There are multiple steps to be followed in order to meet the VMware compliance for certification of any storage (hardware or software defined). First of all the product vendor needs to be Elite partner with VMware in order to certify their product and features and list them on VMware official portal.
With this partnership in place VMware provides TAP (Technology Alliance Partner) credentials to the customer which allows access to certain locked areas on VMware sites for process related information and necessary documentation. Please note that the tap credentials always end with .vmw e.g. (yourname@mycompany.com.vmw).The elite membership is a paid service and currently priced at $7,500.
Once you are logged in using valid TAP credentials you will gain access to many areas. You need to select certification section and then you are required to run CAT (Compatibility Analysis Tool) test.
In CAT you are presented with certain questionnaire based on type of certification you select for your product under consideration. Carefully fill in the details and especially the product build number that you submit. This has to be same for the entire certification program. The form consists of various questions like what protocol you are aiming at certifying your product for, build number, feature set etc. Once the CAT is reviewed by VMware team they will point you to corresponding certification kit for your product. This needs to be purchased from VMware store. The certification kit is a customized zip file that needs to be imported in the VMware Workbench which is the automated test framework from VMware for certification activities. The Workbench exposes only required test cases based on protocol and feature set selection.
The documentation that you get access to have a very important document called Storage Certification Guide. This guide helps in step by step preparation for setup required for certification program. You need to follow the instructions by the word in order to execute the test cases correctly.
The guide will also explain the test case details such as what the intended purpose of the given test case is and what workbench does to achieve the outcome of the test case. Workbench list all the test cases run so far and the status for each test case (Pass/Fail) and logs are generated for each test case run and if test case fails at certain point, you need to analyze the logs thoroughly in order to fix the problem area and re-run the test case.
One important aspect is that while purchasing the certification kit, you should purchase SR’s (Service Requests) in a bunch of at least 4. VMware will interact with you only through SR and one SR per query/question. Note that there is no other way to communicate with VMware Certification Team. So, to avoid any delays on the project, please ensure that you open SR and then follow up through it. SR is required to submit the final logs to VMware for review through Workbench itself.
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