Hello from New Zealand from a Cert newbie with big ambitions!

krishnabagla

Hi Scottish Kiwi,

What an amazing journey! You are going good.
I also noticed that you are planning to go for VCP6-DCV, for that only self-study won't suffice. VMware has a mandatory training requirement.

I have a very similar background as yours, around 12 years of experience in IT and Service Delivery. Moved to Australia from the sub continent in mid of 2014. I am also planning to go for the certifications which you have listed as your goal!

chanakyajupudi

krishnabagla - You are right. You would need to do a course from VMWare or an education partner like Stanly. You can search this forum. The only thing being that you are placed on a waitlist. This is not expensive. Costed me less than 300$ including getting the books delivered home. This comes with a 50% for the exam voucher. So it is not a burden at all!

This is the link to add yourself to the waiting list - https://vmware.stanly.edu/waitlist.php

These guys also deliver the same - They seem to have the VCP6 courseware - http://www.cccti.edu/vmware/
Looks like they do the Optimize and Scale paper too if that is in your plan. These guys however are expensive when compare to Stanley.

Best of luck with life in Sydney!

Dakinggamer87

Great job on your progress!!

scottishkiwi

I haven't updated my progress for a while.. been busy studying but also had a few interruptions due to everyday life.. but I'm still on track although about a week behind my target and I've also had to juggle my target dates to make things work.


So after Storage+ I moved onto Network+. I started studying on the 18th January and after 1 week of study was feeling confident so went to book my exam for the earliest time possible, hoping to book for 25/26th.. however to my disappointment all slots were fully booked in both my local exam centres. The earliest possible day was 5th February which felt like such a long time away. I booked myself in though and thought to myself I would just do more study to ensure I was prepared.


I prepared for Network+ by watching all the Professor Messer videos and the CBT Nuggets videos. I flicked through Keith Barkers Cert Guide book to go over areas I was not confident in however found myself skimming through most of it and not really giving it the respect I'm sure it deserves. The combination of both PM and CBT videos were more than enough and I found myself thinking about whats next instead of concentrating on preparing for Network+.


I started watching Professor Messsers videos for Security+ the week before my Network+ exam. I wasn't planning on studying for my Security+ until May however after starting the videos thought that doing it now may be more beneficial since I have just done my CompTIA A+ and Storage+ and about to sit Network+ so will know what to expect in their style of questioning.


I sat my Network+ exam on the Friday as planned and found it very easy. I completed it with 50 minutes remaining and felt so confident at the end I just submitted it without going over my answers as I would usually do. The study I did for my Storage+ really assisted with Network+ for sure.. I passed the exam with a score of 877, my score highlighted 2 areas to go over so I assume I must have got 2 questions wrong based on my score.. was very happy with the result but kind of kicked myself for not checking my answer as perhaps I misread a question or would have revised the answers I got wrong, I could have managed a perfect 900!!.. but hey, passed so it's all good!


On the 8th I continued the PM videos's for Security+ which I finished on Friday. I went to book the exam and found earliest I was the 18th so I have an extra week to study. I only study weekdays so had the weekend off and went over the CompTIA exam objectives today highlighting the areas I wasn't as comfortable with and re-watching those areas of PM's videos. I have 3.5 days before the exam so tomorrow I think I will start the CBT videos and should be able to get through them before exam day on Friday.. so wish me luck!


After getting my Network+ result and feeling so confident with myself I decided to bring forward my CCNA studies so as soon as Security+ is done I'm going to move onto studying for my CCENT exam next. I did plan on moving onto VMware however after reading some replies to my thread regarding having to do training through an authorised provider realised I wasn't able to stick to my schedule. When I read about this though I immediately put myself on the waiting list for Stanly CC as suggested and last week received an email advising that I should be able to start the course at the end of March (and ending mid May).


So I've brought forward Security+ from May to Feb, my first part of CCNA (CCENT) from March to Feb (hopefully!) and pushed back my VMware & AWS and from Feb to May. I'm thinking of mixing things up a bit after this. At the end of last year I purchased 5 vouchers for Microsoft exams, these are valid for 12 months however with my current schedule I had planned on doing 3 exams to get my MCSA in April.. this might be a bit of a slog so thinking it may be a good idea to break it up a bit.. so I'm thinking to do 70-410 after CCENT and then follow this up with the 2nd part of Cisco exam to get my CCNA R&S. Hopefully by end of March I will have Security+, CCENT and MS 70-410 done and be studying for VMWare and CCNA.


It's not all been study for me though.. I managed to get out and buy myself a few toys to help with some of my future studies. I wanted to set myself up a home lab for my CCNA but was then swayed towards using GNS3 however came across some good deals online and have started buying up some routers in addition to a few other things. I still have a bit to go before I have everything I need for my lab but getting there. With my VMware and MS Server studies coming up I also wanted to get some hardware to practice using these on also. After my Storage+ exam I learnt a bit about Virtualisation and SAN's and found it very interesting.. so I've got myself an old server and also picked us a SAN device to use as study aids.


So far I have myself the following:


2 x Cisco 2821 Routers
1 x Cisco 2811 Router
1 x HP ProLiant DL365 G5 (2 x Quad Core 2.7GHz, 16GB RAM, 4x146GB SAS drives with RAID 0/1/5)
1 x NetApp FAS202 with 12 x 300GB SAS drives
1 x NetApp DS14mk2 with 14 x 1TB drives


I'm going to pick up a few switches and another server, looking at a ProLiant DL380 G6, and a couple more routers and anything else interesting that I can find.


Everything is sitting in my spare room at the moment since current studies don't need any of this but I'll start using these once I start my CCNA and MS Server studies.


So far so good though.. I'm going to update my signature with my new targets and I'll check in with everyone once of sat my Security+ exam to let you know how I got on.

TC.

Wow, you're knocking a good amount out fast. What has made you just not start to do it? I mean besides the move...

urstuffplz1

How are you getting on? It was incredible reading your story about how fast you were knocking them certificates off originally, it's a shame we've not had an update for quite a while.