Three Days Left for VDCA550!!

[scotland81]

Just want to give thanks to all of you, only 3 days left, Monday is the day.

Thanks to much to JoshuaAndrewsVM

And all the people that answered my silly questions

That lab is amaizing mate!, I build my own after that experience, in an i5 Quadcore, 8GB RAM and two SATA disks hp box (not more than 300$), if someone needs advise to create something similar just let me know, as creating DC, vCenter, Openfiler, and 2 ESXi 5.5 with that resources is not easy task. Also you need to power on vms with patience, power on one, wait, then second... and let 10 minutes to disk I/O become stabilized, obviously if you can go for SSD GO!

But creating the environment with that resources has been so helpful troubleshooting and tunning everything to work, like playing with java HEAP...it's possible (maybe someone that has take the exam can confirm) that the constrait of resources can simulate the speed issues at exam that a lot of pleople reports 🙂

Also if someone needs any advise in what sources I used please let me know, but I'm not sure yet that they work...

I think tomorrow I'm going to rest when I arrive from work, tough week at work including SRM exercises... also tomorow working...

Sunday I will reread my custom blueprint (also in my way to exam, 3 hours by train) and lets see if I can rest because I´m taking train at 6:00 AM and exam is at 11:15 AM on Monday.

Any last minute advise will be appreciated, again Thanks to ALL

[jraimer]

Best of luck. No advice to give as I am just beginning this journey. Please let us know how you did regardless of the result and remember to *breathe* every now and then during the test.

[scotland81]

Exam done! And only 10 minutes to get the score.

Pass!

Many thanks to all for your help, I will give longer feedback  about experience later!

[jraimer]

Congratulations! I admire your tenacity and wish you the best of luck!

[scotland81]

As promised here is a little bit longer feedback about the experience,

First thing, and this has been said tones of times be aware about the timing, time rules in this exam.

I started and about an hour later only 7 question answered, I need to speed up myself, when I saw that just one hour left, I have ended the first pass for all the questions, and 9 were noted to do after that first round.

I ended up not responding 3 answers, 2 of them I think I could have tried with more time, the other 1 I didn't even know how I was expected to do it.

So keep an eye on time as every one says.

For me the connection to lab worked really fine, not to make a party but very decent.

I cannot add to much that has not been said yet by other colleagues. Is a hard exam, but when you end you really know that this is the kind of exam that I makes you feel very good if you pass, all certification exams should learn somethings from this one.

Just add that when I were by the 8 question, I was a little bit discouraged, because in the firsts question it was hard to understand what was expected to do, I was even thinking to quit, but then it came up 3 or 4 questions that were more clear for me, be advised to read fine the questions, time is your enemy but read questions with no hurry, because you can end up frustrated switching from question to lab as happened to me in that firsts questions.

Again thanks to all the Community contributors without their help the exam would have been even harder.

I'm looking to go for another certification (after some rest time), but I don't know if I better wait for 6 version or what to do...

[jitla1971]

Hey Mate

Congrats on your pass, did you use the VMWare Official Cert Guide book plus chapter 10 scenario questions to help prep for the exam?

[scotland81]

Hi Mate!

Didn't use VMware Official Cert Guide book plus chapter 10 scenario questions, just this guide and all sublinks:

https://paulgrevink.files.wordpress.com/2015/02/vdca550-study-guide-complete-20150131.pdf

Many thanks to Paul Grevink, very very important for me that guide.

That guide and a home lab with vCenter, two ESXi, Openfiler and DC (Windows 2003) was my only help, and my daily work also!

Have luck man! If I can help more let me know.

Also Joshua's lab is a good resource to feel like in an exam.

[jitla1971]

Hey Scotland81

Thank you for replying.

I have been working through the vmware book and doing the scenario question.

Cheers i have downloaded Paul's pdf and go through that as well and lab each section in his guide.

How did you use the guide to prep for your exam, was it just reading or a combination of reading and doing what is shown in the guide?

Jit

[scotland81]

Hi,

Yes I went throw the guide and tried to practice everything, or at less understand it, but if possible pratice it.

Good luck

[graemevermeulen]

Hi Scotland81,

I'm doing mine next week, using the Test Track lab as well, Josh is a legend for creating it and offering it to candidates!

I know what you mean when you say you started to feel discouraged, glad you stuck it out though and achieved the certification. With regards to your next one, what about doing the VCAP-DCD on vSphere 6? This will earn you your VCIX on vSphere 6.

Cheers,

Graeme