Last Friday I took the VCP4 beta exam. This exam contains 270 questions and lasted four hours and 45 minutes. I ‘m not a native English speaker so I got some extra time. What can I say about it. Since I’m bound by the NDA, I won’t share any questions. After 270 questions you don’t remember that much questions anyway. I agree with Rick Scherer, 35% of the questions is vSphere 4 related. The other 65% can be divided in two parts. The really hard questions and the low hanging fruit. If you want to pass this exam, you won’t get away with studying some PDFs and attending the vSphere ICM course. I’ve delivered the vSphere what’s new a few times now, and prior to my exam I’ve delivered my first vSphere Install Configure and Manage course. Besides that I’m already playing with the beta for the past months. Even with his experience, the hard questions really astounded me. When these questions will stay in the VCP4 exam, becoming a VCP4 will be tough. Some study tips at last, don’t limit your view to ESX, take a look at the ESXi version to. You also have to know what other products from VMware can do with virtual machines.
Simon Long over at the Slog has created a VCP vSphere Practice Exam
vSphere 4 Documentation Notes from vReference
You want to check if the person understands the concept and knows how to finish a task instead of memorizing the maximums. Right?
Ernest
Why on earth did VMware make a four hour beta test and not put a piss break in there. Geez I was having a really hard time holding it.
Frankly I don't think passing the VCP4 is going to be as hard as you make it out to be. But then, I think I passed it.
However, with cynical hat off, I can understand that an employer might like to know that a person has made an investment in their development. From a practical perspective, you’ll learn more working with the products than you ever will swatting up for these kind of exams. If you haven’t got a proper server and some software to do this, then you should have as it’s a far better investment than certification. Certification doesn’t cut it when you have to go into the server-room.
I, for one , can find more interesting things to do than surf the exam sites, download endless PDF files, work through Exam-Crams and Brain-dumps and so forth. I did that already with Microsoft, Cisco and Linux certs, don’t think I will be bothering with VMware simply because VMware’s business case is constant change, and that means endless exam upgrades. I don’t think I’m up to that any more. Sad isn’t it.
No offence intended, this is my personal, and grizzled, view, like it or not. I’m sure that there will be many breathless, and bright-eyed young hopefuls, lining up to torture themselves.
Now, where did I put that NetApp command-line manual?
btw i passed
/ Lars