VMware VCP5 DTMany of you have heard of and probably even hold VCP certification. Five years ago this was the way to stand out of the crowd which was mainly dominated by people holding a Microsoft MCSE certification. Nowadays many IT professionals have a VMware VCP certification and you are just another certified professional in the crowd (although it has not devaluated as much as MCSE).

If, today, you want to stand out, you will have to specialize and VMware has several ways to do this. You can go for the Advanced Professional certification (VCAP) in three different categories:

  • Cloud;
  • Data Center Virtualization;
  • End User Computing.

I personally want to achieve the VCAP certification for Data Center Virtualization and End User Computing this year. Today I made the first step, I passed the VMware Certified Professional 5 – Desktop exam (VCP5-DT) with a score of 460 out of 500. I’m very pleased with this.

The VCP-DT 5 exam is a real in depth test of VMware Horizon View and it really requires you to be an expert at View, ThinApp and desktop virtualization. There is no class requirement for the VCP-DT 5 certification but it does require you to be a VCP 5 before you can take this exam. For this exam theoretical knowledge alone is not enough, you will have to know how it actually works in real life.

Preparation Hints

I used the VMware exam blueprint to prepare and to check for scenarios to execute in my View test environment. For the theory I used the VMware View Instructional Videos and the Practice Exam on the MyLearn page of the VMware site.

The exam covers a wide variety of topics that, as a View administrator, you’re expected to know. The main 4 section are the following:

  • Section 1—Install View server components;
  • Section 2—Configure the View environment;
  • Section 3—Create and configure pools;
  • Section 4—Implementation Troubleshooting.

From the sections above you will need to know the following:

  • how to install the various View components;
  • know the operating system and database prerequisites;
  • how to configure the various View components and the View environment;
  • how the various View components communicate (firewall ports)
  • know the vCenter, View, Composer right required;
  • know the configuration maximums for View 5;
  • understand how PCoIP and RDP work;
  • understand the various security features (e.g., role-based administration);
  • understand the use of certificates;
  • know how to create, configure and manage automated pools (both linked clones and fully provisioned virtual machines);
  • understand how to configure and manual local mode pools and desktops;
  • understand kiosk mode;
  • how to configure location based printing;
  • Understand Persona Management;
  • how to build good desktop OS sources;
  • understand application visualization with ThinApp;
  • know how to troubleshoot issues in the View environment.
The exam consists of 85 questions and you have 90 minutes to answer them all so plan your time carefully. I personally ‘flag’ the questions that I’m not sure of and continue. When at the end of the exam, I return to these questions. Also make sure that you actually read the question. This may seem like an odd statement, but I actually misread several questions and answered them in my enthusiasm to finish the exam.