Back in November 2010, I was lucky enough to have been asked by VMware to attend the second part of their VMware Certified Advanced Professional exams, Datacentre Design – also known as the VCAP-DCD. I had attempted this version of the exam in its previous format for VMware Infrastructure 3, however I wasn’t having much luck with this system.

Once again due to the NDA in place on such an exam, there is very little I will be able to say about the actual content of the exam. This was my first time into the realms of a beta exam, so I was preparing myself for any eventuality when I walked in. Typically companies run beta versions of their exams for select people, so that they can work out the bugs and issues with any questions that may have been missed in any internal QA of them. In my case, we were presented with a vast number of questions, and a much longer time limit to go through them. I did feel that the time limit they had imposed on us, probably wasn’t enough for a proper run through of all the questions, however being a beta, you were also keeping an eye out for other mistakes.

The exam itself has two sections, the usual multiple choice questions which most computing exams are similar too, question, then an a/b/c/d answer, but also included click and drag questions, which required you to put specific items in order of relevance. The second section of the exam are design diagram questions, these give you a scenario in which an infrastructure is formed, and you have to then draw a diagram based on this scenario, plus figure out where items will go. For example, if you had a number of servers, and a number of storage devices, you had to put them in the right place, link them together properly, and ensure you use the right links. In the previous version of exam, this section was my downfall, the interface was clunky, and you spend more time working out how to use the interface, rather than answering the question. The VCAP-DCD version has been much improved, and is simpler to use, giving you more time to understand the situation and create the appropriate diagram.

Once again this exam took place at a Pearson Vue Professional Centre, so I had to go through the process of emptying everything out of all my pockets and going in light! The exam itself ran on the same computers as the VCAP-DCA exam, however the interface had been updated to the newer style one that I have seen of late (specifically my CCNA exam looked very similar). The biggest issue that came up was the lack of a back button (again like the CCNA exam), however this time I was able to log a comment about this within the exam interface, something I believe a lot more of the beta candidates did, and VMware listened, so the live version of the exam contains the elusive back button. You will be surprised how handy this button is, if you make a silly mistake, or need to review a question, this helps a lot. Without the button it does make you think more about the question, and gets you to double check right then, however with the beta, this just make things more frustrating!

All in all I was very pleased with this exam, VMware had listen to comments made before, and the new updated interfaces are actually quite fun to work with! The only final issue I had was the wait for the results. I was informed it could take between 6 and 7 weeks before I got the result, and I knew there had been delays. The real odd one was they had made live the VCAP-DCD exam, and the beta candidates still didn’t have any results, and to top it all off, the live exam gives you a result at the end, rather than the long wait like with the VCAP-DCA. However, it all came to a head at midnight GMT last night!

Results day… and I got an email… with someone else’s name on! Wasn’t a good start, I saw their marks before their name and then started to get twitchy as I was told they were sending them out again. — 2 hours later… I got the email I had been waiting for. A lovely PASS!!! – After all these many weeks, it really was fantastic to see the result! This now makes me a VCAP-DCD qualified person, giving me both the VCAP qualifications.

This leaves me with one final step and qualification to complete… one that I have been aiming for for a few years now… the VCDX – VMware Certified Design Expert. To quote from their documentation about the qualification:

VMware Certified Design Expert (VCDX) is the highest level of VMware certification. Comprised of an elite group of highly-skilled design architects of VMware enterprise deployments, this highest level of VMware certification is designed for veteran professionals who want to validate and demonstrate their expertise in VMware virtual infrastructure.

Here goes nothing!

For anyone interested, here is an image of the path I took to get to this stage.

VCDX4 Qualification Path