful completion of this certification provides access to the NCX and NPX expert-level exams.

If we draw a parallel with the certifications of other vendors, this certification belongs to the Advanced Professional category and, for quite a long time, was called Nutanix Certified Advanced Professional (NCAP).

Since version 6.5, this exam has changed its format, and now it is not a familiar test, but a laboratory work with a certain number of scenarios and tasks that need to be performed on real clusters. Again, the closest analogies are VMware Certified Advanced Professional – Deploy or any of the Red Hat exams.

Next, we will look in more detail at what the exam is, the list of topics, as well as the preparation procedure.

Preparing for the Nutanix Certified Professional – Multicloud Infrastructure 6.5 Exam

Nutanix Certified Professional is the second stage in the Nutanix certification track. This certification requires the candidate to have good theoretical and practical knowledge of working with Nutanix solutions and is divided into several tracks:
Nutanix Certified Professional – Multicloud Infrastructure (NCP-MCI) v6.5
Nutanix Certified Professional – Database Automation (NCP-DB) v6.5
Nutanix Certified Professional – Unified Storage (NCP-US) v6.5
Nutanix Certified Professional – Multicloud Automation (NCP-MCA) v6.5
Nutanix Certified Professional – End User Computing (NCP-EUC) v6

Update: I have a new guide based on version 6.10.

In this article we will look at the main topics from the Nutanix Certified Professional – Multicloud Infrastructure (NCP-MCI) exam version 6.5, and I will also share materials, that you can use to prepare yourself.

Preparing for the Nutanix Certified Associate 6.5 Exam

Nutanix Certified Associate is the first step in the Nutanix certification track. This is an entry-level exam that tests knowledge of general Nutanix theory, basic cluster management skills, and an understanding of the Prism interface.

In this article I will share my experience of passing the Nutanix Certified Associate exam version 6.5, and also leave some tips for self-preparation.

Update: I have a new guide based on version 6.10.