VCP5 - Study Books?

[MarkSpencerUK]

Hi,

I have my VCP5 exam in March, I a lot of travelling coming up and would like to get a study guide for the exam.

What would people recommend?

Thanks

Mark

[TomHowarth]

Mastering vSphere 5 by Scot Lowe is an awesome tome and will be of use to you once you pass your exam,  the issue with VCP only books is that they have a short and very focused span.

the two that are out there at the moment that are good are (remember this is only my opinion)

VCP5 VMware Certified Professional on vSphere 5 Study Guide: Exam VCP-510 by Brian Atkinson ISBN 1118181123 published by Wiley

The Official VCP5 Study Guide by Bill Furguson ISBN 0789749319 published by VMware Press.

both are good, but just choose one as they really do cover exactly the same material,

personally troll these forums and check our these blogs.

www.saffageek.co.uk

www.simonlong.co.uk

blog.mwpreston.net

www.virtuallanger.com/vcp5

www.blog.shonkyholdings.com/p/vcp-study-guide.html

[MarkSpencerUK]

Thanks Tom,

Has any one else used what Tom has suggested or anything different?

[TomHowarth · Accepted solution]

One more thing, experiance, this exam cannot really be passed with out realworld experiance.  it is nolong a min and max exam.  get your self a lab or access to a couple of host to play on

[MarkSpencerUK]

Thanks again Tom,

I have been working with ESX for a few years on and off and I am currently looking after a live environment at the moment so getting to use it quite a bit.

cheers

Mark

[aravinds3107]

I would suggest to cover all the topics which are included in the blue print + hands on experience. Books suggested by Tom are worth reading.

I assume that you have already complete the pre-requiste for the VCP exam by attending the vSphere ICM course

[vmroyale]

Regardless of which book you choose, definitely build a lab and get a copy of the exam objectives and make sure you have them all covered. Another book I would also recommended is the "vSphere 5.1 Clustering Deepdive" by Duncan Epping and Frank Denneman. Good Luck!

[TomHowarth]

I think that one although an execellent book in itself and it should be in every VMware focused profesionals library, it is a little too indepth for a VCP.  more useful with the VCAP's and VCDX

[scott28tt]

As others have said, the blueprint and having a lab to play with are really a must.

I would study from the product documentation rather than from a book, just in case there are any technical inaccuracies - the exam items are validated against the documentation.

Build a virtual lab and grab all the documentation PDFs onto a good spec laptop - you'll have most of what you need...

[MarkSpencerUK]

Thanks guys