My VCAP 4 - DCA Exam Experience - Better late than NEVER!!

I know there are a number of blogs out there which speak about this topic, however I still face this question as soon as I meet an aspirant for this certification. A recent inquiry about this urged me to write a quick note on this which I can share with everyone. 

I am sure people who would stumble upon this article would know about VCAP DCA, if not, you can get more details from :-

VMware Certified Advanced Professional - Datacenter Administration (Official Website)

Since, the NDA restricts me to share anything from the examination content, I can only share how I prepared for this and that should help. Here is what I did:-

a) Created a Home Lab..

b) Used the LAB

c) More Lab time

d) Some more LAB time

Yup, that's the mantra you should know how to do those vSphere Administrator tasks on the tip of your fingers. The information on what labs you need to do can be obtained from the following blogs/links/resources:-

1- VCAP Datacenter Certification Landing Page by Kendrick Coleman.

2- Go for VCAP DCA Brownbags from Professional VMware - These are a great set of videos which will give an insight of how to play around with your labs.

3- Get a copy of VMware vSphere Troubleshooting Training from Train Signal by David Davis

The 3 links above have tonnes of Guides, Videos, Whitepapers etc, so get going and this should sail you through. I would say that the above material would take around a month's time to cover so schedule your exam accordingly.

Remember this, this is a 4 hour exam with around 40 questions which are completely lab based, and trust me these were the fastest 4 hours of my life. Make sure you keep an eye on that clock and pace yourself accordingly.

Working on my VCAP 4 DCD now, will post the experience as soon as I am done with it.

Till then..

Have a good one..