Tag: VMware
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How to break into a VMware career: certs, interviews and your first job (VMware for Beginners, Part 18)
A practical, no-fluff guide for freshers on breaking into a VMware career in 2026: which certification to start with, the interview questions that trip people up, and what actually gets you hired.
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Build a free VMware home lab: ESXi, vCenter and nested labs (VMware for Beginners, Part 17)
The tools are free again. Here is how a fresher builds a real VMware home lab on one laptop, what hardware actually matters, and a first lab you can finish this weekend.
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Where VMware fits in 2026: still everywhere, now subscription-only (VMware for Beginners, Part 16)
VMware in 2026 under Broadcom: the same technology, a shorter product list, subscription and per-core pricing, and an honest look at where it still beats Proxmox, Nutanix and Hyper-V for freshers.
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Common VMware mistakes beginners make, and how to avoid them (VMware for Beginners, Part 15)
The mistakes that trip up almost every new VMware admin: oversizing vCPUs, treating snapshots as backups, filling datastores, and skipping VMware Tools. Here is why each one bites, with real numbers and a home-lab task to see it for yourself.
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VMware backups vs snapshots: what freshers get wrong (VMware for Beginners, Part 14)
A snapshot is a save-point that depends on the original VM; a backup is an independent copy stored somewhere else. Mix them up and you can lose data. Here is the difference, in plain English, with a home-lab task and a real interview question.
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Create and manage a virtual machine in vSphere, step by step (VMware for Beginners, Part 13)
The seven-page New Virtual Machine wizard takes two minutes; the choices inside it take judgment. How to size, provision, install, and manage a VM the right way from day one.
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Resource management in vSphere: shares, limits and reservations (VMware for Beginners, Part 12)
Shares, limits and reservations decide which VM wins when an ESXi host runs short. Here is what each control really does, the defaults that trip up freshers, and how to set them without hurting performance.
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vSphere DRS: how a cluster balances its own load (VMware for Beginners, Part 11)
DRS is the part of vCenter that spreads VMs evenly across your ESXi hosts and quietly fixes imbalance with vMotion. Here is how it decides, what to leave on default, and the gotchas that trip up freshers.
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vSphere HA: what happens when an ESXi host dies (VMware for Beginners, Part 10)
vSphere HA restarts your VMs on another host when an ESXi host fails. A plain-English guide to how HA detects a dead host, what admission control does, and why it is not zero downtime.
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vMotion: moving a running VM with zero downtime (VMware for Beginners, Part 9)
vMotion moves a powered-on VM between ESXi hosts with no downtime a user can feel. Here is how the live memory copy works, what it needs, and how to explain it in an interview.
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Templates, clones and snapshots in VMware, made simple (VMware for Beginners, Part 8)
Snapshots are short-lived save points, templates are reusable master images, and clones are one-off copies. What each does, when to use it, and the snapshot mistake that quietly fills datastores.
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Virtual networking basics: vSwitch, port groups and VLANs (VMware for Beginners, Part 7)
A plain-English guide to VMware virtual networking for freshers: what a vSwitch, port group, uplink and VLAN really are, how a packet travels from VM to physical switch, and the VLAN and port-group mistakes that break a VM network.
Architect’s Toolkit
PJ’s Tools
VMware Cloud Foundation
- VCF Documentation
- VCF 9 Planning & Preparation Workbook
- VCF Bill of Materials (BoM)
- VMware Compatibility Guide
- VMware Interoperability Matrix
- VMware Configuration Maximums
- VMware Ports & Protocols
- VMware Hands-on Labs
- RVTools Download
Nutanix
AI & Cloud-Native Platform
- NVIDIA Build (Model Catalog)
- NVIDIA AI Enterprise Reference Architecture
- NVIDIA NIM Performance Benchmarking
- NVIDIA NGC Catalog
- NeMo Microservices Helm Chart
- Helm Charts Repository
- Hugging Face Models
Architecture & Design
About the Author
Dr Pranay Jha
Dr. Pranay Jha is a Cloud and AI Consultant with 18+ years of experience in hybrid cloud, virtualization, and enterprise infrastructure transformation. He specializes in VMware technologies, multi-cloud strategy, and Generative AI solutions. He holds a PhD in Computer Applications with research focused on Cloud and AI, has published multiple research papers, and has been a VMware vExpert since 2016 and a VMUG Community Leader.
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