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VCAP 5.5 DCA Exam Passed And Study Hints and Tips

Over the last couple of years I have seen friends sit various VCAP exams and tell me their experiences of them (nothing NDA breaking) and I always thought to myself that it wasn’t for me, please don’t misunderstand, I am someone who would love to get his VCDX but I have never been in a role that would give me the Design credentials to attempt the VCDX. I also thought that I wasn’t really ready for the VCAP exam, I then had a chat with a friend of mine who has a number of VCAP’s \ VCIX exams under his belt and he told me that in his opinion I am more than capable of passing the VCAP and I should just book it.

 

So I did, on the 6th of June I booked the VCAP 5.5 DCA exam for the 4th of July, this left me with just 4 weeks to study for the exam, something I hadn’t even considered yet.

With 4 short weeks of study (I got laid off 3.5 weeks ago) I sat the exam on the 4th of July and can honestly say it’s a fair but tough exam.

The three hours went super fast, the 5 minute warning came around sooner than I thought.

23 questions attempted but I know I missed at least 4 so it was always going to be a tough thing.

30 minutes after leaving the test centre I got the email from VMware, all I can say is it was closer than I could ever imagine but needless to say a pass is a pass and I am now VCAP 5.5 certified.
My tips for anyone studying the exam.

Read the various guides out there (VCAP Diaries and vCrooky). Watch the Pluralsight Optimise and Scale courses, still very relevant today as when released. Also watch the Advanced Networking and the Troubleshooting videos if you can. Remember that the BluePrint is key, if it’s mentioned in there it’s fair game.

Esxcli esxcli command list | grep "word" is your friend. Also use advanced search in the acrobat reader and locate all documents from the desktop.

Hands on lab experience is key, whether you have access to a home lab or Dev environment or use a laptop with AutoDeploy you’re going to need hands on experience with more than just vSphere, install and configure VCO and PowerCLI, use whichever interface you’re comfortable with (C#, Web or CLI) although you will need to open up the Web client for some of the tasks (open up multiple browser sessions). 

Good luck all and know it’s possible.

Simon

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