What’s New with VMware App Volumes 2.15 - VMware Certifications

VMware App Volumes 2.15 is now available! This release’s highlights include enhancements to user writable volumes features, and App Volumes is also now supported for Horizon 7 on VMware Cloud on AWS.

App Volumes is a container-style technology that attaches applications to a VM when the user logs in, or, in the case of RDS-provided desktops and apps, when the RDSH server boots up. In circumstances where users need to install their own applications, or to satisfy the requirement some applications have for a local cache, administrators can provide users with a user writable volume.

Profile-Only Writable Volumes

Until now, when creating a writable volume, administrators had to choose between one of the following templates:

• User-installed applications only
• User-installed applications and profile data

That is, the purpose of the writable volume could be either to let users install their own applications or to let them install their own applications and store profile data, such as Outlook OST files that need to be cached so that the file is not re-created each time the users logs in.

With App Volumes 2.15, a new “Profile Only” template has been added, so that administrators can restrict the use of writable volumes to storing only profile data.

Cloud-Sharing Support on User Writable Volumes

OneDrive for Business and Box Drive are now supported when using App Volumes, and persistence can be achieved using a writable volume. Box Drive 2.1.105 or later is required.

In earlier versions of App Volumes, administrators used writable volumes for certain use cases that required a local cache, such as to store the user’s Outlook OST file and Search index. Having this cached data meant that the data remained instantly available and could follow the user as they connected to nonpersistent desktops. With the App Volumes 2.15 release, the same strategy can now be used for OneDrive and Box, enhancing IT’s ability to provide nonpersistent VDI while end users get a persistent-desktop experience.

App Volumes Support for Horizon 7 on VMware Cloud on AWS

VMware Cloud on AWS allows you to create vSphere data centers on Amazon Web Services. These vSphere data centers include vCenter Server for managing your data center, vSAN for storage, and VMware NSX for networking. With Horizon 7 on VMware Cloud on AWS, you can scale Horizon 7 desktops and applications on an elastic cloud platform.

App Volumes 2.15 can be used with this release of Horizon 7 (version 7.7), which is compatible with VMware Cloud on AWS (SDDC Version 1.5). Aside from a few minor user-interface changes, using App Volumes in this cloud is very similar to using it with on-premises Horizon 7.

Our experts say about VMware Certification Exams

Preparation tips for VMware Cloud on AWS Management Exam 2019

Why I chose to write this exam?

Exploring more on VMware cloud on AWS has been on my radar since quite some time now. When I came to know about this VMware cloud on AWS management exam, I thought to use this opportunity to take my skill around VMC to the next level. Usually I like exams not to just get the badge or to be certified but I use them as motivation in my preparation/learning journey. As per me, what counts more is what we do during the moment we decide to write the exam and the moment we start attempting the exam. Preparation journey should be the focus. Exam and its objective/syllabus help us streamline or direct our learning properly.

How to Prepare?

1. Though there is no strict course/training requirement for this exam but VMware recommends a course i.e. VMware cloud on AWS: Deploy and Manage . I was lucky to undergo this course. It is fine if you could not complete this course from exam perspective. However, from learning perspective, any time formal course is really insightful.
2.  I highly recommend to complete this Hands On Lab. Please do not underestimate this lab. Very helpful for exam as well as learning. I was able to access one of internal VMware cloud on AWS labs as well. It is fine if you do not have your own lab.
3. I was really impressed on FAQs compiled on official site. Once you have some hands on experience, these FAQs are really worth to go through. It not only covers general FAQs but it also focuses on each VMC component/feature.
4. Make sure you go through Exam preparation guide
5. From exam perspective, it is good to just have basic idea on what AWS compute & storage options available. It is not required to undergo any course or training. If you want to learn more on AWS, I found this blog post interesting i.e. AWS in plain English . There are couple of pluralsight courses are useful as well (not required for exam itself).
6. Yes, it is assumed that you have fundamental knowledge on vSphere, vSAN and NSX.

Exam format, level and scheduling?

If you take a look at Exam preparation guide , it is about VMware cloud on AWS fundamentals. Accordingly exam also was inline with sections listed in the guide. There are 30 questions to be solved within 45 min. All are multiple choice questions.  Once we pass this exam, we get “VMware Cloud on AWS – Software Defined Data Center 2019” badge. Passing score is 300. My score was 411. This exam is un-proctored i.e. you can attempt from your own laptop browser and once scheduled, you must begin the exam in 2 days time (i.e. you can attempt any time during those 2 days). Voucher I had received was valid for 2 attempts.

Success Secrets: How you can Pass VMware Certification Exams in first attempt

Natural Language Processing and Machine Learning Radically Transform How the VMware Business Interacts with Business Systems

VMware IT has increased its application footprint to deliver solutions for a variety of business needs, resulting in a distributed system that meets both domain needs and business goals. A distributed system approach, however, brings its own challenges because the data generated in the system resides in many different places.

The Business Operations team receives 120+ inquiries each workday–or more than 10,000 inquiries per quarter–about the status of the orders, opportunities, quotes, PO, invoices, renewals, etc. These inquiries arrive from various sources, including partners and distributors. Operations analysts must gather data from various Systems of Record, including sales order bookings, sales finance, geo sales, revenue, and work with other teams to respond to these inquiries. It can be time-consuming for the analysts to retrieve and validate the information for data quality and accuracy because they must access multiple systems to retrieve it. Each inquiry is manually tracked as a separate case. Depending on the number of systems involved, business groups may even reach out to IT to get additional information.

Our challenge was to create a self-service model that could automatically retrieve information and answer simple requests while maintaining a high level of responsiveness, quality, and customer satisfaction. A streamlined process would ensure faster responses and enable analysts to focus on more complex issues.

Automating a Bot Solution

IT developed next-generation vAssist.ai, a Natural Language Processing (NLP) platform to increase the responsiveness of some tasks. It enables Bot developers to train machine learning (ML) models for intent classification and entity extraction. vAssist is available as a SaaS model and exposes easy-to-use REST APIs to train and parse natural language inputs. It also provides a dashboard where developers can annotate and visualize data expressions and ML models in the cloud. We also integrated vAssist.ai with one of VMware’s chat platforms. Users can make service requests using the chat platform.

The Results

The biggest advantage of OM Assist is its self-service model, which delivers automated information 24×7 on the status of the orders, opportunities, quotes, POs, invoices, and renewals. The streamlined business process provides an integrated experience for users without any human intervention. By using emerging technologies, IT has created a scalable process that enables Business Operations to handle more inquiries and focus analyst efforts on resolving more complex requests without sacrificing responsiveness, quality, and customer satisfaction.