I was initially awarded the vExpert badge in 2016 on the partner path and have received the award every year since. What originally drew me to the program was recognition. I was heavily engaged in the VMTN community, and I wanted the vExpert badge next to my name. As my career evolved and I matured as an engineer, my use of the vast array of benefits associated with the vExpert program shifted as well. I eventually found one of the most valuable benefits to me was the licenses provided for my home lab. That is what I will be writing about today.
In an effort to develop my skillset with the ever-changing VMware product sets, I spent significant time and effort on certification. My approach to studying for certification typically begins with going through the exam blueprint. I like to ensure that I am able to implement in the UI each item listed in the blueprint. While using VMware’s Hands-on Labs (HOL) is nice, sometimes family or work obligations require me to pause and pick things up later. The HOLs eventually timeout, so it’s helpful to have a fully licensed home lab, and I have that thanks to the vExpert program. The licenses provided to me by the vExpert program have helped me achieve VCAP certification in the Data Center Virtualization, Network Virtualization, and End-User Computing verticals.
Having a fully licensed lab is also helpful in my role as a consultant. In many cases, I am tasked with upgrades and new product implementations. I have discovered over the years that it’s best to make as many decisions prior to execution as possible. This provides the opportunity to think through each decision, whether it’s an approach decision, selecting which radio button or checkboxes need to be checked, or IP allocation. Putting time into initial information gathering and doing dry runs of any upgrade task prepares for the production upgrade. Since most of my customers do not have a lab environment, having a fully licensed lab of my own enables me to do dry runs and have a full understanding of every step in the process so I’m well prepared to deliver a successful upgrade effort. This level of preparation has ensured smooth upgrades and product implementations.
I can speak to a recent example, where having a fully licensed home lab was helpful. I have a rather large customer using NSX-T native load balancing. With nearly a thousand VIPs configured in the environment across multiple load balancers, quite a load balancing features in use In preparation for a transition from native NSX-T load balancing to Avi Basic, some testing was necessary. First, I needed to get an Avi Controller deployed and transitioned to Basic licensing. Then, I needed to implement the same capabilities present on the native NSX-T load balancers on the Avi Basic controllers to confirm feature parity was in fact present. Finally, I needed to build out a Horizon environment to mimic the configuration that we expected to implement at the customer site using Avi. This would not have been possible without having a fully licensed home lab.
Along the same lines as upgrades and new product implementations, the lab has helped me perform feature testing. As we all know, many new releases contain new features. In order to ensure that the feature operates the way I expect it to operate, I like the implement the feature in a controlled environment prior to deploying in production. That controlled environment is my home lab. As new features become available, my customers expect me to provide them guidance around the use of the features. In many cases I do this by developing documentation, or more recently recording videos. I do this by way of my fully licensed home lab.
As you can see, just a single benefit of the vExpert program has helped me develop as an engineer and be a better consultant.
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