Eric Sloof just posted that a beta of the Design Exam, which is part of the VCDX Certification, is available as of now.
VMware is pleased to announce the availability of the Design Exam (beta). I can take the exam at Pearson VUE Professional Centers in London, Frankfurt, Paris and Madrid. Only individuals who have successfully passed the Enterprise Administration Exam and have been authorized by VMware will be able to register to take this exam. The exam is four (4) hours in length to allow time for candidates to comment on each item. My comments are invaluable in improving the overall exam.
I already did the exam a couple of months ago when it wasn’t even Beta yet(Yes, I passed the Enterprise Exam Jason, but I haven’t received my score for the Design exam yet). I used the following documents to prepare for the exams, both Design and Enterprise, but because I didn’t had much time to prepare I mainly focused on the Enterprise exam:
- VMbook – Business Continuity and Disaster Recovery
- Performance Characterization of VMFS and RDM Using a SAN
- Setup for Microsoft Clustering
- DRS Performance and Best Practices
- VMware Consolidated Backup Best Practices Guidelines and Considerations
- Virtual Machine Backup Guide
- VI3 Security Hardening
- Resource Management Guide
- SAN System Design and Deployment Guide
- Fibre Channel SAN Configuration Guide
- ESX Server Configuration Guide
- Configuring and Troubleshooting N-Port ID Virtualization
- How NPIV-Based LUN Access Works
- Requirements for using NPIV
In my opinion the Design exam is tougher than the Enterprise exam, but I did both exams on the same day and I didn’t know what to expect from the Design exam. I would also suggest that besides reading the articles above you also dig into the different type of designs and the phases etc. Good luck!
Hi,
I passed successfully the Enterprise exam at VMworld Europe Cannes. And i planned to take the design exam in few weeks.Could you tell me what sort of question are include in this exam?
thanks
Hi Duncan,
What is the format of the design exam? How many questions… are they multi choice? How long is the exam, what is pass mark required?
Also, the enterprise admin exam followed closely the VI3 deploy secure analyze course… does the design exam follow closely the VI3 design course or not so much?
Regards
alpha
65 multiple choice I think and 1 design flash scenario. Passing mark is 300 out of 500. And unfortunately the design course and the exam do not 100% align. Probably 60%.
My prep for the design test was to play Call of duty on the xbox the night before the exam. (To relax) Reason I did this was Look at the blue print for the design exam. You would have to read 7 books worth of data to pull in all the information that is covered on the exam. Read the questions twice. I found that I was missing 1 or 2 points that they wanted me to find on the first read.
Study Tips:
Relax if you have done designs you will be fine. Any time spent with customers and answering their questions will prep you.
And good luck
Also what is the deal with the visio at the end? No directions on how to use it? I found myself just clicking next near the end of time just to get on with it.
I had 51 Q’s and the Visio. I remember 51 beacuse I was thinking what an odd number of questions to have on an exam. I also only had 2.5 hrs for the exam
I’ve done te Design exam last year. I had several questions with the answers all screwed up (%@#^ characters etc. or identical questions (3, one without al the right answers). Biggest problem was the visio question at the end. For me it was not clear how the question should be answered. The question itself was easy, but clearly way too little time.
Thanks for the great post ! I am planning for VCAP and debating on DCA or DCD . Howmuch of DCD is helpful for VCDX. Please, Advice.