I passed VCE310 and all I got was this lousy T-shirt
Posted: July 19th, 2010 | Author: Fabio Rapposelli | Filed under: VCDX, Virtualization | Tags: VCDX, vce310, VCP, Virtualization, VMware | No Comments »
So finally my score sheet has arrived and it says “GRADE: PASS” 
It’s been a long ride, I had to fly to the UK to take this exam because it seems that Italy is really considered a third world country in terms of testing facilities, fortunately my Uncle lives in London so it was a nice excuse to stop by and say hello.
I arrived in Holborn early to complete all the registration mumbo-jumbo and then I started my exam. I completed it in almost two hours and what struck me the most was the Lab portion.
It was a MESS.
Not the questions, those were clever, and very straightforward, the problem was the infrastructure underneath:
- The same VI3 installation was used by MANY people before, and wasn’t cleaned up, there were leftovers all around and I don’t know if they have impacted the final score.
- The switch mechanism between the test and the lab was a real kludge, every time I clicked the switch button a large portion of the screen was unreadable, I had to resize a window on the screen and use it as a “wiper”.
- Loss of connectivity, a couple of times I had to stop working on an exercise because the connection with the lab was lost, very frustrating.
Said that, the “traditional” portion of the exam was clever, in my opinion the VCP exam should be more like the Enterprise Admin Exam, it’s more focused on real problems, commands and scenarios rather than recalling maximums from memory.
If you’re taking this exam (I doubt it since VCAP4-DCA exams are already out there) the BEST guide is the Exam Blueprint from VMware, also check out this blog post from the great Duncan Epping: VCDX Enterprise Exam prep material.
I hope to take the VCD310 Design Exam really soon, I’d like to make my Design Defense in 2010.
