My VCAP6 DCV Deploy Beta Experience
Today I took my VCAP6-DCV exam. This exam was announced with a two week availability in the US priced at $100.
My experience with the exam was actually pretty good. The new interface for the advanced exams is that of an HOL. You are dropped onto the desktop and have a window that slides in and out to pull up the manual and other consoles.
I would definately read up on Josh Andrew’s post about what to expect.
I would also recommend going over the interface guide as well as this has lots of detailed information about the console, and limitations about the control key, akt key and backspace key (I will expand on that more below). Also please make note of the sections about optimizing the console, this is also in the on screen manual, I tried to skip over it, but without following these steps alot of the screen will be cutoff, go ahead and do it. It will make it easier for you.
The new interface is now HTML5 based and is extremely quick, in my testing center i did not experience any of the lag I did when i took the VCAP5.
However there are a few things to make note of when taking try new exam. The following keys are disabled… Ctrl, alt and backspace. This made a few tasks difficult I knew about ctrl going into the exam, but not having backspace at my disposal made a few things harder. The delete key is still active so at least you can clear some of the text you typed incorrectly.
one thing to add, there may not be a copy padte in all places but if you need to “copy” something from the manual you can highlight it and then drag it to a field in the console and it will “paste” thr content there.
As far as content, I think it was very good. I didn’t feel strapped on time and it was one of the better beta exam experiences I have had. I definitely recommend taking it if you can.
The exam never strayed off the blueprint, so If you are looking for something to study I would definitely make sure you cover all topics on the blueprint, it will help you in the long run.
Some of the resources I used to study were the following.
- VMware Official Blueprint
- vJenner Blog
- vPentathlon
- Google Community for VCAP6-DCV
- Tom Greene (This was really great to focus on where to study, it covers differences between VCAP5 and VCAP6)
- VMware HOL’s
- HOL-SDC-1627 - VVol, Virtual SAN & Storage Policy-Based Management. I think I spent the MOST time in this lab, it is a great lab that has VDP, VR, VSAN, VVOL and pretty much anything you need. I probably enrolled in this lab over 15 times.
Update 6/27 Please make sure to check out Beta experience’s as well!
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