VMware Certified Advanced Professional Data Center Administration – v5
I am currently working on my VCAP5 DCA preparation. I will compile my study notes/references here as a VCAP5 DCA Study Guide and I will be updating this page with reference to the exam objectives. So first of all what is VCAP DCA ? The details of this exam is mentioned in the official VMware link here.
Current VCAP5 DCA path is shown below , courtesy VMware.com.
As per the path mentioned above if you are current VCP4/VCAP4 DCA and then you pass the exam before 9th October 2012 then you will also get the VCP5 certification along with the VCAP5 DCA.
Every exam has a certain set of criteria on which the exam is based upon , same is the case with the VCAP5 DCA and the exam evaluation criteria are clearly mentioned in the exam blueprint. You can download the blueprint from VMware Mylearn account. Once you have the blueprint you can start the exam preparation.
This exam requires hand on expertise and there is no alternative to Hands on Lab, so if you are lucky and have hardware to play with well and good else you can head over to AutoLab project by Alastair Cooke so that you can do all the labs from your laptop. So now lets begin the journey and all the best to everyone appearing.
VDCA511 Section 1 – Implement and Manage Storage
Objective 1.1 – Implement and Manage Complex Storage Solutions
Knowledge
- Identify RAID levels
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RAID
- Identify supported HBA types
- Identify virtual disk format types
Skills and Abilities
- Determine use cases for and configure VMware DirectPath I/O
http://kb.vmware.com/kb/1010789
http://www.vmware.com/files/pdf/techpaper/vsp_4_vmdirectpath_host.pdf
- Determine requirements for and configure NPIV
http://www.simonlong.co.uk/blog/2009/07/27/npiv-support-in-vmware-esx4/
- Determine appropriate RAID level for various Virtual Machine workloads
http://www.yellow-bricks.com/2009/12/23/iops/
- Apply VMware storage best practices
http://www.vmware.com/technical-resources/virtual-storage/best-practices.html
http://www.vmware.com/pdf/Perf_Best_Practices_vSphere5.0.pdf#page=11
http://www.vmware.com/pdf/Perf_Best_Practices_vSphere5.0.pdf#page=30
http://www.vmware.com/pdf/Perf_Best_Practices_vSphere5.0.pdf#page=41
- Understand use cases for Raw Device Mapping
http://www.vmware.com/files/pdf/performance_char_vmfs_rdm.pdf
- Configure vCenter Server storage filters
http://www.yellow-bricks.com/2010/08/11/storage-filters/
- Understand and apply VMFS resignaturing
http://kb.vmware.com/kb/1011387
- Understand and apply LUN masking using PSA-related commands
http://kb.vmware.com/kb/1009449
- Analyze I/O workloads to determine storage performance requirements
http://www.vmware.com/pdf/Perf_Best_Practices_vSphere5.0.pdf#page=11
http://www.vmware.com/pdf/Perf_Best_Practices_vSphere5.0.pdf#page=32
http://kb.vmware.com/kb/1006821
Objective 1.2 – Manage Storage Capacity in a vSphere Environment
Knowledge
- Identify storage provisioning methods
- Identify available storage monitoring tools, metrics and alarms
Skills and Abilities
- Apply space utilization data to manage storage resources
- Provision and manage storage resources according to Virtual Machine requirements
http://kb.vmware.com/kb/1006821
http://www.yellow-bricks.com/2009/12/23/iops/
- Understand interactions between virtual storage provisioning and physical storage provisioning
- Apply VMware storage best practices
http://www.vmware.com/technical-resources/virtual-storage/best-practices.html
http://www.vmware.com/pdf/Perf_Best_Practices_vSphere5.0.pdf#page=11
http://www.vmware.com/pdf/Perf_Best_Practices_vSphere5.0.pdf#page=30
http://www.vmware.com/pdf/Perf_Best_Practices_vSphere5.0.pdf#page=41
- Configure Datastore Alarms
http://pubs.vmware.com/vsphere-50/topic/com.vmware.ICbase/PDF/vsphere-esxi-vcenter-server-50-examples-scenarios-
guide.pdf#page=92
https://jeremywaldrop.wordpress.com/2010/01/24/vmware-vsphere-vcenter-storage-alarms/
- Analyze Datastore Alarms and errors to determine space availability
http://communities.vmware.com/thread/257031
- Configure Datastore Clusters
Tools
vSphere Storage Guide
vSphere Command-Line Interface Concepts and Examples
vCenter Server and Host Management Guide
Product Documentation
vSphere Client / Web Client
vSphere CLI
- vmkfstools
- vdf/df
Objective 1.3 – Configure and Manage Complex Multipathing and PSA Plug-ins
Knowledge
- Explain the Pluggable Storage Architecture (PSA) layout
http://kb.vmware.com/kb/1011375
Skills and Abilities
- Install and Configure PSA plug-ins
- Understand different multipathing policy functionalities
- Perform command line configuration of multipathing options
- Change a multipath policy
- Configure Software iSCSI port binding
Tools
vSphere Installation and Setup Guide
vSphere Storage Guide
vSphere Command-Line Interface Concepts and Examples
Product Documentation
vSphere Client
vSphere CLI