My VCAP6-CMA Design (3V0-632) Beta Exam experience

VCAP6-CMA Design

I took my VCAP-CMA Design beta on the 11th of March, which was the last available day to sit for the exam. It was my first ever VCAP exam and my first ever beta, two firsts there. Ever since I started working on VMware technology and gradually moved to designing and implementing the cloud suite of products, I have always wanted to have a go at the advanced level certifications. What stopped me? The reason is that I did not want to do my VCAPs in DCV, and the cloud track did not cover vCAC which was the core of what I was working on. So I thought it was worth waiting till the changes are made to the exam track.

Talking about the experience, it was a not a great one. I totally understand how it feels to sit for a VCAP and complain that you didn’t have enough time to answer all the questions. Though I knew the exact number of questions and split of visio and drag’n’drops, I ran out of time and had to answer many questions in a hurry. I went with a strategy of tackling the drag and drops first and then moving on to the visio ones. This helped me a lot as I did not have to switch between different types of questions and end up wasting time. Obviously, like most beta exams the questions were not perfectly crafted. There were questions which had a single option repeated, some had wrong options while some did not have enough data. The exam had 12 visio based questions and 27 drag and drop questions, 39 in total. The visio questions ranged from some very basic ones to some complicated designs but nothing too crazy.

My suggestion for the future test takers is not to miss anything in the exam blueprint, as every small topic is important. I also referred to the vRA reference architecture guide, which has good info on different kinds of cloud deployments. I have heard that the “VMware Cloud Automation: Design and Deploy Fast Track [V6.0]” covers most of the topics for the exam and is a recommended course. All this, and the hands-on experience on the cloud suite of products, of course.

The tentative date for the VCAP6 exams to go live is sometime in May and the beta exam results will also be announced around the same time. I will have to wait till then to see if I made it through *Fingers crossed*.

Image sources:
https://mylearn.vmware.com/mgrReg/plan.cfm?plan=89141&ui=www_cert

7 comments Add yours
  1. I was planning to do my VCAP CMA but did not pursued as i did not find many production installation of vRA. Do you think in current scenario where everybody is going for Public Cloud because its simple and easy to operate a Virtual DC in Cloud, Companies would like to go for vRA as private cloud. Do you think vRA will gain momentum in coming months or companies will go for openstack.

    1. vRA is one of the best cloud automation software there is, in the private cloud market. Thousands of customers use vRA in their environment. And no organization can have their complete workload in public cloud due to compliance and organizational policies. So a private cloud or a hybrid cloud approach is what works in most cases. That said, you are free to learn and pursue any technology you feel helps you grow professionally.

  2. Hi Abhilash,

    So did you clear it? I am planning to appear for VCAP Design, My voucher is a generic one so I could appear for Design or Deploy, which would be preferred according to you? I went through D&D training as well as I have been working on vRA and vRO from past 2.5 years.
    One thing i noticed with VMware products is none of the real world deployments use the products as VMware intends them to be. All my 3 clients have never use application services and always bake the application in the template. There are alot of such things which would affect my decision in the exam. Any thing around this that you could suggest?

    -Rishab

    1. No, I did not clear the beta exam. I sat for the exam today and I cleared it.

      I cleared my Design first as it is the tougher of the two. I agree that there are a lot of different ways to do a design. The exam, unfortunately, expects you to stick to a particular format. If you are more of a hands-on person you will feel Deploy is easier and if you do a lot of design and solutions development you’ll feel design is easier.

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