Passed the VCP550
Passed the VCP550 (VCP5-DCV) with a high score.
Here's what I used.
CBT Nuggets - Great for learning concepts, also helped for building my own lab. (Recommend this first.)
VCP5-DCV Official Cert Guide - Good book, lacking quite a bit, however, the included practice exams are invaluable.
Mastering VMware vSphere 5.5 - As everyone says, great book, packed full of information, practically a requirement.
MeasureUp Practice Questions - These most accurately simulated the actual testing conditions.
VMware White-Papers on Each Topic - Read nearly every white-paper available on each product/topic.
VMware Maximums - Read it once a day every day/every few days, then covered numbers and tested myself. Boring but works.
Whitebox Lab - Built my own lab for about $600 in parts. EVGA Z170 Stinger worked flawlessly. Highly recommend nesting ESXi.
I didn't find the blueprint handy in the least, I just don't learn like that.
Take lots of notes, I found the books to be purposefully vague sometimes so they could ask you a chapter review question. WTF is this? CBT was great for getting up to speed, highly recommended first. The official cert guide was pretty basic but mostly necessary to build skills on. The included practice exams were actually pretty good, even if they didn't reflect the exam type questions. Though, I will mention some of the exam questions were close. Mastering 5.5 is the bread & butter, you need to read this but it will take awhile to crawl through. MeasureUp was decent, there might have been a few similar questions to the exam, but what really helps is the timing and modelling. You will have NO time left on the exam, MeasureUp will show you why.
A lot of the exam seemed to be based on the vSphere 5.5 Documentation or the white papers, read them. You'll get obscure questions from these docs. The maximums didn't seem as important, but just do yourself a favor and drill yourself once a day, once every other day on the maximums. By the end of the week you'll be a pro. You'll need a lab, plain and simple. You're not passing this test without a lab. There are so many items you'll try to recreate from the book and run into some weird error. Why is this tab missing, why didn't DRS work, why can I delete this now but not before, etc. Lab. I got away with 16GB RAM but it was tight, stuff crashed.
In my opinion this test is equal to about 1.5-2 Microsoft tests, so doable. Thankfully the questions don't make you want to punch yourself in the face like MS questions do though. I think most people that go in with the basics, just CBT, just press book, won't quite get 300. That seems to be the sticking point. Someone that does all the labs, the mastering book, the practice questions will pass. Good luck, only about a month left, don't forget you need the course requirement.
