Hi Everybody,
I just passed the VCP510 exam today and wanted to share my thoughts and experience with anyone else looking at tackling it.
I know there are a lot of other posts (and entire websites) with people talking about their experience and they all say the same exact thing. "Follow the blueprint." "Create a test environments." "It's harder than the VCP410." But I intend to make this post a little different.
First of all, there are a couple things you should know about me that set me apart from other posters:
1. Up until this point, I haven't acuired any certifications in my lifetime. This is my first one.
2. I am not VCP4 certified (Implied in #1) , I've only had ~2 months of minor experience using VMware products, and I gave myself about 3 weeks to study for the VCP5. I'm not saying this to "toot my own horn" but I'm hoping to reach out to other inexperienced hopefulls who can relate to my situation. Many of the "VCP Experience" posts that I read online usually come from VCP4 veterans. While these posts were helpflu, I never really felt connected to what they were saying because they would always compare it to the VCP 4.
3. I took the required class beforehand which helped clarify things at high level. This was very helpful.
With that being said, here is how I prepared for the VCP5.
When I said I gave myself 3 weeks to study I wasn't joking. The first thing I did to prepare for the exam was log into Pearson VUE and schedule the exam 3 weeks out. Honestly, I think this was the most imporatant thing I did. Nothing makes you work harder and focus more than a deadline costing you $225 a pop. SCHEDULE THE EXAM!!!
Here are the resources I used and how I used them:
1. "Official VCP5 Certification Guide" - If the link breaks, just Google it. The cover is blue and green. Published by Pearson IT Certification
http://www.amazon.com/dp/0789749319
Read the book cover to cover once (Took about 1 week). I took very good notes and read/studied those notes about once every third day.
2. The MWPreston.net Study notes
http://blog.mwpreston.net/tag/vmware/
Printed and read everything, highlighting as I went. Read/studied these the day after studying my notes from #1.
3. Lab Environment
Details further down post
Used the day after studying my notes from #2 and more. Would use it as reference when studying #1 and #2.
4. Maximums
Found on VMware's site
Wrote maximums in excel and printed out a double-sided pocket-size copy that I carried with me at all times. STUDYING & DRIVING = BAD IDEA
5. VCP5 cram notes
http://cosonok.blogspot.com/2011/10/vcp510-vcp-on-vsphere-5-exam-cram-notes.html
Printed and read them repeatedly starting ~one week prior to the exam.
6. The VMware mock exam
mylearn.vmware.com
Probably took it about 30 times. While you ultimately end up memorizing the answers, the key here is understand the "why" behind every answer.
7. Simon Long Blog practice exams
http://www.simonlong.co.uk/blog/
Same as #6
8. Google
www.google.com
Everything I came across where I was a little unfamiliar, I Googled it and read about it until I understood it completely.
My Lab Environment and Activities
First off, let me preface this section with the fact that I am a complete computer nerd I don't expect anyone to have the number of extra computers lying around their house that I do. So, I'm going to give you my setup first and then give you another setup that could work on a single (relatively powerful) computer.
My lab environment consisted of 3 physical computers. Two of them were running ESXi 5, and one of them was running FreeNAS. If you don't know what FreeNAS is...you should. Look it up, it's awesome. I guess I technically had a fourth computer that was running Windows 7 for the vSphere client to run.
Having 2 hosts and a remote storage device (FreeNAS) allowed me to test and play with almost every feature of ESXi 5. I could do vMotion, storage vMotion, DRS, storage DRS, storage profiles, and much more. I used the vCenter Appliance and a Windows VM for VUM. One cool thing about FreeNAS is that you can control the storage it has to be presented as an NFS share or SAN LUN.
If you don't have that kind of hardware lying around, you could virtualize all of it on a single computer. On the single computer, you could use a trial of VM Workstation and have 3 VMs. 2 ESXi 5 VMs, and 1 FreeNAS VM. Your physical computer would have to a have a second hard drive for FreeNAS to use as the storage it would present to your ESXi 5 VMs.
!!!CREATE AND BREAK EVERYTHING IN YOUR TEST ENVIRONMENT UNTIL YOU UNDERSTAND HOW IT ALL WORKS. I CAN'T STRESS THIS ENOUGH!!!
The Exam and other thoughts
As far as the exam is concerned I can tell you it is definitely tough. Again, I don't have any other certification exams to compare it against but I can tell you it was tougher than most of the exams I took in college. Also, I can't tell you anything about the questions themselves but I can tell you that you need to know how things work. Just knowing maximums and definitions isn't enough. You need to know how to do things and how the maximums play a part in determining requirements for various features to work. For example, how can Fault tolerance maximums affect other vCenter features or prevent them from working.
The exam took me about 60 minutes to complete. I spent the last 30 minutes reviewing questions that I flagged as being unsure about and then starting re-reading from 1 to the end. In other words, you should have enough time to get through the exam and then some.
I hope this helps someone.