Required guidance for VCP5-DCV Certification Study & Home Lab Setup

[Yogi29]

Hi All

I am working as a System Engineer from last 7+ years and now looking forward to get VCP Certification. I don't have much experience in Virtualization but have started doing self-study to learn more about this exciting technology. I am doing below at the moment:

1. Just started studying Course material (Pdf) as mentioned in VCP5-DCV Exam Blueprints.

2. As I like reading more from books, also studying "Official VCP5 Certification Study Guide by Bill Ferguson".

3. Setting up my home Lab (Still long way to go), Running Vmware Workstation on my old Laptop running Windows 7 - 64 bit with intel i5 & 8 GB of RAM with 500G HDD.

Appreciate if you Guru's can guide me for my below queries:

1. What all hardware (with Spec please) required to setup Home Lab for preparing VCP5 Certification?

2. I am planning to buy New Macbook Pro (i7 Quad Core, SSD, 16GB RAM) but reading all forums bit confused now that either i should go for Macbook Pro (with Fusion5) or build my desktop PC with high end configuration to run complete Home Lab Setup. Also when i compared the price difference between Macbook Pro & high end PC, difference is not huge. Also Lab portability is one of my other concern due to travelling job. So please guide me if it's a good idea to buy Latest Macbook Pro to run VCP5 Lab or should i go for other laptop or Desktop??  If Yes, Any recommendations?

3. As recommended, I am looking forward to do a 5 days Classroom in New Delhi/India (as travelling there in Oct-Nov 2013). I came across few places using " VMware Training - Find a Class" but not sure which one is better.  If anyone has done same training from New Delhi, Can you please advise which Training Partner is the best?

Thanks in Advance.

Cheers

Yogi

[JoshuaAndrewsVM]

1) What all hardware (with Spec please) required to setup Home Lab for preparing VCP5 Certification?

Your current system will suffice for a basic setup, performance won't be great but it will run just fine.  VCAP Test Track (a complete simulation/recreation of the VCAP-DCA environment on Win7/Workstation) was developed and runs on a 3+ year old laptop.

2) Sounds awesome.  I'm told dual-booting Windows and running Workstation would be preferred over Fusion but I have not tried it.  Workstation runs on Linux also.

[aravinds3107]

The hardware which you are currently using is good. The more the memory you have will have better performance, If you have SSD for running the VM's performance will be much better.

Regarding the training center all the trainers are been certified by vmware so almost all the trainers are equally good. What I feel is only the difference in the class room environment. You are going to get the  same course material and access the lab remotely.

[ronnutter]

I am in the process of studying for the test now.  Taking the course from the folks at StormWind.

Several suggestions -

1) I am using two Mac Mini's (late 2012) with 16GB of ram installed.

2) VMware Fusion is installed on both

3) Purchase a used Dell T300 to use as a iSCSI and NFS Target using ESXi and FreeNAS

I would suggest joining VMUG as this will get you in touch with folks in your area that have VMware experience and may be studying for this cert as well.  Something else to consider is subscribing to VMUG Advantage which will get you a discounted price on VMware Fusion to start with.  You also get a discount on the cost of the exam and training.  I got in before the mid July deadline, so I also got a free exam voucher in addition to what I have already mentioned.  While the free exam voucher isnt there now, I think the other benefits make the Advantage offering worth looking at.

Ron

[Yogi29]

Thanks for your suggestions & advise so far. Much Appreciated.

Currently I am upgrading my existing Laptop (mentioned above) from HDD to SSD & also RAM size to atleast start with basics.

ronnutter - Also Thanks for Introducing VMUG.. Just joined the same group now, so far sounds quite informative..

I will post my progress or any further queries..

Yogi