Certification

For the last month I had been preparing for the VCAP7-CMA Design exam and I am very glad to say I passed on my first attempt. Oddly I found it slightly easier than the VCP7-CMA but that I suspect is down to the fact I spend a lot of my time designing and implementing solutions for customers as opposed to day to day administration of any given solution. So what was the exam like?

It has been a while since I have had time to write a blog post, the last quarter of last year was pretty crazy from a work point of view. Regardless, it is now a New Year and my tech focus is turning very much on CMP related things particularly vRealize Automation. (I am also very much looking forward to learning more about VMware’s CaS which I saw demo’d at the UK VMUG late last year by Grant Orchard)

Greetings from Day 1 of VMworld US 2016! Every year I try and make use of the VMworld discount at the exam centre, and this year was no exception I sat the VCAP6-DCV Deploy exam, and results are still pending! Overall it’s a good exam, there was very little of the spelling and grammatical errors I’ve complained about in the past, performance was OK and the level of difficulty was good.

I use mind maps quite a lot for study, I find the visual representation of info makes it a lot easier for me to remember! Below is a mind map I created for learning the roles in vRealize Automation, which I used during my presentation for #vBrownBag on VCP6-CMA objective 2. You can download a PDF version here: vRealize Automation Roles Mind Map

Apologies in advance if this is post is a jumbled nonsense, I’m still way too excited! This morning I woke to the news that I have passed my VCDX-CMA! This was my second attempt at VCDX and although the first failure was a painful experience, the lessons learned from it were invaluable to take into the defence the second time around. Failing doesn’t have to be a negative experience - if there is one thing that I will take from the VCDX program it is that there is ALWAYS more I need to learn, and I can always do better.

For the last few years at VMworld I’ve taken advantage of the discounted exam price and booked a “have-a-go” exam – typically an exam I’ve been wanting to do but not necessarily had the time I wanted to study for it. Since I have been fairly immersed in the NSX world for the last week, sitting in an NSX design and deploy class and surrounded by some very smart networking guys, I changed my “have-a-go” exam from the VCP6-CMA to the VCIX-NV.

A few months ago I decided to tackle the VCAP5-DCD exam and when booking I gave myself 2 months to study before the date of the exam. I was keenly aware that at least in this calendar year the VCAP5-DCD exam and undergone some changes E.G. it no longer had multiple choice questions (think VCP5-DCV in terms of format) There was a wealth of knowledge out there from people whom had either passed/failed or were currently studying so it didn’t take too long to get an understanding of what disciplines/knowledge VMware were looking for in the exam.