VCAP-DCD - Hard to Crack

[sanjai2k]

Yesterday, I gave my VCAP-DCD exam, It was one of the toughest NUT to crack, in my view it is tougher than DCA. Unfortunately i dint clear the exam but gained a lot of thought process to clear this exam in future. My score was around 50% and atleast now i know where i should concentrate more. But the experience gained through this exam was enormous.

Tip:-

This is not a technical exam, it is purely design oriented and also your thought process.

I felt comfortable with the visio style questions, but the match the following questions are critical as far as iam concenrned.

Study Tips:-

1. Learn VMware Design Methodology     -     Attend vSphere Design Workshop.
2. Follow Sean Crookston's DCD Index     -    Go through all PDF's.

http://www.seancrookston.com/vcap-dcd-index/

Thanks Sean for your work.

sanjai

[AndreTheGiant]

For people without design experience (that IMHO could be really important), the Design Workshop Course could give a good help.

Andre

[sanjai2k]

Andrew,

Yes, Design Workshop is one of the good resource for this exam but not the only one.

What is your tip in this situation?

[AndreTheGiant]

I've passed the beta one (little more hard, due to the more questions) with the experience.

You have seens several projects you can think in the right way.

Maybe the "visio" are little hard... this need a little practice.

Andre

[simonhamiltonwi]

Depends which angle/experience you're coming from.  I found DCD easier than DCA by far, but I've got far more experience designing and installing ESX than running it in a large organization.

The Design workshop course is good, there's a bunch of stuff which is open to debate, but you really need to know the VMware suggested answers.

[jronaldo]

I've passed on beta exam. You need to get more focus on business needs than technical needs.

As Andre said, the beta exam was tougher than ever for me.

Jose Ronaldo

[jghartin]

I passed the DCA and DCD. Although, I thought the DCA was harder, at  least you can immediately test your answers. I did not run out of time  on the DCD. It was more a general design and best practices test.  However, pressing finish made me a little more nervous. Like many have  said, if you do not have Design Experience (and even if you do) then the  Design workshop is a useful tool. Finally, make sure you read all docs  from the blueprint. I do not remember anything on the DCD that was not  covered in the blueprint. Good luck on your 2nd round, surely you will  nail it this time.

My Study Prep (Probably overkill, but I like to read)

1) VMware vSphere Design

2) VMware vSphere 4.1 HA and DRS Technical deepdive (Volume 1)

3) VMware ESX and ESXi in the Enterprise: Planning Deployment of Virtualization Servers (2nd Edition)

4) Maximum vSphere: Tips, How-Tos, and Best Practices for Working with VMware vSphere 4

5) Virtualizing Microsoft Tier 1 Applications with VMware vSphere 4

6) Studying and passing DCA first

7) VCAP-DCD Blueprint and all Docs  

VMware Design Workshop Material

9) Any and all VCAP-DCD posts I can find via Google

Cheers,

JGH

[sanjai2k]

Thanks to all for sharing your valuable and elaborated inputs.

[radan]

Its very hard !!

no time to finish it, I dont know Witch book  ,I read  wrokshop book and two other book , but not success !

[harshahosur81]

its not hard to get through the exam. As per the previous posts, you have to have a little bit more design experience and also read thorough the blue print documents. I passed my dcd exam today. Although I had rushed in the end, it was overall very stimulating.

read the design workshop study guide and also highly recommend Scott Lowe's VMware vSphere Design