I recently sat and passed the VMware Certified Advanced Professional 6 — Data Center Virtualization Design (VCAP6-DCV Design) exam and am now a VMware Implementation Expert 6 – Data Centre Virtualisation (VCIX6-DCV) having previously passed VMware Advanced Professional 5 – Data Centre Administration (VCAP5-DCA) exam. I have never studied so hard for an exam before – I attended the VMware vSphere: Design and Deploy Fast Track [V6] course, read several books, viewed quite a few videos, read countless VMware documentation and quite a few blogs too.

This exam is made extremely hard by the inclusion of design questions where the candidate creates Visio style designs based on the requirements given, I believe VMware have got rid of the Visio style questions in the 6.5 version of the exam. The difficulty is not due to the questions being particularly hard but due the fact VMware expect the design to be done in a certain way. The marking is automated and done by a script I suspect so if you haven’t done the design exactly as VMware expect you will lose marks.

I have included the resources I used and some tips below.

Resources

Designing VMware Infrastructure by Scott Lowe
https://app.pluralsight.com/library/courses/designing-vmware-infrastructure/table-of-contents

VMware vSphere: Design and Deploy Fast Track [V6]
https://mylearn.vmware.com/mgrreg/courses.cfm?ui=www_edu&a=one&id_subject=66253

VMware vSphere Design
https://www.amazon.co.uk/VMware-vSphere-Design-Forbes-Guthrie/dp/1118407911

VMware vSphere 6.x Datacenter Design Cookbook – Second Edition
https://www.amazon.co.uk/VMware-vSphere-Datacenter-Design-Cookbook/dp/1785283464/ref=pd_lpo_sbs_14_img_1?_encoding=UTF8&psc=1&refRID=4W46HA0K92X3NTFDDVW6

VCAP5-DCD Official Cert Guide: VMware Certified Advanced Professional 5-Data Center Design
https://www.amazon.co.uk/VCAP5-DCD-Official-Cert-Guide-Certification/dp/078975018X/ref=pd_sim_b_5

vBrownBag VCAP6-DCV Design Series
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL2rC-8e38bUXAB-VaBem953POgFDrk-Iw

Practice Exam (VCAP5-DCD)
http://www.virtualtiers.net

VSAN 6.0 Design guide
http://vmusketeers.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2016/12/VSAN_Design_and_Sizing_Guide_6.0.pdf

Exchange 2013 on VMware best practices guide
http://vmusketeers.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2016/12/Exchange_2013_on_VMware_Best_Practices_Guide.pdf

VMware – Network Segmentation in Virtualized Environments
https://www.vmware.com/content/dam/digitalmarketing/vmware/en/pdf/techpaper/network_segmentation.pdf

VMware SDCC Product Applicability Guide for HIPAA/HITECH
https://www.vmware.com/content/dam/digitalmarketing/vmware/en/pdf/products/product-applicability-guide-hipaa-hitech-technical-guide.pdf

VCAP6 Design Tips, Tricks and New Features
http://www.thecloudjar.com/vcap6-design-tips-tricks-and-new-features/

Scoring for VCAP6 Design Exams
http://www.thecloudjar.com/scoring-for-vcap6-design-exams/

VMware vSphere Distributed Switch Best Practices
https://www.vmware.com/content/dam/digitalmarketing/vmware/en/pdf/techpaper/vsphere-distributed-switch-best-practices-white-paper.pdf

VMware vCenter Server 6.0 Deployment Guide
http://www.vmware.com/files/pdf/techpaper/vmware-vcenter-server6-deployment-guide.pdf

vSphere Installation and Setup Guide
https://www.vmware.com/support/pubs/vsphere-esxi-vcenter-server-6-pubs.html

Configuration Maximums
http://www.vmware.com/pdf/vsphere6/r60/vsphere-60-configuration-maximums.pdf

vSphere Availability Guide
https://www.vmware.com/support/pubs/vsphere-esxi-vcenter-server-6-pubs.html

vSphere Resource Management Guide
https://www.vmware.com/support/pubs/vsphere-esxi-vcenter-server-6-pubs.html

vCenter Server and Host Management Guide
https://www.vmware.com/support/pubs/vsphere-esxi-vcenter-server-6-pubs.html

vSphere Virtual Machine Administration Guide
https://www.vmware.com/support/pubs/vsphere-esxi-vcenter-server-6-pubs.html

vSphere Storage Guide
https://www.vmware.com/support/pubs/vsphere-esxi-vcenter-server-6-pubs.html

vSphere Networking Guide
https://www.vmware.com/support/pubs/vsphere-esxi-vcenter-server-6-pubs.html

vSphere Security Guide
https://www.vmware.com/support/pubs/vsphere-esxi-vcenter-server-6-pubs.html

Virtualizing Business-Critical Applications on vSphere
https://www.vmware.com/content/dam/digitalmarketing/vmware/en/pdf/whitepaper/solutions/vmware-virtualizing-business-critical-apps-on-vmware_en-white-paper.pdf

Tips

Read the questions carefully, read it more than once if you need to. The last paragraph includes instructions on how to connect the elements together, follow this strictly even if the design looks messy.

Quite a lot of the questions are drag and drop, do the ones you know the answers to and mark for review the ones you are not sure about – you can come back to these.

There is plenty of time so take your time doing the design questions, don’t rush and make silly mistakes.