I sat the VCP310 exam this morning. I did not have the formal VI3 class or the upgrade class, but I was a VCP on VI2 and have been using VI3 fairly regularly for the last couple of months, including the use of iSCSI which I must say did give me an edge on the exam. Unforutnately, my lack of practical use of NAS and VCB was a negative factor. I thought I knew enough about the two conceptually but a few of the questions I got on the exam proved I needed more hands on in those areas I think I answered a few of the questions correctly but I'm also certain I answered a few of them incorrectly. Plenty of emphasis on NAS, iSCSI, VCB, and security. I also saw a few questions straight from the VI2 exam.
My studying consisted of using the VI3 products hands on for the last few months, reading the VMware VI3 quick start guide, reading and marking up the RapidApp quick start guide like it is the bible, and I cracked open a few VMware PDF files last night for a quick cram session. I actually picked up some real good pointers in the SAN config guide that helped me on the exam and will help me with my VI3 implementation at work.
Overall I think the exam was fair as others have said. I would bet good money that some questions wouldn't be answered from classroom books alone. Some questions were quite easy, some questions were more challenging in that I could have brushed up a little more, and there were a few what I will call Microsoft type questions which were tricky if you don't catch the wording. I got caught on one but luckily I re-read the question before moving on to the next question. More than one question had me second guessing myself.
I'm not a big fan of being forced to memorize trivial things such as wha pre-defined roles can do permission wise, but I did brush up on them real quick last night. As others have pointed out, knowing the pre-defined roles would serve you well for the exam.
As usual, there were a few questions that seemed to have more than one right answer. They caused me to go into a deep think but in the end I just had to choose what I thought was the best answer.
My testing computer sucked royally. It was extremely slow. Minimum time to navigate from one question to the next was 10 seconds. Sometimes it took over a minute before the screen would refresh. If there was an exhibit, go get some coffee and maybe lunch. All the while during the delays, the exam clock was ticking. As it turned out, I ran out of exam time reviewing my marked questions. I probably had 15-20 questions marked for review but I only got to review about 4 or 5 before my time expired. I complained to the proctor after the exam. She said the computer seemed slow to boot up for her but she thought nothing of it. She also said it missed its updates over the weekend, whatever that means. She was going to have the tech team look at it. Maybe I'll get a free voucher out of the deal. I'll need to retake the exam if I decide to become an instructor on VI3. I missed the VCI mark by a small margin. But as they say, a pass is a pass.
PS, test is 75 questions, 95 minutes. Whoever said earlier it's 75 minutes is incorrect.
Jas
VCDX3 #34, VCDX4, VCDX5, VCAP4-DCA #14, VCAP4-DCD #35, VCAP5-DCD, VCPx4, vEXPERTx4, MCSEx3, MCSAx2, MCP, CCAx2, A+
