lunes, 20 de abril de 2015

VCIX-NV exam experience, some closer to VCDX!!

Hello hogs,

this is mi first post since I left for a while my blog due lots work and deliveries (not pizza or something like that to be precise), well  I have the need to write some thoughts about my experience on VCIX-NV exam, first, I notice that by the moment I pass the exam I was the first guy to passed in LATAM, at least this was a rumor I heard, anyway, what to say, I'm a little closer to my biggest dream in this sick and sad life : VCDX!!!

Lest point some important things about the exam whit care of NDA that I signed in order to present the exam, first of all the Blue Print is the king, the exam is a practical one with a kind of live  lab where you are connected in and have 18 tasks to complete, it is based on NSX-V only, and every single deep dive detail at least from my point of view is tested, to be honest I have not any kind of latency or something like that, everything was OK, just for a couple of nano-freeze I experienced, but nothing else, since English is not my second language they gave me 30 mins extra, and if this is your case you will need it, I take a couple of caffeine pills and some water just before the exam, because this exam doesn't have any kind of coffee break or bio break o whatever you call it, so caffeine pills and red bull are your friends!!

about the exam

The exam if good enough to test if you know about theory and much about practice, for example in my case I doubt at the beginning and this take me 45 mins just to repair my lab exam for myself, so be careful about what are you doing and if something is not in the right place you have two ways, try to repair yourself and continue the other tasks or cry as a baby and complaint Pearson.
Read one two three times the tasks, the indication are there and no more, for me this was like make some troubleshooting but against the clock, so you don't have time to waste and the only source to seek for a clue is your brain and preloaded with the knowledge, so please read careful.
 

Resources and prep

Since I felt in love with NSX, It was a kind of natural flow from VCP-NV to VCIX-NV, I used the Hands Of Labs from VMware to practice in some way, at least the day before exam I made  HOL-SDC-1425 and 1403 labs, I used the official Blue Print but I'm a kind of lazy so I used this one:



from Martijn Smit, and by the date of writing this post he put all the guide in pdf file!!!!

Many of my fellows ask about the dump I used to pass thie exam but sadly for them there is none so .|. , and hope some day this kind of cheats disappear, anyway so here is my personal recipe to pass: practice, read, try to understand, understand, practice again, and then practice again, easy like my college professor said : even a monkey can pass the exam with this recipe.

Tips and tricks

  • I was in paranoid mode, well I'm always in that mode, so use the two clients the web client and the c# client as well for some tasks, don't know why some refresh are faster with this.
  • Try to complete almost everything, if you don't know the answer to the whole task you (I guess) get points for sub-tasks completed.
  • Review all the tasks, some of them are related and some can be done parallel, and for parallel I mean that using web client you can have two or three tabs in different tasks at same time or just for  don't mix the panes for same sub-task to complete, for example if you are in web client power up a vm in another tab same web client you can have shutting down other vm.
  • Try to power up almost every single VM you don't know when you are going to need them and this takes a while and the wait for booting is psychological stressing .
  • Try to proof your completion of task, if you have enough in your mind to do it, this means in some tasks if you know what are you doing you will figure out how to auto proof for your self if this is ok or not, in some tasks this is required as well.
  •  Try to break the HOL, since it is conducted by a lab guide, you are free in this environment to break it, and the troubleshooting to repaired, think what happen if I break this and that.

the way out

If possible try to build your own lab, and spend some time playing with,  this save my ass in some things to remember, and just practice when possible from scratch, and please anything to help you to achieve this goal just let me know!!

Best of the lucks, but you know what? if you practice, you won't need it.

let the VCDX journey begin!!








No hay comentarios: