Preparing for the VCAP5 - DCD

Essendon

A few after passing the DCA I have put myself into study mode again and begun prepping for the DCD. Now I must say I find this particular test daunting. To me it seems much harder than the DCA. It's likely because I do no design work on vSphere while I administer it everyday. I havent even turned the first page of the blueprint and it's been almost 2 weeks since I started studying again. The very first link in the blueprint links to 600+ case studies (600! ), while I expect no one to read them all, but surely I need to go through a few dozen to get a feel of things. I understand that this test isnt just about vSphere, but things like storage, networking, backups, DR and even some ITIL concepts are in the mix. The mind boggles when I look at the amount of material out there to read up on. Now for those of you that have taken this one, am I making it too difficult for myself? How did you prepare for this beast. It looks like it's going to take a monumental effort to get past this!

So far I have the following material to get through:

- The vSphere Design book, 2nd edition
- Storage Implementation in vSphere 5
- Managing and Optimizing a vSphere Infrastructure

I'm going to try and convince my employer to send me to the Design Workshop so I can learn things the VMware way. There's thing called the Design ToolKit that someone advised me of, but it looks like it's available to certain partners only. Anyone know about this?

I have given myself 6 months to pass the DCD (this time frame includes a second shot at it, if needed). I need to pass the Private Cloud before the end of the year (employer requirement).

What else can I get my hands on to make me feel more confident? How do I study (considering that the blueprint is vague, really)?

jibbajabba

I hope they changed the Design Course. I been to the v4 one and I was quite disappointed.

During the course you basically do get some case studies where you have to discuss certain requirements in a group. These case studies were VERY easy and by no means "hard" enough to prepare you for the DCD.. Well I haven't taken the DCD yet, but I can imagine it isn't enough.

It was more like which raid level to use for DBs / Logs etc. - really quite basic stuff. A lot of the course was not how you would do things, but how VMware wants you to sell designs.

But like I say - that was years ago based on version 4 - so hopefully a lot has changed since.

dave330i

-Read the pdfs linked in the blueprint
-Storage Implementation is too deep of a dive. Pdfs should be good enough. If there's something in the pdf you don't understand, hit the book
-Read the HA/Cluster deepdive
-watch the brownbag videos
-Understand networking
-Understand DR/BC (VMware has a video series on their website)

Essendon

@jibba - I've heard some good things about the Design Workshop mate, so hopefully they've changed it for the better. Only problem is I have a 6 month probation period at my new job and still have a month to go. The employer dont send someone for training during their probation which is fair enough, there's a Workshop in May which I may not be able to make. The one after is in August or something, we'll see what transpires.

@dave - There are a million links in that blueprint, and each link opens up a myriad of other links. This test isnt for the faint-hearted. I'm going to read the HA/Clustering book again (slower this time) and thanks for the advice on the Storage book and DR/Backups series, I'll keep these in mind.

Another question, I've read about the Visio-style questions and people recommend to do them last. I'm okay with this method, but I thought you couldnt come back to a question since there isnt a Back button. So how can you do the Visio ones later, if at all?

dave330i

Read some of the case studies, not all. Rest of the pdfs are useful.

You can't do the visio questions last now. Time management becomes a little harder.

meadIT

The Design Course won't 100% prepare you for the DCD, but it does give you a foundation on the VMware design methodology, which you will need for the DCD. The quality of this course depends on the instructor and the other participants in the class. You'll go through the design methodology, design domains (compute, storage, networking, etc), and work in a group on the case studies. The real benefit of this class is hearing the input and questions from people with a different background that your experience. It makes you think about some things from different perspectives. My class had a mixture of beginners all the way up to a datacenter architect for Visa.

blargoe

Good luck on this new quest. I'll be following your progress.

I hope to work on this one before too long. Too many irons in the fire right now.