Passed - now waiting for VCAP-DCA ID number

[JPCopeland]

I just yesterday got my notice that I passed my VCAP-DCA4 exam.  I am now starting to study up for the DCD exam and hope to take that by early or middle October.   I just wanted to thank all for the helpful tips on preparation.

Here is what I did to study.

Build a personal lab.

3 Intel based systems with 16 GB mem in each. (ESX and ESXi hosts) 4.0 version

1 Intel based system running Open Filer for iSCSI storage with 6TB storage across 4 2-TB drives in a RAID 5 config.

1 used Cisco switch with 1GB uplinks.

Laptop to run VMware client software on.

VMA

PowerCLI & VMware CLI on a guest VM

******* Be very familiar with your command line items from all of these environments ************

vCenter 4.0

Read Scott Lowe's vSphere Design book

Read Ed Haletky's vSphere ESX/ESXi in the Enterprise book

Read the HA/DRS deep dive for 4.x book

Sean Crookston's VCAP-DCA guide

vExperienced BLOG VCAP-DCA guide

VMTN Community Forums posts

VMworld 2011 Labs - Yeah - got to get your speed up on configuring things as fast as possible.

Cody Bunch's Brown bag sessions downloadable from vimeo.

Lots of other blogs/guides you can find on google searches

Lots of info available on twitter from some very smart people.

Thanks again!

Jonathan Copeland, CEH, CISSP, VCAP-DCA4

Virtualization Engineer

City of San Antonio

[scott28tt]

Congratulations! It's a tough exam, so a great feeling to pass!

Scott.

[vmroyale]

Congratulations!

[AndreTheGiant]

Congrats!

Andre

[simonhamiltonwi]

Congratulations.   Don't hold you breath, I got my score report on the 31st and no number yet, guess the certification team are very busy

[simonhamiltonwi]

OK just got it, I'm #384 and I took it September 15th...

[firestartah]

You took the exam and found out you passed and what you number is in a day??? Surely you mean you took the exam August 15th?

[simonhamiltonwi]

Correct, I took it August 15th, doh!

[pkazanjian]

That is great!!!

I am trying to pursue that certification myself

Was there any assistance available for vITA or did you do this on your own?

Thanks,

Philip Kazanjian

[logiboy123]

Well done, that is not an easy undertaking.

[PatrickKremer]

Congrats!!!

How long did the notification take? I'm on business day 8 after the DCA and starting to go insane. I was hoping for a nice surprise for the weekend but no luck. 

[simonhamiltonwi]

See above    Exactly a calendar month.

[PatrickKremer]

I'm much more interested in pass/fail than I am in my ID number if I passed, but I see you already answered my question on that too - you took the test 8/15 and received notification 8/31 - so the 12th business day not counting the test day. 

[JPCopeland]

And I got my official score back yesterday.  I had an email from the Certification team that they scored mine early as there were problems during my exam.  The testing lab would never start up the Remote Desktop and they worked for almost 1 1/2 hours to get it working.  So since it had issues it was scored early.  Even with the issues and I passed.  Now is the wait for my ID number.  Any one know what the current ID numbers are coming out as?  I'm hoping that it will be at least in the sub 500 range.  Sub 400 would be even better.

Jonathan Copeland

[PatrickKremer]

When did you take your test Jonathan?

[JPCopeland]

September 10.  So had email notification from the Cert Support team on Sept 15th and official notification on Sept. 22.

[scott28tt]

There's no official numbers, but from what I've read on here and via Twitter I'd estimate that both DCA and DCD are close to 400 each.

Scott.