Recommended Lab Environment for VCAP-DCA preparation

[farkasharry]

I started the preparation for my certification, and would be thankful for every input for a proper test environment,

including VM's, Applications, etc...

My planned one looks like: 2-ESXi 4.1 Cluster with vCenter Standard 4.1 on a FC storage (no iSCSI in the company...)

[firestartah]

Hi

Well a few people have mentioned what they have personally used on other postings on this community but the one i would recommend is Christian Mohn of vNinja.net has done a six part posting all about how to build your home lab.Part one, part two, part three, part four, part five and part six.

It really depends on the money you are willing to spend. But your 2 host cluster with FC storgae is good although would try also do an iSCSI idea via a DAS to learn some iSCSI commands for the exam

Also a tiny plug that i've done a blog psting on all the resources i'm using for my VCAP-DCA and DCD here http://thesaffageek.co.uk/vcap-dca-dcd/ which included the lab answer above

Gregg

[AndreTheGiant]

FC storage has not too much work for a VMware Admin... I suggest to make practice with iSCSI and NFS datastores. In those case more tasks could be possible...

Andre

[chriswahl]

I'd use both an ESX and ESXi servers, as the exam covers both versions of the hypervisor.

[scott28tt · Accepted solution]

I agree that it is best to use both ESX and ESXi - in the exam you definitely perform tasks on both.

Scott.