"Learning VMware ESXi and vSphere 5.1 Administration" by Glen Martin

4/5

"Learning VMware ESXi and vSphere 5.1 Administration by Glen Martin"
Very good hands-on training on ESXi related administration, useful for everyone including Solution Architects and System Integration Architects apart from system administrators to understand VMware's virtualization tools. The training covered fundamental working knowledge on below areas:
You can look at topic index for more details

• vCenter, vSphere, ESXi topology
• ESXi installation, vCenter installation
• Virtual Storage fundamentals
• Virtual Network fundamentals
• Creating a Virtual Machine
• DRS
• HA
• vMotion
• Storage vMotion
• Performance tuning
• vCenter Update Manager fundamentals and installation
• VMware Update Manager
• Data protection and security

The instructions were clear and concise. The oration  appeared to fast forwarded, limiting pauses in between all segments, leaving the audience a bit stressed. This is not a replacement for VMware documentation by any means, but is definitely a very good view for howto on VMware tools. Further reading and training is necessary if you came in researching the Performance aspects of virtualization.

Regards
Sudeep

"Data Design Introduction" by Tim Miles [2013]

A good jumpstart into database design practices, explained to the point and very lucidly. 1hr and 39min long.

http://bit.ly/162cvNY

Questions answered:
What is a Database?
What are types of databases?
What are relationships?
What is process of database design :
    determine purpose of database
    collect forms, reports, etc
    meet current and future users
    normalize the data, remove redundancy
    create the database
    review
what is Normalization?

"Enterprise SOA: Service-Oriented Architecture Best Practices" [2004]

Enterprise SOA: Service-Oriented Architecture Best Practices [2004] ,  by  Dirk Krafzig; Karl Banke; Dirk Slama

This book gives a  good introduction to SOA Concepts and associates with real case studies. The examples are useful in Enterprise Architecture strategies. The initial chapters provided a good historic perspective of technologies and approaches like CORBA, that influenced SOA strategy. I found this book to be very useful.

 

"Learning Oracle Database 11g by Lewis Cunnigham" - 2012

This is a good breezy introduction to Oracle 11g database for anyone who wants to get familiar with whats/hows of databases concepts. The presenter has touched through all important aspects, so it was very useful for me. I've intentionally skipped 3 chapters, first "Database security", "Very Large Databases" and "PL/SQL" , considering the priorities. This is a good stepping stone for Oracle Database performance tuning concepts.

Hadoop Fundamentals LiveLessons

Hadoop Fundamentals LiveLessons (Video Training) by Doug Eadline

Rating 3/5
Pranaam! Found this as a good rudimentary introduction to Hadoop architecture, hdfs and MapReduce. Essentials on HBase, Ambari, Zookeeper or other fundamental aspects are left out. Total video length is 5 hrs. Found the pace to be too slow and feel more could have been covered for impatient starters like me. Presentaton on first half of chapters are good. Lot of information is abstracted. Recommend to look at case studies in BigData to have more information.

Regards
Sudeep

"Patterns in Java : A Catalog of Reusable Design Patterns Illustrated" by Mark Grand

Pranaam! Working on "Patterns in Java : A Catalog of Reusable Design Patterns Illustrated" by Mark Grand this week. This is a "Volume 1" edition, I've got and is an old print. The notations used previous to UML 2.0, but I liked the explanation. Revising this under a tight timeline, since this needs to go back to shelf. Writing a running log here:

• Overview of UML
• This covers notations for 3 basic UML diagrams viz. Class Diagrams, Collaboration Diagrams and StateChart Diagrams

• Software Lifecycle

"Data Structures and the Java Collections Framework, Third Edition" by William J Collins

"Data Structures and the Java Collections Framework, Third Edition" by William J Collins[2011 print]

In tune with multi-threading, I'm beginning a new thread on Java Collections, in an attempt to solidify core Java essential concepts.

"Java 7 Concurrency Cookbook" by Javier Fernández

Pranaam. I'm currently working out "Java 7 Concurrency Cookbook" by Javier Fernández. It's a Oct 2012 edition. Finding these examples are lucid, that I can be very easily develop without being an expert Java programmer myself. Concurrency subject is dealt in other programming languages as well, but since Java has a large base in commercial software applications and there is ready material in-hand, it was an easy decision to work through Java 7.



Parallel processing and optimized high performance computing are interesting subjects that can solve large compute problems .It's essential to solve a problem quickly  and make result available for the next set of actions.  Sometimes its necessary to know which areas in a compute solutions are to be parallelized and which shouldn't be. It's an intriguing subject. The next area for me would be researching Design Patterns in concurrency. But before I get to that, creating a running log of areas covered from this book.

• Thread Management

• Creating & Running threads
• Get thread information
• Interrupt threads
• Control Interruption of threads
• Sleeping and Resuming threads
• Waiting for Finalization of threads
• Creating and running Daemon threads
• Processing uncontrolled Exceptions in threads 
• Using ThreadLocal variables
• Grouping threads into a group 
• Processing unchecked exceptions in ThreadGroup
• Using factory pattern to create Thread

• Basic Thread Synchronization
• Synchronizing a method
• Arranging independent attributes in synchronized blocks using Object references   
• Using conditions in synchronized code block
• Using Lock to synchronize a code block       
• Synchronizing data read/write operations using Lock
• Lock fairness
• Using multiple conditions in Lock

• Thread Synchronization utilities
•  

Read "Linear Algebra Demystified - Edition 3 by David McMahon"

Read this book recently, to refresh the dive into improving quantitative analaytical skills.  After a sabbatical for over a decade,  this was a refreshing excercise. Few weeks back, I'd decided  to started with whatever I could lay my hands on first,  found this from local library and completed this as a week long project. In this book the examples are laid out very well  and I got to learn some new concepts as well. Will solve the complete question bank when i get time in future.

Linear Algebra Demystified - by David McMahon