VCAP6-Deploy & Design

Seeing as the VCAP6-DCV Deploy and Design exams are GA I thought I’d create this page for the exams and list all the resources I’ll be using for the exams.

VCAP6-DCV Deploy

The first place to always go is the blueprint. Everything on the exam and everything you will need to practice again and again to make sure you can do it as fast as possible is listed in here https://mylearn.vmware.com/mgrReg/plan.cfm?plan=88753&ui=www_cert
As mentioned above the real challenge about the exam is not just knowing how to do the tasks but how to do them as quickly as possible whilst being limited by the varying lag of the environment and the restrictive screen resolution. The best method I used for my VCAP5-DCA was one created by Chris Wahl who created an awesome VCAP5-DCA study sheet that you can use to tick off each objective and if you have each of the following for each objective. If you can tick off that you can do any topics for the VCAP6-DCv Deploy by doing all four methods where applicable below then you should be pretty well prepared:
- Read – The objective has been researched and related material has been read over.
- Lab – The goal of the objective has been reproduced in a lab environment.
- CLI – Used to denote when an objective has been completed or researched for the CLI command, when applicable.
- GUI – Used to denote when an objective has been completed or researched for the GUI, when applicable.
A pre-requisite for the exam is that you have the VCP6-DCV. One of the brilliant resources from my VCP6-DCV Study Resources is Greg Shields who made his way through the objectives for the VCP6-DCV for Pluralsight. Check out his learning plan here.
Graham has created a amazing exam simulator for the exam here VCAP6-DCV Deploy Exam “Simulator” – FREE. I would recommend using this to ensure you have a good feel of how the exam will look (obviously without the actual questions) before sitting the exam.
Another great resource from the VCP6-DCV that is beneficial for the VCAP6-DCV Deploy is the Mastering vSphere 6.0 by fellow vBrownbag colleague Nick Marshall, Grant Orchard and Josh Atwell.
Seeing as the deploy exam is all about working in an environment and doing tasks you are going to need to have somewhere to do your practicing. There are many ways to do this depending on your budget but one of the best ways I have found is to use the AutoLab.
If you did the VCAP5-DCA like I did then a great resource to see the differences in the blueprint with the VCAP6-Deploy is this posting by Thom Greene.
Thom also did a brilliant posting all about his strategy going to the exam here
An amazing resource is the study guide created by Kyle Jenner. This is INSANE and is certainly one of the best resources for the exam that I have come across
There are a number of people’s experience blogs out there for the exam.A brilliant resource is the study group information to hear from people s experiences here: https://plus.google.com/u/0/communities/108002000588564278612
vPentathlon’s also created a study guide http://vpentathlon.com/vcap-dcv-deploy-study-guide/ as did Tim IT http://tsmith.co/2016/vcap-dcv-deploy-study-guide-series/
Ariel Sanchez Mora broke down the Hands on Labs he did for his preparation and they are certainly good ones:
- HOL-SDC-1602 vSphere with Operations Management 6: Advanced Topics . This is a long one that covers VCAP topics quite well, downsides are not much hands on and some VROps topics you must skip. It has a somewhat updated version of 1402 (really needed for NIOC v3) and does have detailed vCenter (AutoDeploy, Content Library, Resource Pools) and Security (cert and local user) tasks
- HOL-SDC-1627 – VVol, Virtual SAN & Storage Policy-Based Management (you can extend one hour 8 times) . This one can take a long time to complete but it’s worth it, especially since it explains the whole framework that makes VSAN work.
- HOL-CHG-1695 vSphere 6 Challenge Lab . Very light for VCAP but good to do some troubleshooting in the HOL interface.
- HOL-SDC-1402 – vSphere Distributed Switch from A to Z . This is a 5.5 lab but goes over advanced DVS settings and does a LACP example.
Ariel also covered some major must-read – the official Certification Platform Interface guide . Don’t open a VM console with the thick client or the VMRC! You will find that having ctrl+alt disabled means you can’t escape it!
Lastly is the VMware documentation that is at points very tedious but necessary to read:
Ramy Mahmoud has also done a in depth study guide for the exam here https://ucconnect.wordpress.com/2016/08/21/vcap6-dcv-deployment-study-guide/

VCAP6-DCV Design

Alike to the deploy exam the best place to start is the blueprint for the exam as everything you are going to be asked is covered in here https://blogs.vmware.com/education/files/2015/12/Exam_Prep_Guide_3V0-622_v1.2.pdf
There is no pre-requisite course for the exam but one of the recommended courses is the VMware vSphere: Design and Deploy Fast Track course. I did the version 5 course and it is highly beneficial but I would recommend trying to get an in person one as a main benefit of the course is the discussions in the workshop whereas via ILT it isn’t as easy.
The EMEA and LATAM vBrownbag crew are starting to line up presenters to cover the VCAP6-DCV Deploy objectives and have set out an aim of every objective being covered by a current VCDX5 seeing as they need to pass this exam to upgrade like I do and hopefully the sessions can provide some top class information that would would expect from someone who has achieved the VCDX (Certainly not saying people without the certification are not capable of doing it as well if not possibly better). I have started the list below and will be updating it as the sessions are recorded:
- Objective 1.1 – Gather and analyze business requirements
- Objective 1.2 – Gather and analyze application requirements
- Objective 1.3 – Determine Risks, Requirements, Constraints and Assumptions
- Objective 2.1 – Map Business Requirements to a vSphere 6.x Logical Design
- Objective 2.2 – Map Service Dependencies
- Objective 2.3 – Build Availability Requirements into a vSphere 6.x Logical Design
- Objective 2.4 – Build Manageability Requirements into a vSphere 6.x Logical Design
- Objective 2.5 – Build Performance Requirements into a vSphere 6.x Logical Design
- Objective 2.6 – Build Recoverability Requirements into a vSphere 6.x Logical Design
- Objective 2.7 – Build Security Requirements into a vSphere 6.x Logical Design
- Objective 3.1 – Transition from a Logical Design to a vSphere 6.x Physical Design
- Objective 3.2 – Create a vSphere 6.x Physical Network Design from an Existing Logical Design
- Objective 3.3 – Create a vSphere 6.x Physical Storage Design from an Existing Logical Design
- Objective 3.4 – Determine Appropriate Compute Resources for a vSphere 6.x Physical Design
- Objective 3.5 – Determine Virtual Machine Configuration for a vSphere 6.x Physical Design
- Objective 3.6 – Determine Data Center Management Options for a vSphere 6.x Physical Design
A brilliant resource that I was very fortunate to be a reviewer for was the IT Architect: Foundation in the Art of Infrastructure Design: A Practical Guide for It Architects book. This book is amazing not just for the Design exam but even in prep for the VCDX and has been written by some of the top names in the industry.
The VMware Validated Designs documentation has to be one of the biggest resources for the exam in my opinion. They are free so make sure you read through all the documents
Design methodologies remain relatively the same so some brilliant resources I used for my VCAP5-DCD that I will be using for the VCAP6-DCV Design are:
- Scott Lowe’s VMware vSphere Design book with Forbes Guthrie and Kendrick Coleman.
- The DRBC Design – Disaster Recovery and Business Continuity Fundamentals course.
- Scott Lowe’s Designing VMware Infrastructure Trainsignal set of videos.
- I would recommend reading the vSphere 5.x version of Frank and Duncan’s book as it gives a brilliant foundation to their version 6 book mentioned below.
Next is the VSAN design guide VMware Virtual SAN 6.0
You will need to know to design NSX to a certain degree so the Reference Design: VMware® NSX for vSphere (NSX) Network Virtualization Design Guide is perfect to learn this.
A brilliant book for the VCAP5-DCD exam was the VCAP5-DCD Official Cert Guide by Paul McSharry.
A resource I mentioned in my VCP6-DCV Study Resources is Mastering VMware vSphere 6 by Nick Marshall and Grant Orchard.
Again Duncan Epping and Frank Denneman have done a brilliant vSphere HA deepdive 6.x which is available on Gitbook, for free!
A resource I used for my VCAP5-DCD, my VCAP6-CMA Design and portions of for my VCDX-CMA submission was the VMware vCloud Architecture Toolkit. It is aimed at vCloud but the design methodologies apply across multiple domains.
This might be over what the exam requires but a brilliant book I have been reading which covers design methodologies is the Enterprise Architecture Using Zachman Framework book.

So far these are all the resources I have for the two exams. If you feel I have missed something then please do let me know, if you are a VCDX and want to present an objective or four then let me know and good luck for the exams!!

Gregg

TheSaffaGeek

My ramblings about all things technical

VCAP6-Deploy & Design

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