Tips for passing VMware Certified Professional exam

StickyHOME, vSphere with K8s,

Towards the end of last year, I had passed VMware Certified Professional (VCP DV 2021) exam. As I shared my experience on other 2 exams I had passed i.e. VCF specialist and vSphere with Tanzu specialist, I wanted to even share my experience around VCP certification exam as well but due to various reasons my blog post focused on it got delayed. Today I thought let me complete this series with this post. Lets get going!

VMware Issued Badge

Tips for passing this exam as per my experience

  1. As I did for other 2 posts in this series, first thing you must be clear in your mind is that why do you want to write this exam? As I posted in my earlier posts, I love going through learning journey and exam/certifications are just one of the milestones in that journey. Of course, I align them with my short term or long term goals. I had written about Why I choose to target exams. I highly recommend you read that 7 line section. Let us now focus on VCP certification.
  2. One of the key things forced me to write VCP 2021 exam was the fact that even I had passed VCF and vSphere with Tanzu specialist exams  “VMware Certified Specialist – vSphere with Tanzu 2022” as well as VMware Certified Specialist – Cloud Foundation 20, we do not get respective badges if we do not have VCP certification (any one of the tracks)
  3. While I was forced to write VCP exam (I chose to go with VCP DCV track as that is what I have been more experienced), I am 100% glad that I did. Since my earlier VCP was on vSphere 5.0 release, going through official courses on vSphere 7.0, I realized that so much is changed over the years.
  4. As per the VCP DCV certification criteria posted on official site, we are required to undergo one of the trainings but since official site recommended 2 courses (while one is enough), I decided to complete 2 courses i.e. VMware vSphere: Install, Configure, Manage [V7] – On Demand and VMware vSphere: Optimize and Scale [V7] – On Demand . As vSphere has been one of the primary products I work on, I thought let me deep dive on the few areas of the vSphere those I did not get enough on the job experience. If you are new to vSphere, joining live class is better over on demand class as you can focus 100% all the time over 5 days but if you have time constraints, then on demand works well.
  5. Since I completed both the courses, it was quite comprehensive preparation. Both of these courses have many modules and lessons, going through them required lot of patience but I enjoyed. In fact, it was very close to how I run half marathon or 100 km cycle ride, I think its same mindset and resiliency required during such learning journey. If you are already familiar with particular modules, at times you can speed up with 1.5x or 2.0x speed.
  6. I was fascinated by the amount of details each module around vSphere. In fact, being one of the senior engineers in my team, it has been helping me lot as more often than not I now need to think vSphere as a complete product and not few components within it as it was the case in the past as a junior engineer. Comprehensive preparation helping me when I work on other integrated solutions/offerings such as VCF, vSphere with Tanzu, VMC as well.
  7. Apart from going through 2 courses I mentioned, solving small mock tests at the end of each module and my existing experience working on vSphere platform, I need not have to go through anything else.
  8. After passing the exam, I personally felt both courses are not required. If you have some hands on experience on vSphere platform, you should be good with either VMware vSphere: Install, Configure, Manage [V7] – On Demand or VMware vSphere: Optimize and Scale [V7] – On Demand .
  9. If you have read my blog post series on VCF, Tanzu exam, tips posted there could be handy as well. I would suggest to skim through them as both of these posts are very well received by VMware community i.e. VCF specialist and vSphere with Tanzu specialist
  10. When I passed VCP DCV exam, within few days VMware issued all the badges i.e. VCP DCV, VCF specialist & vSphere with Tanzu in one go and it was great feeling to have these badges. You can view all the VMware badges I have received so far.
My badges

What is next

Below are few of the certifications I am looking forward to achieve.

  1. Newly launched VCP-AM : i.e. VCP on Application Modernization
  2. Certified Kubernetes Administrator i.e. CKA
  3. VCP NV

Happy learning ! I hope this post was helpful, please share with others as appropriate and you can follow me on Twitter for upcoming posts or feel free to DM me for any queries.

Tips for passing vSphere with Tanzu specialist exam

StickyHOME, vSphere with K8s, , ,

In the past, I had shared preparation tips/guidance on VMware cloud foundation (VCF) and VMware Cloud on AWS specialist exams. In this post, I am going to share preparation guidance for passing vSphere with Tanzu specialist exam. In fact, recently couple of VMware community friends reached out to me to understand what it takes to be “vSphere with Tanzu” specialist, I thought same would be useful to larger VMware community, hence this post. Let’s get going..

Below is what VMware official statement says about specialist badge holders, how cool is that !

The VMware vSphere with Tanzu 2021 specialist badge holder knows about how vSphere with Tanzu can be used to orchestrate the delivery of Kubernetes clusters and containerized applications in a vSphere environment. This badge holder possesses extensive knowledge on deploying and managing VMware vSphere® with Tanzu.

My badge

My experience and tips

  1. First thing you must be clear in your mind is that why do you want to write this exam. For me, getting comprehensive view of the vSphere with Tanzu from customer/user perspective was important as it is directly aligned with one of the key focus areas in my day to day office work . Also, vSphere with Tanzu is one of key foundational areas under bigger Tanzu portfolio. As I posted in my earlier posts, I love going through learning journey and exam/certifications are just one of the milestones in that journey. I had written about Why I choose to target exams. I highly recommend you read that 7 line section. Let us now focus on vSphere with Tanzu specialist exam.
  2. There is a 3 day official course on “vSphere with Tanzu” available on demand or live as well. On demand course is available on customer connect portal.
  3. If you are working at VMware, I think you have free access to customer connect portal. In addition, course and lab material is available on internal vault portal. Please reach out to me if you need help on the same.
  4. One important thing to note that passing this exam itself does not require you to undergo the official course. If you have enough hands on experience configuring vSphere with Tanzu with NSX-T & also with vSphere Networking (with AVI LB or HAproxy), you can go ahead and write this exam.
  5. When I say hands-on experience, it is about deploying & configuring from scratch and have performed all day 1 and day 2 operations as a vSphere admin as well as Dev/Devops persona.
  6. Since my focus at job was also on vSphere with Tanzu, I had enough hands on experience but I chose to undergo 3 days training as well, which definitely helped me connecting all the dots in my overall understanding of the solution. However, if you could not undergo the course due to various reasons, it is all right to directly write the exam as long as you already have gained enough hands on experience
  7. While writing exam itself does not require you to undergo course but in order to achieve the certification “VMware Certified Specialist – vSphere with Tanzu 2022” , you must be done with course as well as you must be VCP-DCV certified.
  8. In my case, I first completed the on demand course & passed this exam. Since my existing VCP was expired, I got re-certified on VCP 2021 (Last time I had passed VCP was whopping 9 years back when I was intern) to satisfy certification requirement.
  9. Since I completed my certification requirements in late last year, my certification was vSphere with Tanzu 2021 but there is no difference between 2021 and 2022 from course content perspective at the moment.
  10. Finally one fine day schedule the exam through PearsonVue portal, you should be good. I usually prefer scheduling exams early in the morning to avoid any distractions during exam time. All the best !

What is next?

If you already passed vSphere with Tanzu specialist and now looking for next learning milestone around VMware Tanzu or Kubernetes in general , I would suggest below 2 certifications.

  1. Newly launched VCP-AM 2022 : i.e. VCP on Application Modernization
  2. Certified Kubernetes Administrator i.e. CKA

I hope this post was helpful, please share with others as appropriate and follow me on Twitter for upcoming posts or feel free to DM me.