VCAP5-DCA - Exam Experience & Study Tips!

I am happy to share that I have successfully upgraded my VCAP4-DCA to VCAP5-DCA. I wrote about my VCAP4-DCA exam experience back in 2012. Here is the link - My VCAP 4 - DCA Exam Experience - Better late than NEVER!!

With this article, I just wanted to add to what I had to do in addition to prepare for this version of the exam. 

Needless to say that you would need a lot of LAB TIME with the topics which are described in the Blue print, the link to which can be found on the official VMware Certification Page for this exam.

Some quick pointers about the exam format & things which I learned from my experience, keeping in mind the NDA which I signed :-)

• 26 Questions with 225 minutes to complete them. Approx 30 minutes extra for Non-English speaking countries.

• All the questions are Practical Only. You would have to do everything in the LAB.

• Each question might have One or More Tasks to complete so never think that you only have to do 26 tasks.

• Their might be TASKS which are dependent on a previous task so be careful.

• You CAN go BACK & FORTH between questions as you like, UNLIKE VCAP-DCD so feel free to do that.

• Official vSphere documentation in PDF format is available for you to access during examination, although it is not a great idea since the access to these files can be painfully slow and result in a waste of time.

• You have the choice to access things via RDP or vSphere Client. Avoid RDP as much as possible especially if you have a slow access to the environment which you need to work on.

• Give yourself enough time to study for this exam. You need a lot of time with each topic to master it. This is not the exam where you could study a night before and pass with flying colors. NaaDa.. Not going to happen!!

• One last thing, the biggest challenge would be time, hence it is important to pace your self appropriately. Another thing which I would worry about is the slowness of some of the centers who host this exam. It might be a good idea to take a feedback from people on which is the best center to take this exam in your city or a city near you. 

While you have endless options on the study material, I would highly recommend that you go through the Pluralsight's (formerly Train-signal) VMware vSphere Optimize and Scale (VCAP-DCA). Jason Nash (the instructor for this course) has covered each and every section on the blueprint in detail and this helped me a lot during my preparation. 

With this I am all set for my VCDX certification. I hope these tips will help you.

Share & Spread the Knowledge!! 

Passed my VCAP5-DCD - The Experience Does Count!

Can't express how happy I was when I saw the message on the screen - "Congratulations- You have Passed the VCAP5-DCD.". I waited for an excruciating 225 minutes looking at the 26 inches monitor and going through 100 questions to finally get the result which I wanted and I am extremely happy. The happiness is actually forcing me to put down this experience into this blog and re-visit and read it every-time I need motivation in life.

94 questions with multiple choices, match the following and then the 6 confusing VISIO diagrams with possibly 20 different ways to create each diagram. The good thing was that I was able to finish in time, in fact I had 1 minute left on the clock when I answered my last question. 

Well, I would not talk about the study material and the resources available as you will find a number of excellent posts with detailed information on what to study, how to study and from where to study. I will just mentioned a few pointers which would help you whether you study or not :-)

Here are my tips:-

a) Time Management - This should be Priority Number 1. You have to finish those 100 questions and Pace yourself throughout the exam. If you miss the bus and are left too far behind, then chances are that you will not be able to get to the finish line (passing marks). Good part is that there are no options to review, flag, re-visit the answers which you have given once. So treat each question with care and spend appropriate amount of time on it. Both VMware and I recommend that you spend at-least 15 minutes on the Visio design type questions. Keeping that in mind let's see how much time you got:-

Total Time you have                = 225 mins

15 Mins for 6 Visio Questions =  90 mins

Remaing Time                          = 135 mins

Remaining Questions                =  94

Time you can spend per question = 135/94 = 1.5 minutes per question

Well this is tight, make sure you are good with fast reading and understanding. Make quick notes as that helps.

b) Gain Field Experience -  I would be lying if I say that I did not study for this exam. I did use a lot of resources which are available online. But I would say that the 75% of knowledge to crack this exam came from the work I have done in the field. The rest 25% can come from books/training etc. The design work which I have done for customers has helped me visualize what the test is asking and I could answer on the basis of the real time scenarios which I face in the field on a daily basis. Not to say that studying does not work, but it does not work for me. My recommendation would be not to prepare for this exam in a week or a month, but to prepare for it every day by looking at the vast ocean of vSphere concepts. 

I know some people who have not done design in the field and have passed the exam and I really appreciate what they have done. For me the experience is the number one thing which helped. 

Some other things would be:-

c) Create a vSphere Design - Do it if you can..

d) Cover everything on the Blueprint

e) Read Blogs they help a lot - Here is a list of top blogs - http://vsphere-land.com/

Well, I will sign off now and open that bottle of vBeer which I guess I completely deserve :-P Woooohooo....