My VCAP5-DCD experience

A guest post by Jose Luis Gomez, @pipoe2h

The past 29th November I took my VDCD510 exam in Seville. It started at 10:00 and along of 4 hours and 25 minutes I responded 100 questions and without the option for review later.  I didn’t pass the exam. The maximum score is 500, and the minimum score for pass is 300. My score was 279, for 21 points I'm not certified as VCAP5-DCD.

I hope pass it in a few months.  I studied along one month after to know that I passed my VCAP5-DCA exam. I used the following resources:

• [APAC] vBrownBag by ProfessionalVMware.com
• VirtuallyHyper.com
• Virten.net
• VMworld 2011 & 2012 videos
• VMware vSphere design by Forbes Guthrie, Scott Lowe and Maish Saidel-Keesing

IMHO, I think that DCD exam is more difficult than DCA. The content of this certification is more abstract than DCA, because it’s focused to requirements, constraints, risks and other aspects about analysis which are more difficult find information. I didn’t pass the exam because I didn’t study enough and thought that with my experience I shouldn’t have any trouble on pass it. But, for the next time I know that I must improve my knowledge on BC/DR, capacity planning and networking.

Throughout the test I was feeling comfortable with the questions, but when the first design arrived, I started to have problems. I had seen the mock video demo but I had doubts about where to place the objects, if on top of the other objects or inside of theirs. IMO, this aspect was frustrating for me because I didn’t know if I was doing well. And when another design appeared my concern increased. I think that VMware should provide an interactive mock exam and not a video demo.

At the last days, I’ve read on twitter that some folks join in a team where they discuss about designs that they’ve made. I think that this idea is so good, because with a question storming they achieve different points of view about their designs. This allows that they can improve their designs and learn about pros and cons in their ideas. I encourage you to create teams up to 4 people and put yours designs at common. Remember, everybody should select one topic that includes BC/DR, P2V & Capacity Plan, Network & Storage design and HA/DRS using advanced resource pools.

Finally, I think that if you want to pass this hard exam, you should study at least two months. We’re working and not have much free time for write blog posts, study, family, friends… To be a VCAP-DCD requires quite reads: blogs, case studies, podcasts, training and other tools. IMHO this exam doesn't require a home lab like VCAP-DCA; here the lab is your pen, paper and calculator.

I hope you have better luck than me, and not have the same doubts that I had with the design tool. Don’t worry with the time; I think that it’s enough for 100 questions since now that you can’t review your answers.

Best regards,
José Luis Gómez