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mc1903cae
Enthusiast
Enthusiast

VCAP DCV Deploy 2018... My experiance today...

Today I took my first attempt at the 3V0-21.18 Advanced Deploy vSphere 6.5 Exam 2018.

I have researched & studied for this exam over many months, so I was expecting problems with the delivery and I was not entirely disappointed. :smileylaugh:

As I was signing into the Pearson VUE (PV) test center, I asked the PV test administrator if they were familiar with the process of logging a 'VSS Support Ticket' (as PV point this process out when you are scheduling/paying for the exam initially). They said 'we don't do this ourselves, as we need to speak to PV support and they should do it'. Not the most reassuring, but at least they were aware.

The exam did not start correctly first time. Smiley Wink  I was presented with a web page of text (I cannot remember exactly what it said tbh) with a single clickable link that took me to a VMware website; where I had to give my email and company address/contact details. Once I submitted the info, all it said was on the lines of 'thanks for subscribing. we will keep you up to date with something' and then nothing. No 'start exam' link, just nothing! This was unsettling, as I wasn't sure if the exam timer had started or not?

The PV test admin noticed and came in. A reboot of the PC and some 5-10 mins of logging in & some restarting of the PV exam software, and I was dumped straight into the exam. Happy days. 3H 25M countdown started...

This test center (Global Knowledge in the UK) has 22" 16:9 aspect monitors, so I was really not expecting the exam software run in a 4:3 aspect; with the black bars either side! Totally unnecessary and unhelpful, when you really need to have the remote desktop & the manual/instructions on screen at the same time.

The remote Windows Server desktop resolution was already set to 1280x800, so the only option I had was to change the Chrome browser zoom down to 75%, which made the text really hard to read.

The 17 questions were, for the most part, well written and gave clear instruction which vCenter servers to perform the task on. There are linked vCenter servers, so ensuring you are working on the correct one is important; especially as they are not listed in alphabetical order in the drop down selection boxes.

The overall response was a little 'laggy', but it remained usable throughout. Keep this in mind when typing commands or passwords; type slowly and double check passwords.

The constant swapping between the remote desktop and the manual is annoying. I found opening up notepad++ and dragging the key lines of text (one by one) from the manual into it worked for me. I could then juggle the notepad++ and the chrome browser windows to view them at the same time. Not ideal, but workable.

The next 3 hours and 20 odd mins were actually quite enjoyable. I had ample time to attempt all 17 questions, including one or two quite infuriating 'puzzles' and then I got the warning to finish up soon and then the exam ended.

On a more personal note, not being able to take a comfort break half way through was going to be a problem for me. To help ensure I did not need to 'go' during the exam, I did not drink for 3 hours before the exam; so I came out with a cracking dehydration headache and eyestrain. Other vendors split these longer exams into two parts and allow a 10-15 min break after 2 hours, perhaps @VMware could consider this small kindness in the future.

So now I just have to wait anywhere up to 6 weeks to get the result. This might be the hardest part of it all!

18 Replies
mc1903cae
Enthusiast
Enthusiast

Boom.!!

Result within 6 days; Very happy.

pastedImage_1.png

Techstarts
Expert
Expert

Hello

Congratulations.

It is a great score.

Would you refer to specific study material?

Today we have old material which are not covering 6.5.

Are there specific HOL you would recommend?

The fun part is, we are all using HTML5 and the exam forces you to use flash-based client. And you cannot use HOL as all HOL are already HTML5 based.

Thanks in advance, hopefully, you proceed with next steps in Certification.

With Great Regards,
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z522645927
Contributor
Contributor

have you got your certificaiton now ?

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mc1903cae
Enthusiast
Enthusiast

Hi PreetamZare​,

I sat the 5 day VMware Optimize and Scale [6.7] course, I have my own lab and I used the following HOL's.

HOL-2004-02-CHG    vSphere Challenge Lab

HOL-2008-02-CHG    vSAN Challenge Lab

HOL-2005-02-HCI    VMware vSphere Virtual Volumes and Storage Policy Based Management

HOL-2004-01-SDC    Mastering vSphere Performance

HOL-2008-91-HCI    vSAN Quick Start - Lightning Lab

HOL-2010-91-SDC    vSphere Distributed Switch - Lightning Lab

HOL-2011-02-SDC    VMware vSphere - Advanced Topics

HOL-2012-01-SDC    VMware vSphere Automation - PowerCLI

Yes, all of the HOL's are now 6.7 and default to the HTML5 client, but you can still switch back to the flash client. Just change the VCSA URI from /ui to /vsphere-client.

Thanks,

Martin

mc1903cae
Enthusiast
Enthusiast

Hi z522645927​,

Yes; I got the result in 6 days and the certification was showing in my 'My Learn' transcript 2 days later.

Thanks,

Martin

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z522645927
Contributor
Contributor

i have passed 3v0-624 in  Dec 31,2019, But I till can not get my  VCAP certification , so I t send email to certificaiton@vmware.com,

They said , because I just have VCP dcv6, I don't have VCP dcv 6.5 or  2019, so I just tryed  and passed the VCP 2020,in jan 14, 2020. (replace the VCP 2019,)

But I can not get VCAP Desing until now .

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Techstarts
Expert
Expert

Thanks for the tip for the Flash client.

I found another way. The Lab captions probably knew about these requirements. hope it helps others.

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With Great Regards,
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z522645927
Contributor
Contributor

what else VCP certification do you have ?

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scott28tt
VMware Employee
VMware Employee

They are clear that you need to have VCP-DCV 2019 or VCP-DCV 2020: VMware Certified Advanced Professional — Data Center Virtualization Deploy 2019

Screenshot 2020-02-07 at 09.13.33.png

So it makes sense that you could not get the VCAP til you had met that requirement.


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scott28tt
VMware Employee
VMware Employee

I guess you can close off your own thread now: I have passed 2v0.01.19,2v0.21.19,3v0.624. But I still can not get VCAP DCV Design 2020,


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Although I am a VMware employee I contribute to VMware Communities voluntarily (ie. not in any official capacity)
VMware Training & Certification blog
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z522645927
Contributor
Contributor

we have talk in my thread, I have got it , VCP DCV & NV 2020 .

pastedImage_0.png

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mc1903cae
Enthusiast
Enthusiast

Hi @z522645927

I have the following certifications:

VMware Certified Advanced Professional - Data Center Virtualization Deploy 2020

VMware Certified Professional - Data Center Virtualization 2019

VMware Certified Professional 6.5 - Data Center Virtualization

VMware Certified Professional 6 - Data Center Virtualization

VMware Certified Professional 5 - Data Center Virtualization

VMware Certified Professional 4

VMware Certified Professional 3

VMware Certified Professional 2

Obviously some have expired or are inactive.

Martin

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scott28tt
VMware Employee
VMware Employee

Exactly, so as you have VCP-DCV 2020 you meet the requirements for VCAP-DCV Design and VCAP-DCV Deploy.

If you still do not have those certifications showing, you must wait for certification@vmware.com to reply to you - nobody in this thread can help further.


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Although I am a VMware employee I contribute to VMware Communities voluntarily (ie. not in any official capacity)
VMware Training & Certification blog
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z522645927
Contributor
Contributor

thanks a lot for your reply .

and congratulations for your new Vcap certification .

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z522645927
Contributor
Contributor

thanks a lot . I have sent email to certification@vmware.com , but it still does not have other update About this.

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feorgal
Contributor
Contributor

I had a similar situation with the start of the exam

My exam did not start at all. (((

At first there was no connection to the server.  I was told that these are problems on the server and I need to wait 2.5 hours

Then I was able to connect, but only the welcome VMware page was displayed without the button to start the exam.

There was a VMware Learning Platform advertisement on this page and only one web link - https://cloud.vmware.com/learning-platform

I followed this link, logged in VMware Learning Platform, but also did not find the connect button for the exam anywhere.

We asked for the VUE support to connect via remote desktop. Then they contacted VMware support.

After two hours of trying to run the exam, nothing happened and VUE support said that it needs to be rescheduled

But two days later I received a letter saying that I failed the exam (((

mc1903cae, where did you click to start the exam?

Do you remember what version of the center server and ESXi hosts was in exam lab ?

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mc1903cae
Enthusiast
Enthusiast

Hi feorgal

Sorry to hear you failed; I hope you will be able to try again.

Well done for remembering the VMware Learning Platform link; that is where I ended up when my exam started for the first time. After the PearsonVue admin restarted the test PC and logged me in for the second time, the actual exam just started. I did not click any 'start' button.

I don't remember the vCenter / ESXi build number, but was most likely v6.5 U1 or U2.

@karlchilds I think VMware Education could do more to set people at ease with this exam delivery method, as it is very different from the normal VCP exams. A short YouTube video just walking through how the PearsonVue exam software should behave and how the actual exam should be started, would make the process far less stressful.

All the best,

Martin

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MJMSRI
Enthusiast
Enthusiast

Hi mc1903cae​ i see Karl has a blog recently about this: 

https://blogs.vmware.com/education/2020/05/13/vcap-deploy-lab-exam-improvements/

also mc1903cae​ was the exam mainly GUI or was there a lot of vSphere PowerCLI, ESXCLI etc?

Thanks,

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