1.0 VCAP-DCA Study Guide - Overview

Posted on 07 Feb 2011 by Ray Heffer

If you are an existing VMware VCP then you are probably already aware of the VCAP-DCA exam which is why you’ve landed here. There are two VCAP certifications available, the DCA (Datacenter Administration) and DCD (Datacenter Design). Just a few days before writing this post, VMware announced the new Desktop Certification Program, the VCA-DT (VMware Certified Associate, Desktop), VCP-DT and VCAP-DT. This is great news as it strengthens the VMware certification even further with a recognition into the valuable skills a desktop virtualization specialist will have.

I intend to share my study guides, based on what you need to know with essential learning points. If you are studying for this exam then I will assume you are already a VCP, and I would be surprised if you don’t already know the difference between different RAID levels. With that assumption in mind, I will also guess that you are not that comfortable (like me) with commands like esxcfg-mpath. It is not my intention with my study notes to regurgitate the exam blueprint, but I will follow the order and provide key learning points for each topic.

The VCAP-DCA is the next step for most VCP’s that have set their sights on the VCDX, so I intend to start collating my study resources here for my own reference and others to share. These resources are intended to compliment a lab environment as the VCAP requires a huge amount of lab study.

1. First, get the latest Blueprint from VMware
2. Attend official VMware training for the VCAP-DCA.
3. Check out the VMware training videos by TrainSignal.
4. Get a collection of PDF’s to read, here are my some suggestions to get you started!

Note: Make sure you have a copy of the latest VCAP-DCA blueprint which outlines the topics you need to be comfortable with in order to take the VCAP-DCA exam.

• vSphere 4.1 Configuration Maximums
• VMware vCenter Server Performance and Best Practices for vSphere 4.1
• Configuration Examples and Troubleshooting for VMDirectPath
• Configuring VMDirectPath I/O pass-through devices on an ESX host
• How to Configure NPIV on VMware vSphere 4.0
• VMware Storage Best Practices
• Best Practices for Configuring Virtual Storage
• Performance Best Practices for VMware vSphere 4.0
• VMware Multipathing with the SAN Volume Controller and the Causes of SCSI-2 Reservation Conflicts
• Fibre Channel SAN Configuration Guide
• iSCSI SAN Configuration Guide
• Performance Characterization of VMFS and RDM Using a SAN
• VMware VMFS Volume Management
• ESX Configuration Guide (RDM, Storage Filters, Resignaturing)
• Masking a LUN from ESX and ESXi 4.x using the MASK_PATH plug-in
• vSphere Command-Line Interface Installation and Scripting Guide (good section on LUN masking)
• Identifying disks when working with VMware ESX
• Storage Workload Characterization and Consolidation in Virtualized Environments

VCAP4-DCA Exam Format

• Lab: 210 minutes and 40 lab tasks. vCenter server, ESX hosts, vSphere vMA, SSH client (PuTTY)
• Scoring: Scored on lab assessment
• Where: PearsonVUE
• Materials: vSphere 4 PDF documentation
• Results: Within 10 days