VCAP-DCA….Finally!
VMware has finally released the VCAP-DCA exam, and I was able to schedule it pretty fast (still not sure if that was good or bad with my work schedule). Unfortunately, you agree to an NDA for the exam, so I can not post detailed information from the exam, nor would I. Seriously, do not ask, and if you do, prepare to pay a $10 non-refundable fee for any answer you may get back in return.
Here are my thoughts after taking the exam. First, I felt a lot better about this exam than I did the VCP 4. Now if I passed, well, I won’t know that for another 10 days. Make that another stressful 10 days. It was a very fair exam. I think VMware did an excellent job with a 100% lab based exam. I will say that I did not finish the exam. Well I was close. I did skip a couple of questions because time was running short, mostly because I knew what the answer was, but did not know the exact parameter to configure. So I moved on.
So what can you do to prepare?
1. Build a lab.
2. Practice
3. Practice
4. Practice
Honestly, you will not pass this exam if you just study documentation. You need hands on work with vSphere. Why? It’s lab based and there is a time limit. There is no google to help you out. Either you know it, or you don’t. There is documentation available, but you will waste precious seconds if you have to continually look up commands.
Now if anyone knows people involved with the exam, please find out if they would like feedback on it and get their information to me. I was disappointed there wasn’t anything available after the exam was completed. I would have liked to provide feedback because there were some errors in questions, and some items just did not work. I hope this gets taken into account when the exam is scored.
Now to wait….
Geaux Virtual 
First off, I hope you are successful at getting a pass for the exam. I to have taking the exam just yesterday. I will have to agree with your statements. Though the time seems to be plenty it was not and I did not finish every question either. I also found that a couple of the tasks could not be done because certain things were not setup as they should have. If there is someone to send feedback to I am ready and welling.
Antone
October 16, 2010 at 8:39 am
Best wishes for a pass Justin. I sat the exam in June and got the results in October. I had been planning on a retake but it sounds like you were pretty comfortable with it. That’s a good sign.
Jason Boche
October 30, 2010 at 12:23 pm
I just took this yesterday and am waiting for my results myself. I noticed some issues and confusion that I wish I could have left comments for on the end myself as well.
Sean Crookston
December 7, 2010 at 10:44 am