Exam Preparation for VCP550

bym007

Hi all ,

I am toes in the VCP550 preparation and about to jump deep.

I am going to organise some sort of remote access to a largely unused rack of servers (perhaps 2 or 3 servers). I need to organise a practise plan for the practical exercises lab, which I will use and share with my study partner (we are group of 2).

I am waiting for the delivery of my Scott Lowe study guide. I am planning to study from this book, along with the official blue print, and supplement the concepts with practical exercises. My current confidence with VMware concepts is at basic to moderate level, as I design solutions at work for clients. However, I do feel the need to deep dive in many topics.

Is there any practice lab guide, some one else has prepared and used for their VCP550 exam prep ?
Really need some guidance on how to best tackle this animal.

Lexluethar

What I would suggest (currently studying for the same exam):
1. Read the book end to end, when you hit the sections you aren't familiar with follow along in your lab
2. Study all blueprint items and be comfortable with all topics covered
3. Lab the items you aren't comfortable with

scott28tt

You'll get materials when you do the official training that's required too.

Your primary resource should be the blueprint - while a book like Scott Lowe's is a great product reference it's not aligned to the exam objectives, it's the product documentation that VMware use to validate the exam items so that's a good exam reference.

bym007

@Lexluethar, which book are you following ?

Thanks for the precious input @Scott28tt While I agree that no book can keep up with the online VMware documentation, I do feel a need to have a cover to cover book in hand, which can be supplemented by up to date documentation.

bym007

Are there any lab guides around ?

I have access to a personal lab (2x HP Microservers with 16GB memory each), plus "some" arrangement on corporate spare servers with remote access.

Lexluethar

I'm using the Mastering 5.5 book by Scott Lowe. For labs i've honestly just done through the exercises in the book as well as make my own up (IE create an entire network from scratch - doing things like deploying the vCenter appliance multiple times, ect). Some of the harder things to lab are things like VSAN and vFlash because they require specific hardware to be in place (SSD which i don't have). Also Auto Deploy is a great thing to lab on but difficult to do from start to finish.

bym007

I got the same book. I haven't done deep dive yet, but I didnt find any lab exercises in the book, or did I miss them?