With two weeks to go before VMworld, I wanted to gather my thoughts around this year’s show. It’s been a difficult year for me in various ways, so I am hoping that the show is at least a chance to keep my passion around technology alive. This section is about taking an exam during the conference.
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I currently posses the VCP5, VCAP5- DCA and VCAP5-DCD, with the DCD being the last one that I obtained almost two years ago. With that being said, my VCP is about to expire so I wanted to take one of the VCAP 6 exams. I actually signed up for the VCAP 6 – DCD Beta in February but I missed my test date :-(. I also signed up for the VCAp 6 – Deploy Beta exam and I felt I did pretty well in that one. Since Beta exams take notoriously long to score, I decided to take advantage of the 50% deal at VMworld to take another exam, the only problem would be which one to take?
At the time of my registration, none of the VCAP6 exams were GA and I didn’t want to deal with the VCP6. After maybe three weeks of waiting, VMware released the VCAP6-DCV Design and VCAP6-DMA Design on July 21st.
http://blogs.vmware.com/education/2016/07/2-vcap-certification-exams-available.html
It took a few days to be able to schedule the exam via PearsonVue, but I found that there were plenty of times open. From past experience, having a test during the week was very difficult. I had one at the end of the week once and I ended up studying for it all week. I had another one at the beginning of the week which relieved the pressure right away but it took out a significant chunk of my day (which I could have used in sessions or at the expo). This year I chose to take the exam on Sunday (the first day in town). I will have to miss some TAM Day sessions and the first hour of the Welcome Reception, but those are better trade-offs than missing sessions.
Not proud of this, but I kind of gave up on studying. I have twin three-year olds starting preschool, a pregnant wife and some medical issues in my family and I don’t have the time or the energy to really dive into this. So I am going in cold, but with two years worth of experience and a faint recollection of what the VCAP5-DCD was like. Hopefully that will be enough