
I took the VMware Certified Advanced Professional Data Center Virtualization Design 6.5 Exam in October 2019. I felt to write a post about it, because people are reaching out to me asking how did i prepare and what my experience was. Also later this year i have planned to sit the VMware Certified Advanced Professional Data Center Virtualization Deploy Exam and share my experience.
Preparation
The first preparation i did was attending the three days VMware classroom training VMware vSphere: Design Workshop [V6.5] which is a recommended training, even still for the VCAP-DCV 2020 certification. The course provided a good insight of what was needed to pass the exam. You should definitely know the VMware design methodology like:
- Conceptual-, Logical- and Physical-Design
- Requirements, Constraints, Assumptions and Risks (RCAR)
- Availability, Manageability, Performance, Recoverability and Security (AMPRS)
- Functional and Non-Functional Requirements
- Recovery-Point-Objective (RPO)
- Recovery-Time-Objective (RTO)
- vSphere
- vSAN
- vSphere Replication
- Site Recovery Manager
- NUMA
After the classroom training I studied a lot on websites and blog posts and tried to read as much as I can about the different topics. Some of the sources are:
- Exam Blueprint: VMware Certified Advanced Professional 6.5 – Data Center Virtualization Design Exam Preparation Guide
- Blog by Jeffrey Kusters: Breaking down the conceptual design, RCARs and AMPRS …. VCDX style
- #vBrownBag: VCAP6-DCV Design Series on YouTube
- … and a lot of other websites on the different topics from the exam blueprint which i dont remember… sorry.
Experience
On exam day at a local Pearson VUE Test-Center I was presented a exam with 60 questions and 130 minutes time. I felt comfortable with most of the questions and had some time left at the end to review some of the questions. The exam consisted of traditional (multiple choice) and drag and drop questions. Even though i felt comfortable with most of them, some questions regarding the “RCARs” were kind of ambiguous. But in the end I passed the 3V0-624 VMware Certified Advanced Professional 6.5 – Data Center Virtualization Design Exam on my first attempt.