BitConf 2018 – recording

I had a great pleasure talk about Pivotal Container Services with Jarosław Gajewski at the BitConf 2018 in Bydgoszcz. Awesome experience!

 

 

VCAP: CMA 7 Exam experience

This week finally I took and passed VCAP CMA7 exam and upgraded to VCDX CMA 7! Here are some tips for those who want to take this exam.

Form

There has been a massive change to the form of the exam. The Visios are gone! It is now multiple choice exam like VCP. As a non-native speaker, I had 130 min to answer 60 questions. This included few drag and drops.

Learning tips

Read the blueprint carefully and don’t underestimate the importance of good foundations of design principles. The exam is not solely based on your technical knowledge. questions. Make sure you know the VMware Design Framework. The one that talks about design qualities and also design factors. Worth checking  Paul McSharrys VCAP5-DCD Official Cert Guide book!

Having all this in mind also don’t get surprised when asked very detailed technical questions. Like the ones that you would get in Deploy exams. Make sure you know the new features of 7.x inside out. No, the knowledge of vRA6 will not do :). Also, remember that it is all based on 7.2 version!

Overal Experience

I have very mixed feelings about this exam. I must admit that VCAP 6 CMA Design was quite a controversial topic within the community… I dare to say that questions were not formed correctly and contained a lot of ambiguous statements (no it was not my English 🙂 natives said the same). I think when we talk about the technology there is no place for this. If objects within a product have their names stick to it, don’t use synonyms. All those issues are gone with VCAP 7 CMA Design. Definitely a big plus. Second thing was that I was never sure if my connections in the Visios were working? The performance was pretty OK but I have always left without confidence that it worked properly :).

For the bad, I had a big respect for VCAP exams as it was a differentiator 2-3 years ago. Today this exam feels too much like VCP (did not take VCP though as I can go directly to VCAP having VCDX credentials). Obviously, the scope is different.

I would like to hear your experience, so please comment!

Learning materials:

  • Official VRA7 ICM Training book
  •  All vRA,vRO 7.x and NSX HOLs
  • Paul McSharrys VCAP5-DCD Official Cert Guide book]]
  • vRA 7.2 Reference Architecture
USERCONF 2018 Warsaw!

USERCONF 2018 Warsaw!

So this is official now! Will be presenting “The Power of RestAPI” in VMware USERCON 22th February in Warsaw! Expect content on both vSphere 6.5 as well as vRA, vRO and NSX!

Can’t wait to see u there! And thanks to the leaders for the invite!

2017 summary and plans for 2018

So the Year 2017 is ending and it is time to sum up my career goals. Thanks for my morning (5am) wakeup routine I have managed to achieve the following:

Achieved:

  • VCDX6: CMA
  • VCAP6: CMA
  • AWS Certified Solution Architect
  • Presenter at VMware conferences
    • VMUG Krakow
    • VMUG/UserCon Warsaw
    • CloudInfra Warsaw
  • Presenter at vBrownBag Webinar

Moved to 2018

  • VCDX7: CMA
  • AWS Certified SysOPS

New for 2018

  • AWS Certified Developer
  • AWS Certified Solution Architect Professional
  • NSX for Big Boys Webinar
  • Presenter at VMworld
  • Presenter at UserCon

Also, I have a number of  Sport-related goals. This year I did half-marathon and started doing windsurfing so in 2018 I aim for:

  • 150 workouts that I will post on tweeter
  • Another half-marathon
  • Do my first windsurfing planning
  • Drop weight to 110 kg

This list will be extended in the course of the year.