Back in December 2011 I have passed my VCP4 exams and was trying to avoid taking classroom training by passing VCP5 before end of Feb 2012. Guess what – it didn’t happen!

Last week on Tue-Wed I was sitting in a classroom for two days (hurray not!) following VMware vSphere: What’s New [V5.0] course objectives. Not great already knowing what’s new in vSphere 5 but it had to be done. For me this was the only prerequisite needed before taking my exam and being officially certified on version 5.

Fast forward few days and today I have passed my VCP5 certification with rather respectable score (again!) Very pleased with that. I’m now a double VMware Certified Professional – already on version 4 and now on version 5.

Exam itself wasn’t too much different from VCP4 really, in fact I do recall some questions from previews exam but in tweaked form i.e. vSphere 4.x became 5.x but the question was exactly the same etc.

Next logical step is to either self study and/or attend VMware vSphere: Optimize and Scale [V5.0] (not compulsory) course in order to properly prepare for VMware Certified Advanced Professional 5 exam. Currently there is a choice of two paths leading from VCP5:

VMware Certified Advanced Professional on vSphere 5 – Datacenter Administration (VCAP5-DCA)

VMware Certified Advanced Professional on vSphere 5 – Datacenter Design (VCAP5-DCD)

There is no restrictions in place for not allowing you to take both exams and be certified on both VCAP’s – its perfectly fine to have both certifications. For me though its all about VCAP5-DCA for the time being and I shall carry on the momentum of studying from my recently passed VCP5!

What I really like about the VCAP exams is that they are 100% practical exams. No more ridiculous configuration maximums or other meaningless numbers – VCAP is all about pure practice and experience. Examples of problems to solve – vMotion is broken and VMs aren’t migrating between host A and B, go fix it. I can’t wait to sit the exam!