VMware Cloud on AWS - Passed
Hi everyone,
I wanna share my experience from the last exam I've dome in 2018. Although it's strictly not a certification but rather a "Badge", I was tempted for a while to give it a shot. I am currently holding all AWS certifications and as the "VMware Cloud on AWS" (VMC) has a clear relationship - why not...
Materials I used for preparation:
- Udemy course by Rick Crisci (about 4 hours) + some vSphere foundations course for NSX/vSAN
- most of the related VMware documentation, the product release notes and FAQs
- related AWS FAQ page about VMC
I have to admit I have no practical knowledge of the offering, but I have some background on VMware solutions from previous years and contact with colleagues.
The exam itself is pretty short: 30 questions within 45 minutes, to be answered online. It's not free though. The validity of the "certification" is not limited, but the exam includes the year in its title. As usual with VMware, transcripts are on Certmetrics and Badges get approved via Acclaim.
The Udemy course was pretty outdated, as it's been authored about a year ago. I had to look into the VMC release notes to figure out the new limits, functionality which was (explicitly mentioned as) not available before etc. Contacted the author to at least add some "what has changed" documentation to make this easier for other students down the road. My preparation time was about 4 hours total over two days.
The questions on the AWS side during the exam were pretty thin, as expected. The VMware part was pretty strong though, it included available actions in the SDDC UI as well as limitations on versions, allowed connectivity between SDDCs and something about the role system. Those were a bit tricky without much knowledge of the platform itself - but manageable in the end.
It's important to have the basics on vSAN, NSX and some migration/HA strategies to pass this. The parts central to the offering (and not generic VMware/AWS) did make up about 50% of contents. So learning is important even if you got a background in both. In the end, I managed to get about 60% correct, but that was enough to pass. I'll take the win and disregard the low score...
My personal tips for preparation:
- do the Udemy course, it seems to be the only affordable prep so far
- read through the VMC release notes and the AWS FAQ site to get current
- go deep on the different roles like Cloud Admin, Organizational Members/Admins and their permissions
- read the whole documentation on VMware's page and make notes of the small bits + pieces about prerequisites and limits in there
Let's see if I go deeper on VMware next year or if I'll stick to my home turf 
Wish you a good start of 2019, keep learning!