VCAP5-DCA Passed and experience VDCA550

[piedthepiper]

So today I took and passed the VDCA550.

I work for a managed services/DR/BC company so we have a lot of kit sat idle at times, which is free to use for labs

I had a lab setup at work as follows:

5x DL380 g7 in 2 clusters

14tb IBM DS4700 FC SAN

8tb IBM  DS3300 iSCSI SAN

Some local storage in each server

Windows Server 2008 which ran vCenter and the client ( I installed teamviewer on this pc so I could login from anywhere on my laptop)

No AD setup.

I had vmotion and iscsi traffic in one vlan and FT in another and management in another, this was done at the switch end and vlans were not set on vCenter side of things

I used Jason Nash Trainsignal Videos

The Official Guide, including the extra online pdfs with more scenarios and updates for 5.5

The unofficial study guide

Just breaking my lab environment

CBT nuggets for Orchestrator Fundation

A big massive shout out to Joshua Andrews @SOSTech_WP , his test lab and him willing to answer my questions, was instrumental in me passing. The guy does it out of goodwill, and for that he should be commended. As much as I went through the scenarios and stuff in my own lab, having a test lab to have a go in was key for me.

I found it very hard, I kid you not the jump from VCP to VCAP was immense, I didn't fully comprehend what I had go myself in for lol actually thought I had failed and was very very surprised I passed...and I passed by the skin of my teeth. It took 3 months of intense studying seriously intense studying 5 days a week, at work...at home, on the run up to the exam I barely left the house. I come from a martial arts background (BJJ)....sometimes you cant win...but that has nothing to do with losing and mat/dojo time is key to progressing. The same is true for this, the lab time will pay dividends and doing the questions and understanding what they want and are asking for. When that exam started I was like this is tough....but I was like all I can do is give it my best shot and see where it gets me. My made massive errors in Joshuas test lab, but thats what his test lab is there for, make the mistakes and learn from them...and I did!

It was tough but I found it really interesting, I grew tired of multiple choice exams, this really tests your skills and gives you the confidence in your skill own skill set.

If its in the VDCA510 blueprint study it even if you are going for 550, my plan was to go for the 510 originally but I just booked the 550 for today and thought I would give it a shot I have the 510 booked for next week, but I will be cancelling that.......wahooooooooooooo

Now I must decide where to go forward, I want to do design and the DCD, but have no real design experience, would it be worth while going on the official DCD course? I am also going to do some SRM studying. if anyone else has any recomendatios I am all ears.

I would love to discuss more, but NDA and all lol

Thanks you

Bilal

[Drewtumbo]

Congrats! How much time would you say you spent labbing everything out? I have read the official book, I have watch Jason's Scale and Optimize videos and have spent a decent amount of time working on the labs. I have scheduled my exam and I've been thinking about rescheduling it to give myself more time for labs.

[mjha]

Congratz Bilal for passing out VCAP550. I am too on track for achieving the same. By Joshua Labs you mean HOL right?

[piedthepiper]

I watched Jasons video course multiple times,  and used my labs with his stuff.  I spent a good 2 months labbing.

Seriously Joshuas  lab exam on a laptop is amazing.  I completly failed it the first time I did it.... Simply because I didn't full understand what they were asking for.  I could do everything in my lab, but an actual test exam to go through is golden in my opinion. You can tweet or email him for access to it.

He does it out of his goodwill, and you can see the script of how it's scored so you can see why you didn't get full marks and relate it  back to the questions.

Those 3 hours in the exam are the fastest 3 hours of my life..... People weren't joking.  The tasks I didn't know or I knew I'd be fumbling over I left and moved on and came back to them at the end and just gave them my best shot.... As you get marks for all the bits you did correctly even if you don't get the desired end result.

[piedthepiper]

I mean his personal lab/test exam he has on his laptop.  He gives you RDP details and you log in and go through an actual mock test he has divised. He has set the RDP settings to be lag on purpose too.

[Drewtumbo]

Thanks! I'm going to schedule time to use Joshua's Test Track today and depending how I do on that I might reschedule the exam to give myself more time to study.

[JoshuaAndrewsVM]

Test Track  http://sostechblog.com/2014/02/07/vcap-test-track-lab-on-a-lap/

A RDP-accessed replica of the DCA510 with sixteen scenarios "in the style of" the DCA questions.

Most useful for DCA510, but also useful for DCA550.

[Drewtumbo]

Thanks Joshua! I tweeted you last night, but I haven't had the chance to DM you the external IP Address for my laptop yet. I'll do that as soon as possible.

@ITMS_INC