Hey everyone, it’s been a while since I’ve posted something. But I was busy preparing myself for the VCAP deploy exam. With this post, I want to share how I prepared for the exam.
Exam prep
At first, I have to admit, that I really didn’t have any clue on where to start for this exam. Because you have to admit that VMware’s exam prep guide which you can find here is kind of vague 
So I started googling around and after a while I’ve stumbled upon a great article of Kyle Jenner. His article takes you through all the sections mentioned in VMware’s prep guide and provides step-by-step instructions combined with detailed print-screens. He even documents his encountered issues during his journey.
Although the article is related to vSphere version 6, it gives you (in my opinion) a great opportunity to find all the same settings on version 6.5. Just searching for the same settings on 6.5 already gives you a first learning experience.
Another great resource I’ve found is the one of Ricardo Conzatti. Don’t worry if you reach he’s page in Italian. You can change the language on the upper right side. He also gives you an overview of different articles that are related to the VCAP exam. And in his list you will also see the one of Kyle Jenner 🙂 . Ricardo even created a VCAP simulator if you want to test-drive before your actual exam. For a small fee you will have access to a broken environment that you need to fix 🙂
Like I mentioned, the resource I used, was the one of Kyle Jenner to prepare for my exam. I went through all the steps to setup my lab in the same way. Don’t forget that for this exam it’s important that you know how to do it. So make sure you have it in your fingers. Make sure that you spent extra time on features that you don’t use every day.
It took me 2 tries to pass the exam. And that’s also why I’ve added the next topic “Just before the exam”
Just before the exam
If you’re like me and you’re running around like a headless-chicken when you go for the first time to a new exam then there’s nothing much we can do about that.
But before you go in try to shake of the stress, if you did your prep as you’re supposed to do then you have it covered 🙂
To give you an idea, at my first try I didn’t have enough time to complete all the questions. On my second try, I had an hour to spare. For me, it’s simply because for a new exam I don’t know what to expect and I get nervous. And on your second try you already had a feeling on how the exam goes and your less stressful.
During the exam
- The exam itself is just like a Hands-On Lab from VMware. So for me it was strange that the design course is possible in a proctored version from home but the deploy exam wasn’t. No issues about the speed and responsiveness of the lab. However the screen that was available at the test center could have been a bit bigger as I found that not all text was clearly readable.
- READ THE QUESTION and absorb it. What I mean, is that sometimes, hidden tips are present in your question that guides you in a certain direction. So don’t read the question to quick and think you already know the answer, but read it thoroughly and think about the possibilities and options you have.
- Although you have 210 min of exam time it’s important that you manage your time. If you’re stuck on one question, don’t waste to much time on it. If you’re really don’t know the answer, write down the question number and move on to the next one. At the end, you can always come back to your questions you were not able to complete.
After the exam
Sit back, relax and wait for the test results. The first time I did my exam on friday and I got my results on tuesday. The second one, I did on wednesday and already got the results in the evening.
Hope this article helped you in preparing you for your VCAP-DCV exam. AND GOOD LUCK for your VCAP exam 😀
Kristof's virtual life 