Last year I had sat VMware Certified Advanced Professional – Desktop Design (VCAP-DTD) exam and passed from first attempt, however I didn’t have chance to sit the Administration version of the exam (VCAP-DTA) as I was extreme busy with my VCDX preparation.
After I finally passed my VCDX back in July 2014, I have decided to go for VMware Certified Advanced Professional – Desktop Administration (VCAP-DTA) exam.
The main motivation behind my decision was achieving VCDX-Desktop (hopefully), specially that I am specialised in delivering VDI solutions within VMware MENA PSO team, which means that finding the proper design for the VCDX-Desktop application shouldn’t be an issue.
VCAP-DTA itself is a Lab-based exam covers VMware View 5.x with all related components. The detailed exam blueprint could be found here , being that said, it’s not an easy exam at all!
As VDI specialist within VMware MENA PSO team, I thought that I don’t need to spend a lot of preparation before sitting this exam, however after going through the exam blueprint I figured out that I should work more on specific areas such as:
- Smartcard authentication
- View Composer command line mastering
- View components DR possibilities (Backup/Restore)
- Dealing with SSL certificates.
So I spent few weeks working with my Home Lab to validate my skills against all exam blueprint points. Once I was OK with my skills set, I had registered to sit the exam on 21.Aug.2014.
The exam is 225 minutes (including 30 minutes extension for non-native English speaking countries), so it’s really a long one!
The exam centre I used was in Riyadh – Saudi Arabia close to my place, so I arrived 15 minutes prior to starting time in order to have enough time for VUE signing in procedure.
Starting the exam on-time, I noticed directly that there was slowness in response when I click on any thing, I could image that due to bandwidth and latency issues.
General considerations to keep in mind for that exam:
- Select an exam centre as close as possible to your place to avoid unnecessary commuting (meaning less stress).
- Try to pay the exam centre a visit beforehand (in case you were not there) to make sure that they have big monitor (at least 22”) and good Internet connecting.
- Have a good sleep before your exam, it’s going to be a stressful four hours.
