My VCAP6.5-Design Experience

April 27, 2018 Manny Sidhu 1

This past weekend I sat for and successfully passed the VCAP6.5-Design exam. It was great to finally pass an exam on the first go (I’ve had a torrid run recently, that’s going to be another post on its own). Here’re some details about the exam environment, my experience and suggestions for future takers. Exam center: When booking the exam I needed to find a center that offered exams on the weekend. Turns out Aviation Training Service Victoria in Airport West was the only one that offered Saturdays and Sundays. I booked an 8am appointment for the exam, I thought I rocked up nice and early at about 7.40, lo and behold the parking was full as. The center also offers […]

VCAP6-DCV Design Objective 1.1 on the #vBrownbag

January 12, 2017 Jason Grierson 1

The other week I saw the call to all VCDX volunteers for the vBrownbag series around the new VCAP6-DCV Design exam, so with exam closet to my heart I have volunteered for a few sections.  The first section I really wanted to cover was the Objective 1.1 as this was one of the sections that I really struggled with when I wrote the DCD 5.1/5.5 exam, however the due date didn’t leave me much time to prep a presentation deck.  So over the weekend I gave it the good old college try but was only able to get half way through the presentation due to the length of the chapter.  With that in mind I messaged Gregg letting him know […]

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VCAP6-DCV Deployment Beta

July 18, 2016 Bilal Ahmed 0

So myself and Kim did this exam the other day. Kim hasn’t done any DCA style exam before, and he had a similar experience to me on my first go. It kind of hits you like a train and its a lot to take in initially. The beta signup period didn’t give anyone much time to actually prep for it properly. Having done the 5.5 DCA, I remember looking at  some of the questions and wondering what they were wanting……exactly. I did what I thought was correct, you don’t have time to second guess yourself, you just get on with it and do what you can. The best explanation for the DCA/Deployment exam is: Imagine you are a contractor and […]

Passed VCAP5-DCD!!! v5.5 Exam Experience/Review

May 5, 2016 Bilal Ahmed 0

I took VCAP5-DCD 5.5 and passed with a 334!!! I have to say both VCAP exams are the only 2 I have ever done where I have had no idea whether I was in with a shot of passing once I clicked the finish button! I want to thank everyone in the Google+ DCD group, as seriously without the group and the experiences of everyone in it, I don’t think I would have passed . It is a tough exam, I have found design a tough thing to do, there are so many what ifs and it depends. I have spent long periods of time very confused…but they say confusion comes before understanding… …..and that is true! My journey to the DCD […]

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vSphere Design Workshop v5.5 Review

May 2, 2016 Bilal Ahmed 0

So after doing all that studying, I thought it was time to delve deeper into the design side of things! Coming with very little design knowledge, I decided to take the official design course. I did a lot of research and read a lot of reviews with regards to the course, as I would be paying for it myself. Point to note every course I have ever been on……I HAVE PAID FOR MYSELF. All the studying has been in my own time, the best any company has done for me is pay for my exam. So when people tell me they don’t have the time, or cant afford it, I call bullshit! It takes sacrifice, all this effort I have put […]

My VCAP5-DCA Experience

April 24, 2016 Graeme Vermeulen 0

I hope this helps anyone preparing for their VCAP5-DCA or VCAP6-DCV Deploy exam. Preparation: I initially started by going through this guide written by Paul Grevink, working through examples in my lab environment. I’m lucky in that regard as we have a Demo Lab where we get customers in and demonstrate the technology. I look after the lab myself, so I took the opportunity to make sure there weren’t any demo’s coming up and started practicing.   I made sure I had the exam blueprint sitting next to me the whole time and made notes on it as I went along.   After around 3 weeks of solid studying (taking time out between consulting and installs) I found out you […]

My VCAP5-DCD Experience

April 24, 2016 Graeme Vermeulen 0

The VCAP-DCD550 is a hard exam. I’d go as far as to say the hardest exam I’ve ever done. Basically, unless you’ve actually worked for a VMware reseller as a designer and had hands-on experience installing and maintaining the technology, it will be a very tough slog indeed. However, even with this knowledge and experience, it’s still a difficult exam to master. Part of the challenge is getting your head around all of the terminology, best practices and VMware’s way of design and implementation. It’s been widely acknowledged that the DCD510 version was easier yet longer, as multiple choice was added to the mix and I also believe you couldn’t go back to review a question once you’d clicked “Next”. […]

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VCDX 2015 Study Group

March 28, 2015 Shady ElMalatawey 1

"VMware Certified Design Expert – VCDX", the most difficult and most bright certificate in Virtualization field and only compared to Cisco Certified Architect (CCAr). Many Virtualization & Cloud experts try to acquire this certificate to prove their excellency and sharp skills and to add more and more to their personal value. Me and my friend "Jason Grierson"- for those who don't know Jason and his tool, check this blog post – decided to pursuit VCDX 2015, Oct. panel. And as we did before, we decided to join a VCDX Study Group. This should help us with our design paper, provide more and more eyes to review your design, more peers to question your design decisions to be hardened and help us exchanging […]