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Today I’ve taken the VCAP5-DCD beta exam (I’ve already written about the invitation at this beta). This time I was lucky enough to find a testing center near home and avoid the issues of the VCAP4-DCD beta exam (see the entire story).

For general considerations, like the cost of this kind of exams, the (long) wait period, the selection criteria, … se my though about VMware beta exams.

About the exam itself it is really challenging: time seems really a lot (225 minutes + 30 minutes of extra-time for  non english native) and question seems not so much (131 in this beta)… but questions are really vary and sometime also longer, and not simple multi-choice answer but also “visio” or associations between different elements (both this kind of questions, IMHO, are a good way to make exams where you have to use your brain and you cannot cheat or guess the answer). It’s really easy finish the time without have complete the questions review. To use a “design” terminology time is a big constrain and a bad time management could be risk.

Who have take the VCAP4-DCD will find this exam quite “similar” with a comparable difficult level. Of course this also will depend on how will be structured the “public” version of this exam: how many questions and “visio” in how much time.

As every beta, there were some little issues: in a couple of cases the text was truncated (for the testing center: please use bigger monitor and please not CRT monitor), a question was with duplicated answers, some sentences could be simplified (make them shorter or simpler). But this time (compared with the VCAP4-DCD beta) there was a working next/previous navigation and also the question review.

What I’ve not liked in this exam where: some mnemonic question (for example about advanced parameters), in some question was not clear the context (for example if vSphere 4.1 or 5.0… could be not the same), in some question there wasn’t a better answer (or the best in the specific context), some questions where more admin related rather than design relater. But the overall exam was quite good.

What could be change (IMHO) is the question order: why not put question about the same scenario close each other and maybe use few scenarios with more questions? This could really help in time management. And also the “vision” drawing tool could be improved, for example by having the last object fast available or by having a toolbox: this could speed up, for example the draw ing of several connectors.

Other VMware VCAP5-DCD beta exam experiences:

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Virtualization, Cloud and Storage Architect. Tech Field delegate. VMUG IT Co-Founder and board member. VMware VMTN Moderator and vExpert 2010-24. Dell TechCenter Rockstar 2014-15. Microsoft MVP 2014-16. Veeam Vanguard 2015-23. Nutanix NTC 2014-20. Several certifications including: VCDX-DCV, VCP-DCV/DT/Cloud, VCAP-DCA/DCD/CIA/CID/DTA/DTD, MCSA, MCSE, MCITP, CCA, NPP.