VCP-410 passed...

blargoeblargoe Member Posts: 4,174 ■■■■■■■■■□
in Virtualization
...barely. I took it too lightly and almost failed this thing. But a pass is a pass... and no one is going to take it from me! :)

I haven't taken an exam in nearly 2 years. Been way busy, life has been crazy, drama drama drama. Finally, about 10 days ago, I decided that the best thing for me to do, to force me to prep for this exam and stay focused, was to just schedule the thing and commit to it... so I did.

I thought that work experience plus hitting the exam footprint and following the hyperlink trail on the areas that I'm not currently using my environment at work would probably be enough. Also, I hit the configuration maximums pretty hard. It turned out there were quite a few questions that I simply did not know. Some of them I could use deductive reasoning (based on experience) to rule out an answer or two. I found that the exam was less administration of ESX and vCenter features than I thought it would be, and more abstract/theoretical stuff than I figured. It has been a couple of years since the VCP3, but VCP4 seemed harder.

So anyway, I was doing the final review of the questions with less than a minute left on the timer. I clicked on the "review incomplete" just to make sure I didn't leave anything unanswered and found one question that was "choose two" that I had only marked one... a really easy DRS question that I know I got right. I completed it and submitted my confirmation of the review with less than 30 seconds left... and passed with the minimum score of 300.

I don't know if I'm getting dumber with old age, or if it is just a lack of focus causing me to not retain what I study. If I had to do it over again I probably would have found some other supplemental study materials aside from the VMware documentation. But I got it, it's over. Now anxiously awaiting VCP5.
IT guy since 12/00

Recent: 11/2019 - RHCSA (RHEL 7); 2/2019 - Updated VCP to 6.5 (just a few days before VMware discontinued the re-cert policy...)
Working on: RHCE/Ansible
Future: Probably continued Red Hat Immersion, Possibly VCAP Design, or maybe a completely different path. Depends on job demands...
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Comments

  • jibbajabbajibbajabba Member Posts: 4,317 ■■■■■■■■□□
    Congrats. I personally thought VCP4 is easier than VCP3 - there are a lot less silly questions which supposed to test your "experience" in working with the product, i.e. "What colour has the car Saturday nights at 9pm" (can't obviously give real examples lol) ..

    Oh and I am the same now ... can't proper concentrate on exams anymore .. Guess I am too old myself lol - once I have my last Exchange exam (Monday) I am done with the whole thing I think lol ....

    Oh wait .. there will VCP5 right .. damn ... and Exchange 2020 or something .. Meh ... I shall go into pigfarming instead :p
    My own knowledge base made public: http://open902.com :p
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  • earweedearweed Member Posts: 5,192 ■■■■■■■■■□
    Congrats!
    No longer work in IT. Play around with stuff sometimes still and fix stuff for friends and relatives.
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  • bertiebbertieb Member Posts: 1,031 ■■■■■■□□□□
    Awesome! Well done indeed. Who cares on the score, it's in the bag! Are you going to attempt a VCAP exam (or both) before the VCP5 is out - sounds right up your street to me :D
    The trouble with quotes on the internet is that you can never tell if they are genuine - Abraham Lincoln
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  • jibbajabbajibbajabba Member Posts: 4,317 ■■■■■■■■□□
    bertieb wrote: »
    Awesome! Well done indeed. Who cares on the score, it's in the bag! Are you going to attempt a VCAP exam (or both) before the VCP5 is out - sounds right up your street to me :D

    Both would be keen - I think not many people would even be able to pass one of them :p
    My own knowledge base made public: http://open902.com :p
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  • blargoeblargoe Member Posts: 4,174 ■■■■■■■■■□
    I had figured on trying the VCAP in the next 12 months or so. Still might... but I have some other things to focus on as well... On the job I'm finding myself being steered more toward both storage and DBA work and need to fill some gaps there. Also, I still feel like I'm in a certification funk with this "barely pass", plus my last exam being an EMC test that I failed by a couple points in 2009. Maybe I need to feast on a Microsoft weaking to get my mojo back. :)

    I am enrolled in the vSphere:Troubleshooting class this week, maybe that will get me "fired up" to move on with studying for a VCAP-DCA attempt. More likely, will be that I'll end up attempting it after the vSphere 5 version of the tests come out. My production vSphere environment will be larger by then, I'll have more help with the daily administration to focus on more advanced topics, and will have $$$ for maybe another class as well... the Manage/Design for Security class, if the same pattern is followed as with the VCP4, should have the effects of making me eligible to take the VCP5 (if I take the v5 course), and being another notch of learning to help me on my way to the DCA cert.
    IT guy since 12/00

    Recent: 11/2019 - RHCSA (RHEL 7); 2/2019 - Updated VCP to 6.5 (just a few days before VMware discontinued the re-cert policy...)
    Working on: RHCE/Ansible
    Future: Probably continued Red Hat Immersion, Possibly VCAP Design, or maybe a completely different path. Depends on job demands...
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  • EssendonEssendon Member Posts: 4,546 ■■■■■■■■■■
    Nicely done blargoe.
    NSX, NSX, more NSX..

    Blog >> http://virtual10.com
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  • mezekermezeker Member Posts: 29 ■□□□□□□□□□
    nice job
    MCP, MCDST, MCTS: Vista, MCAS: Outlook 2007, CompTIA A+, CompTIA Network+, CompTIA Security+, CompTIA Strata IT Fundamentals, ITIL v3, ISFS Information Security Foundation based on ISO/IEC 27002 Certified


    "You must not only test whether an application
    does what it is supposed to do, but also whether it does not do what it should not do."
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