Everything-Virtual

Category: VMware View

  • VCA4-DT Training Aids

    The VCA4-DT exam has been out for a while now and whilst there still isn’t a required attendance on a course there also isn’t a great deal of training material out there for the exam.

    The following material can be used to aid your study for the exam, it’s important to note that the VCA4-DT exam covers View 4.6 so in your preparation please make sure you’re evaluating View 4.6 and not View 5.0.

    White Papers and Blue Print

    Your first port of call should be the following VMware documentation.

    VMware VCA4-DT Blue Print 1.3
    VMware View 4.6 Administration Guide
    VMware View 4.6 Installation Guide

    Evaluation Software

    Downloading the trial for View 4.6 directly from VMware currently only works if you’re already licensed for it so I have provided an alternative download location for the 4.6.0 software here.

    View Composer 2.6.0-349155
    View Connection Server x86-64 4.6.0-366101
    View Client x86-x64 4.6.0-366101
    View Client x86 4.6.0-366101.exe
    View Client with local mode x86-64 4.6.0-366101
    View Client for Mac – 4.6.0-366101

    Additional Training Material

    There are a number of additional guides out there that can be useful to help train you further in the use of VMware View 4.5 \ 4.6, the following book should be considered if you want to further your knowledge for the VCA4-DT

    Administrating VMware View 4.5 – Authors Edition by Mike Laverick – I spoke with Mike at the last VMUG and asked for his permission to link the book from my site.
    TrainSignal VMware View 4 Administration Training training by Brian Knudtson.

    Finally

    Have a look over on the VMware VCA4-DT website for links to the mock exam and community forums.

    Good luck

  • VMware ThinApp Bootcamp

    After the earlier success of the VMware View Bootcamp back in July this year, VMware are releasing a new Bootcamp based on VMware ThinApp, this Bootcamp will be covering the use, deployment, and optimisation of VMware ThinApp.

    Topics covered over the 6 days are :-

    Day 1 – ThinApp Design Best Practices

    • Speaker – Ray Dusseault, VMware
    • This session provides an overview real world best practices surrounding the new ThinApp Design Process along with a basic timeline for the ThinApp Plan & Design engagement.


    Day 2 – ThinApp Implementation Best Practices

    • Speaker – Ray Dusseault, VMware
    • This session provides an overview of the latest ThinApp Strategy, methodology and real world Implementation best practices.


    Day 3 – ThinApp Performance Enhancing Techniques

    • Speaker – Dean Flaming, VMware
    • Common tips, rules, basic troubleshooting procedures, and suggestions used to help enhance performance of ThinApp packages, including pre-capture settings, post-capture clean-up, deployment options pros and cons, and environment configurations.


    Day 4 – Scripting within ThinApp

    • Speaker – Dean Flaming, VMware
    • Understanding the basics of scripting within a ThinApp environment including use of the callback functions as timing mechanisms, additional options available by admins, and how to implement a scripted solution within a ThinApp packaged application.


    Day 5 – Isolation Modes Explained

    • Speaker – Travis Sales, VMware
    • Isolation modes are at the heart of the abstraction layer within ThinApp. We will explore their uses and and how to adjustment them for optimal application compatibility.


    Day 6 – AppLink Fundamentals

    • Speaker – Travis Sales, VMware
    • AppLink enables you to package, deploy, and update component pieces separately while keeping the benefits of application virtualization. This session will explore AppLinks use scenarios and uses cases.

  • VMware View 9 Day Bootcamp

    VMware are releasing a 9 day VMware View Bootcamp Series covering all aspects of virtual desktops.

    There will be 9 videos, each video released daily starting on the 19th July.

    Topics covered over the 9 days are :-

    Day 1 – Design Considerations Guidelines for VMware View – Overview

    • Speaker – John Dodge, Sr. Manager PSO Services, VMware
    • Overview of the technical considerations to keep in mind while you’re designing a View environment


    Day 2 – Storage Deep Dive – Considerations and Best Practices

    • Speaker – Jim Yanik, Sr. Systems Engineer, VMware
    • How to design your storage infrastructure to fit your environment
    • Sizing and workload considerations

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  • ThinApp’d vSphere Client Error – “The type initializer for ‘xr’ threw an exception”

    I have been using the ThinApp’d version of the vSphere client that I created on my desktop PC rather than installing the thick client, it’s obviously smaller and cleaner and until recently hadn’t caused me any issues.

    I was installing the Xangati OVF and decided to add the vDS (vNetwork Distributed Switch) to my homelab environment when I got this message.

    image

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  • ThinApp – How to virtualise the vSphere Client (4.1u1)

    As promised yesterday here is a quick tutorial showing how to ThinApp the vSphere client, so as to reduce the package size as much as possible the work was carried out on a fully patched Windows XP SP3 machine with the J# redist installed as well.

    The entire process from start to finish took about 30 minutes so I have edited the video to cut out long and boring installation routines.

    A couple of things to note is that I never managed to get my client down to the same size that VMware have but to my defence this is my first attempt at using ThinApp but I did get it down to a respectable 133mb and also that this is my first attempt at video creation, also this video doesn’t contain any sound but future releases will do.

    One thing missing from the video is that testing of the client was carried out on a Windows 7 virtual machine, this machine had no additional software installed on it (unlike the XP machine that had the J# redist).

    If there are any questions please don’t hesitate to ask.

    ThinApp’d vSphere Client 4.1u1 from My-TechVideos.com on Vimeo.

  • VMware ThinApp 4.6 Starter Bundle Licensing Issues

    About six months back when VMware had a deal going where if you purchased VMware Workstation you also received a license for VMware ThinApp Starter Bundle I decided to take the plunge and made the purchase (it was also at the time when workstation had a $50 discount going on).

    Before now I hadn’t really had any reason to install ThinApp but recently I had decided to try my hand at packaging up the vSphere client using ThinApp (like VMware have done with the 4.1 release but my aim was to do it with the 4.1u1 release).

    Last night I decided to install ThinApp on a dedicated ThinApp machine (Windows XP SP3) but ran into an issue when it came to actually licensing the application.

    VMware ThinApp

     

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