The path to VCAP5-DCA. Help wanted

[tomtom901]

Hi all,

After getting a rather decent score on my VCP5 exam (still need to do the authorised course though) I am looking into working towards the VCAP5-DCA exam and certification. A good starting point would be the blueprint and ticking off every subject. There are a lot of different study guides available but the most resources that are available are self created and none are, like, acknowledged by the community. For VCP5 there are a few good books (i.e. Scott Lowes Mastering vSphere 5 and the VMware Press book).

For DCA I've found the following resource:

http://www.pearsonitcertification.com/store/official-vcap5-dca-cert-guide-9780789749963

However, this books does not seem to be available right now, or even out yet. Is there someone out there who could give some pointer, as to where the best resources to prepare for the VCAP5-DCA exam can be found, or perhaps share how you have gained the knowledge needed for this rather difficult exam.

[aravinds3107]

As you have mentioned use the blueprint and prepare your own study materials and spend more time doing a lab. You can find links to various resource for the VCAP exam in the internet and their exam experience. Below link which you can use a reference for your studying which has link for various useful resource.

http://thesaffageek.co.uk/vsphere-5-study-resources/vcap5-dca-dcd/

If you can sit for VMware vSphere: Optimize and Scale [V5.1] course as this will help to prepare for the VCAP exam as well

Good luck

[chriswahl]

You're welcome to use my VCAP5-DCA study sheet to keep track of your studies. I've also linked to 6 great study guides lower in the article.

The sheet is broken down by section and objective. Next to each objective are four boxes:

1. Read – The objective has been researched and related material has been read over.
2. Lab – The goal of the objective has been reproduced in a lab environment.
3. CLI – Used to denote when an objective has been completed or researched for the CLI command, when applicable.
4. GUI – Used to denote when an objective has been completed or researched for the GUI, when applicable.

http://wahlnetwork.com/2012/07/02/the-vcap5-dca-study-sheet/

[AndreTheGiant]

See also this link selection:

VCAP5-DCA study guides | vInfrastructure Blog

[pault1]

Do you have a lab close by ?. If not - don't even attempt it.... that's requirement #1 ... install - configure - break - install - configure - break and so on....

I passed VCAP-DCA5 a few weeks ago. And it is difficult but in my mind completely fair and all about your knowledge of vSphere and Vcenter - both knowing how it works and how to configure it.

Couple of things I suggest are

• #2 Get organised ........ organise your bookmark structure in browser, folder structure etc for downloading and marking content.
• Print the VMware PDF documents in the blueprint and use them for deeper background reading while covering each section in the blueprint.  As per Chris Wahls guide thats the "research" part and that will ensure you know all of the content.
• You can use PDFs or pubs.vmware.com either but personally I liked having documents printed old-school.
• If you're using Firefox you can download a cool add-on called epubreader and download the PDFs in epub format and control and read them in Firefox.
• You could use OneNote with <Windows Key+S> to grab screen shots to OneNote - that's a pretty cool way as Onenote has a great way of organising content.

So many blogs out there in the wonderful VMware community....I havent completed my notes document yet - Sorry !!. But seeing the amount of resources in the community is inspiring and you don't need a book....

PDFs + Blueprint + Blog guides + your own version of a document with your notes + Lab time = all you need !

My personal faves of blogs sites ...... superb and so thankful to these guys. Everyone has their favourites - I just liked the mix of these three.....

thefoglite.com

Adventures in a Virtual World

valcolabs.com