Tag VCAP

Global VCAP Stats

Brian Owen Leave a comment

I like statistics so it’s neat when VMware releases the amount of certification achievers. The most recent numbers are from June 2023. I wrote an article on the numbers from May 2020 that covers VCAPs and VCPs.

There are 4,783 VCAPs in the United States and 20,847 worldwide. That’s an increase of 24% and 54% respectfully over the past 3 years. Great to see an increase, but those are much smaller increases than in the past. From 2017 to 2020, the amount nearly tripled in the United States. I see a lot of value in getting to the VCAP level and hope to see these numbers increase more rapidly. The deploy exam is not as difficult as it use to be and the design exam is significantly better than it was in the v6 and prior days.

Check out the link below to see VMware official article on this topic and another for the numbers from 2021. I also have the PDF from VMware linked here.

https://blogs.vmware.com/learning/2023/06/20/get-certified-and-join-the-thousands-of-global-vmware-certified-advanced-professionals-vcaps/
https://blogs.vmware.com/learning/2021/02/01/vcps-and-vcaps-around-the-world-are-you-on-the-map/

VMware Training and VCPs/VCAPs Stats

Brian Owen Leave a comment

VMware is giving away a free 6 month premium subscription to VMware Learning Zone for everyone. You need to register by November 6, 2020 and your subscription will expire 6 months after you register. That makes it easier to plan ahead to take advantage of a time frame that works best for you. You can even sign up with a personal email address. Check out the official article from VMware for more details and how to register.

VMware released details on the amount of VCPs and VCAPs. I like looking at statistics and it’s fascinating when vendors release numbers on certification holders. VMware last did this a few years ago. Unfortunately, I could not find the past numbers directly from VMware, but I did find it on vInfrastructure Blog. I will reference the data from the aforementioned sites in this article.

There are only 3,850 VCAPs in the United States and a total of 13,580 around the world. There are 98,576 VCPs in the United States and a total of 335,371 VCPs around the world. VCAPs have nearly tripled in the past few years and over 6 times more VCPs. I wonder if that is due to VMware changing their strict 2 year expiration on VCP certs.

The United States is on par with the world total of only roughly 4% of VCPs going ahead to achieve the VCAP certification. There are some overachieving countries like Egypt, which has 10% of VCPs getting their VCAP. Hopefully, VMware will give a list of totals in all countries. I made a comment requesting additional data and I will edit this article if I receive it.

VCAP-DCV Deploy 2020 Exam Experience

Brian Owen Leave a comment

I passed the VMware Certified Advanced Professional 2018 – Data Center Virtualization Deployment exam (3V0-21.18) with a score of 400. I am glad the certification is considered 2020 so it doesn’t look as old already. I passed the VCAP-DCV Design exam a couple years ago. Oddly enough, the exam I just took earned me the VCIX badge for 6.5 and 2020. The Design exam also gave me the VCIX 6.0 badge a couple years ago when paired with my VCAP5. Funny how that worked out with the extra badge.

I received my results and badges the following day after I took the exam. I was pleasantly surprised to receive my results that fast, especially considering VMware says it can take 4-6 weeks. I received emails from VMware and Acclaim. I read some exam takers who didn’t receive an email from VMware and never even found out their score. They simply knew they passed only because they received the badge.

The exam begins as soon as you hit start and loads. You see what looks nearly identical to a VMware HOL lab and you can start reading the question manual before everything finishes loading. Then you have 210 minutes to complete everything, which is actually slightly longer than what the exam blueprint says. By the way, VMware says you cannot press the control key and right-click. Both worked for me.

I made my first run through of all 17 questions with about one hour left. I was only stumped on one question and a part of another. When I first took the VCAP exam four years ago, I didn’t have enough time and didn’t answer all the questions. Though, I still passed. I am not sure if the exam got easier or just my added experience got me through it much quicker. Anyway, I spent a half hour double checking my work and then finally clicked what to do with the one question I was stumped on. I was only stuck on one part of a question. I was fairly positive I did very well when I ended the exam. I don’t mean to sound braggadocious, but I honestly thought I would have had scored more than 400.

I might have lost some points on typos. The question manual was visually clear, but everything else was a little fuzzy within the environment. This made a lot of the text difficult to read and I couldn’t figure out a way to make the text sharper. Another problem was almost every time I hit a key, multiple letters were outputted. It was very annoying. I tried to drag and drop from the manual as much as possible. Other than that, the exam ran well. Much better than the past version of it.

I am sure most people practicing for the exam are using one vCenter Server. That’s fine. It’s easy to next your way through a wizard. However, remember that the exam has multiple vCenter Servers so you have to be very careful you are always working on the vCenter Server you are required to for the question. I knew this coming into the exam and I still had to go back to correct a mistake I made.

Here are a couple links to practice VCAP questions to try out. I forgot to post them in my last article. They were helpful to prepare for the exam to get in the mindset of possible questions. The HOLs they refer to are no longer available, but you can pull up other related HOLs to run through most of the questions or use your own lab.
https://www.jortechnologies.com/vcap-dcv-deploy-hol-based-simulator-free http://virtualg.uk/vcap6-dcv-deploy-exam-simulator-free

The exam sounds more daunting than it actually is. Most people with a lot of VMware experience can pass it with some studying and focusing on features they have never used. Be ready to stay focused for a few hours and you will be fine. Good luck!

Studying for VCAP6-DCV Deploy Certification

Brian Owen Leave a comment

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.

Passed VCAP6-DCV Design Exam

Brian Owen Leave a comment

I finally passed the VCAP6-DCV Design Exam after about 4 months of studying. This makes me a VCIX since I passed the VCAP5-DCA last year. I do not recommend anyone to take this exam.

I thought I could be different than the many others that failed the test their first and second attempts. However, I was like a lot of other people. This exam is extremely difficult and has many flaws.

My biggest complaint was on a drag and drop question. I was frustrated because I studied a lot and from many different sources. I was surprised to not be familiar enough to even attempt to answer one question. I eventually figured out why I was not ready for the question. It was based on a 5.5 objective; Describe layered security considerations, including but not limited to Trust Zones. That objective is not on the 6 exam objectives. I used many different sources when studying and no one mentioned this topic. VMware should base the exam on the objectives they list on their site for the respective version of the exam.

I have a smaller example of another flaw. A host is referred to by different words on various questions. Sometimes a host was called a server or node. One question used the word server to refer a host and also for a virtual machine from what I gathered by the context of the question.

On the other hand, the deploy exam was straight forward and a rewarding experience. I gained a lot from it and knew where I stood when studying and taking the exam. The design exam is the complete opposite.

I see why many others, including VMware employees, recommend to not even take the VCAP6-DCV design exam. I completely agree. I highly recommend to take the VCP 6.5 and then take the VCAP on 6.5 if that’s what it takes to avoid the VCAP6 design exam.

vmware-certified-implementation-expert-6-data-center-virtualization

Preparation for VCAP6-DCV Design Exam

Brian Owen Leave a comment

I am studying for the VMware Certified Advanced Professional 6 – Data Center Virtualization Design Exam. I started to prepare for the exam this month and plan to take it in December. I had to hunt for good study material because VMware does not offer much. Only a blueprint, which is not even in a PDF. I contacted VMware education and was told the certification page with the blueprint is it. However, vMusketeers has made a spreadsheet with the blueprint. It includes the links that makes keeping track of studying easier because there are a lot of white papers to read. Also, check out the certification tab on the vMusketeers blog. There is additional information such as a practice quiz and useful links.

An absolute necessity is reading two articles on Jordan’s Roth’s blog; Scoring for VCAP6 Design Exams and VCAP6 Design Tips, Tricks and New Features. Read the comments on those two articles too. Jordan use to work for VMware on a team that created this exam. I think the information in those articles should be on VMware’s site so everyone has easy access to it. Here’s something funny Jordan said in one of his comments when someone questioned him. Jordan, “Well, since I designed the VCAP6 design exams myself, you can take my word for it or what you read somewhere else 🙂”

I highly recommend to watch the VCAP6-DCV Design Series on YouTube hosted by vBrowBag. They have a video for 11 of the 16 exam objectives. The videos are hosted by many VMware veterans and even some VCDXs. The few I watched so far have offered good, deep explanations.

There are two Google Communities to monitor; VCAP-DCD Study Group and VCAP6-DCV Design. The latter is more current. I recommend to spend as much time as possible to read every post, even if it goes back over a year ago when the VCAP6 was not yet leased. A lot of the 5.5 content is still every relevant.

Virtualtiers.net has a simulator, multiple choice questions, and drag/drop questions. I think it is based on the 5.5 objectives, but its worth going through to get a feel for the simulator and drag/drop questions. VMware has their official VCAP Datacenter Design Simulation, which is a Flash based walk through.

This should help someone get started on studying for the VCAP6-DCV Deploy exam. I will make an additional post after I take the exam. For now, I have plenty of content to keep myself busy for the next couple of months.

VMware Certifications

Brian Owen Leave a comment

I have not been a fan of VMware certifications since they decided to make the VCP expire after only two years of holding the certification. To top it off, the policy was even for past certification holders. Everyone had two years before they had to pass another exam! If not, an expensive class would be required again before taking an exam.

After that being said, I have kept up with the game and took my VMware skill set to the next level last year by passing the VCAP5-DCA. I studied more for that exam than I have ever done for any other exam. I learned a lot from the entire experience. I took the exam on the 5.5 objectives so I’m not sure how relevant my advice would be now. However, I decided to post what I said on the VCAP-DCA Study Group in case it may help others.

I passed with a score of 347. I took the exam on Saturday and received my results in about 3 hours.

I, of course, ran out of time during the exam. I worked nonstop. I don’t know what would have happened if I stepped away to use the bathroom. I completed everything I knew and went back to the few labs I wasn’t sure about.

I obtained a lot of great information in this group. I went back to the beginning of the group and read everything. Other places I learned from was the VMware Press VCAP book, Jason Nash’s Plural Sight videos, Paul Grevink’s study guide, Josh’s lab, and other various blogs. I spent about 4 months preparing for the exam going over all that material and practicing in my lab.

I’m so happy to pass the exam. I learned so much from the experience. I’m looking forward to taking a break for a while. Then take the design exam on 6.

The next VMware certification I go for will be the VCAP6-DCV Design. That will earn me the VCIX-DCV because my first VCAP basically counts as the deploy requirement. I may try to squeeze in upgrading my MCSA 2012 to 2016 before my next VCAP.

 

 

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