I have been studying for the VMware Certified Advanced Professional 2018 – Data Center Virtualization Deployment exam (3V0-21.18) for the past couple of months. It is based on vSphere 6.5. I just found out the vSphere 6.7 version of the exam is now out (3V0-22.19). The 6.5 version retires on February 28th so I need to take the exam soon. I rather keep pushing forward than change the exam I will take since I am far along with studying. One good thing is passing either test counts towards VCAP-DCV Deploy 2020. There was never a VCAP-DCV 2019 so passing the exam last year would have still been called 2018. Makes the certification look old if passed last year when it should have not. Though, no need to worry now.

Of course, the best place to start studying is looking at VMware’s exam blueprint to get an overview of the exam. The 6.5 and 6.7 versions both have identical objectives on their blueprints. Perhaps nothing major has changed between the exams.

I recommend watching a presentation by Joshua Andrews. He discussed all of VMware’s certifications and focuses on the VCAPs. The video is from December 2018 so it’s still kind of recent. He use to work on making certification exams at VMware so I think he is a great source to learn from. He also has an excellent blog and an article on VCAP exam links.

Ricardo Conzatti has an awesome exam simulator. He gives you a legit environment to RDP to and lab questions to solve in fleshed out scenarios. Then he will give you the answers after your exam simulator session. First, you need to schedule and pay $10. He received a lot of no shows in the past so understandable he wants to try to hold people accountable. Make sure to check your email’s spam folder. I thought I didn’t receive an email for how to connect the day of my scheduled session, but turned out the email was in my spam folder and I lost a little time to eventually find it.

VMware HOL is also a great place to try out your skills. Since the exam environment is based on the HOL, you can get a good feel with how the interface will look and do some tweaks to get the screen to look good. The challenge and vSAN related labs would be good to do. See how it is to have HOL open on one screen and to go back and forth with the manual.

I will be sure to post when I have the results of my exam. I will share my experience and anything else I come across that may be helpful.