Below are the details about the course:

The OSCP, or Offensive Security Certified Professional, is one of the world’s first completely hands on information security certifications. The OSCP challenges the students to prove they have a clear understanding the concepts of the Pentesting With BackTrack material, as well as a depth of knowledge in penetration testing.

A lab that the student never has seen before is set up with only a limited amount of machines. Each machine is awarded points if a successful hack is performed. The student must demonstrate their depth of understanding by submitting both the steps they took to penetrate the box as well as the proof.txt file. If both of these are submitted the students receives points for that particular box. If they achieve the points they need they can stop and pass or continue on to try and penetrate the whole network.

The OSCP is a twenty four hour exam, where a straight 24-hour period is given to that student to attempt this certification. It is a very difficult and challenging exam that will truly test the limits of the student. If a passing score is achieved the student is awarded a coveted OSCP certification.

The course start date is March 9th.. really looking forward to it even a 24hr exam lol!

First VCDX4 signs I was sent a survey by VMware last week asking me for my opinions on the vSphere Enterprise Administration exam that will form part of the VCDX4 certification. I completed the survey as requested, and it definitely gives an insight into the content that will form the exam when it is released. The basis for the exam blueprint is clear from the various topics asked about in the survey. Jon Hall from VMware also created a post on the VCP community forum about the survey I also listened to a 5-month old VMware Communties Roundtable recording (right-click to save the MP3) this week where Jon Hall was asked questions about VCDX4 (as well as VCP4 but that’s all old news now). One of the things that Jon said that I hadn’t heard before is that VCDX3 holders will only need to pass the vSphere Design exam in order to “upgrade” their certifications to VCDX4. Jon also said that the Enterprise Administration exam for vSphere would be available around now, I can’t imagine we’re that far away from seeing it – a few weeks perhaps.

Link: http://vmwaretraining.blogspot.com/2010/01/first-vcdx4-signs.html

VMware VirtualCenter Server 2.5 Update 6 is now available. This update provides the following improvements:

• Guest Operating System Customization Improvements
• Support for Firefox 3.x Browsers with VirtualCenter Web Access
• Bug and security fixes

For details regarding the new fixes and improvements, please refer to the release notes.

VirtualCenter Server 2.5 Update 6 is available for download.

For details regarding compatibility, please view vSphere Compatibility Matrixes.

• What is a Machine-Check Exception (MCE)?
• Understanding the machine-check architecture
• Decoding the machine-check exception
• Other considerations

Watch the VMware KB Video here

For more info see the announcement here

————————

What does Extended and Technical support mean?

Extended Support

New hardware platforms are no longer supported, new guest OS updates may or may not be applied, and bug fixes are limited to critical issues. Critical bugs are deviations from specified product functionality that cause data corruption, data loss, system crash, or significant customer application down time and there is no work-around that can be implemented.

Technical Guidance

Primary assistance is available through the self help page. Customers can also open a support request online to receive support and workarounds for low-severity issues on supported configurations only. (Telephone support is not provided.) There will be no new hardware support, guest OS updates, security patches or bug fixes. The phase is intended for usage by customers operating in stable environments with systems that are operating under reasonably stable loads.

esxplot is a GUI application that lets you explore the data collected by esxtop in batch mode. The program takes a single command line argument which is the esxtop batch mode output file. You can also simply start esxplot without any arguments, and enter a dataset file via the File attribute of the menu bar. Esxplot loads the data in this file and presents the metrics as a hierarchical tree where the values are selectable in the left panel. In the right panel, a graph is plotted (value over time) of the selected metric, in this way, you can “browse” the contents of these somewhat unwieldy files.

Check it out here for more information.

http://blogs.vmware.com/security/2010/01/announcing-vsphere-40-hardening-guide-public-draft-release.html

VMware Virtualization Forum 2010 is a free, interactive full day event where you will learn about virtual infrastructure from experts and companies like yours.

You’ll hear from companies of all sizes discuss their virtualization solutions for everything from the desktop to the data center.

Give IT a break. Imagine the day when IT can shift its focus from maintenance to driving efficiency and innovation — and help grow the business. And imagine doing this while fully optimizing financial resources throughout IT, shifting human energy and conserving the earth’s energy.

Rest assured. VMware and its Partners get you there. From the datacenter to the desktop, out to the cloud. Don’t miss your change and see how VMware delivers the world’s most trusted, flexible and dynamic solutions for Business Infrastructure Virtualization.

Site link: http://www.vmware-forum.com/vforum

I’ll be attending the London forum.