Last summer, I finally achieved my VCP on the third attempt. Although I thought it was quite an accomplishment at the time, after reading through some of these posts for the VCAP5-DCA, I see that it was kind of like graduating kindergarten. My hope was that studying intently with my lab setup at home was going to prepare me for at least a reasonable chance of passing the exam on my first - or second - attempt. Now I'm not so sure.
My history:
- 30-year veteran of datacenter IT - primarily focused on servers, storage, and operating systems with minimal exposure to networking
- Started with VAX-VMS and highly certified in various aspects of that OS
- No certifications, but a lot of experience with Microsoft Operating systems
- Minimal exposure to Unix/Linux operating systems
- Oracle DBA certification and some SQL Server experience
- VMware experience since Workstation 7 and ESXi 4.0
My lab:
- FortiWifi 60C
- Two 3Com 2928-SFP switches
- One Hawking 24-port switch
- One Sans Digital 5 slot direct-attached storage unit with 10 TB HDD
- One Buffalo TS-RIXL2 iSCSI storage unit 2 TB HDD
- One HP dl360 g8
- 1 6-core 2.23 GHz processor
- 160 GB memory
- 3 500 GB SSD's
- 2 300 GB HDD's
- 3 older HP dl380's with old, slow QC procs and minimal (10-12 GB) memory (I don't like to boot these due to the electricity consumption and heat generation)
My plan:
- Strengthen my inadequate networking experience using the Networking for VMware Administrators book. (Currently working on the second lab scenario)
- Study the VCAP5-DCA Official Cert Guide and thoroughly understand the lessons and scenarios in that book and online
- Make use of the various study guides discussed here and other locations on the Net
My questions/concerns:
- I assume my lab is adequate (perhaps more than adequate), but any suggestions are appreciated
- Should I sit for the exam now knowing I will not pass so I can know what to expect and use that experience to better prepare?
- Since I am weak on the networking knowledge, will my plan prepare me well enough in that area for the exam?
- Would I benefit from finding someone in my area (Dallas, TX) that is interested in studying with me or is this a "Lone Wolf" project?
What else should I be asking that I'm not yet knowledgeable enough to ask?
Any help or guidance offered is appreciated.
Jeff
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