Vcp dcv 55

Lexluethar

Failed my VCP exam, missed it by 6 questions (give or take b/c they weight questions differently).

Looking back I can think of 3 or 4 questions that I got wrong (just not thinking straight). That exam is no joke - I think the most difficult part is the time limit. 136 questions in two hours is tough even if you know your stuff. You can't stay on one question more than a few minutes which can be tricky on some of the questions that have more details involved.

Anywho taking a break for the holidays - plan on retaking the exam in mid January. Pretty confident at this point considering i didn't bomb it and i now know what to expect from a VMware exam.

gncsmith

Sorry to hear that, but you'll get it next time; you've learned what you need to study and how the test is structured, so you'll do fine.

Lexluethar

Thanks man, it was a relief to see how the exam is structured. I will definitely be less stressed next time knowing what i'm going into.

gncsmith

Where at in the Midwest are you? I'm just south of STL.

Lexluethar

I live in KC but i'm from St. Louis. Lived in Affton which is a small county just south of St. Louis County (between Webster and Kirkwood).

Where are you at?

gncsmith

I live in Farmington, which is an hour south. How's the job market in KC?

Lexluethar

Depends on what you are looking for but it's great overall. Since moving here 7 years ago I haven't had an issue with finding IT jobs - there are a lot of large IT companies in the area and it's also becoming a huge location for Legal IT because of the cheap cost (IE two world-wide firms from California moved all operations to KC over the summer because of cost and the KC market has a large amount of qualified personnel). We also have a few very large IT companies like Cerner (they do Healthcare software), IBM and Cisco. Anywho, it's a great place to live and raise a family w/o having to spend a ton of money to live.

gncsmith

Yeah, I've been to KC a few times and really liked the area; good food.

So you're taking a break for the holidays and plan on retaking the exam in mid January? Are you studying anything else or is this your only focus? How did you start your path? I'm thinking about starting VMware studies in the Spring but not sure where to start.

Lexluethar

Yes taking a break for the holidays. Pretty busy until Jan 1 so while i may pickup a book every now and again I won't really focus on the certification until the first of the year. After that I'll cram for about two weeks before taking the exam again.

I didn't study for this exam as much as I did for my MCSA exams - the material came a lot more natural to me b/c i'm the VMware administrator at my current employer. So a lot of the 'baseline' questions I didn't even have to think about b/c i deal with them on a weekly basis. Probably going to take the same approach i did the first go and go through the exam blueprint during the day looking at various VMware documentation and in the evening read for about an hour or two prior to bed (Scott Lowes Master VMware 5.5). If I bombed the exam or felt completely lost I would be more aggressive but I feel with how close I was and looking back I can think of three or four questions i screwed up on.

Not studying anything else - plan on updating my MCSA in the summer to 2012 before the new server OS comes out. Trying to stagger my certs so that one year i update my MCSA and the other year I update my VCP.

I started by purchasing the Scott Lowe book and reading it through. I've been a VMware admin for about 3 years now - much more proficient now than 3 years ago and i'm focusing now more on architectural items like design. I would suggest picking up a book and reading it. If you have zero experience try to get your hands on the software and lab a ton. Since i do this for a living i was fortunate enough not to have to use my home lab a lot b/c we implement most things in our environment. The things we don't use like replication are really easy to conceptualize so i just study the key documents.