Two weeks ago I passed the VMware Validated Designs for Software-Defined Data Center 2017 Exam (5VB-101). In this blog post, I am going to describe my experience and give you some first-hand tips for passing this VMware Validated Design exam.
In my case, I got 120 minutes because I’ am not a native English speaker. I had to score at least 300 points of the maximum 500 points. I
You can compare this exam to a VMware VCP exam. It looks and feels for 80% the same. The biggest difference is that the exam is about all the products inside the VMware Validated Design. So it is kind of a mix between Datacenter Virtualization (DCV), Network Virtualization (NV) and Cloud Management Automation (CMA).
After passing the exam you are not done yet! You need to perform a VMware Validated Design deployment and get it signed off by the customer. Then you need to perform an interview with the VMware Education team. The details can be found on the VMware Education page.
VMware VVD – Exam Tips
So what do you need to know?… The exam itself is purely focused on the VMware Validated Design version 4.0! Get this through your head… only 4.0! This means you are dealing with the following software versions:
- VMware ESXi – 6.5 a
- vCenter Server Appliance – 6.5 a
- vSphere Update Manager – 6.5 a
- vSAN – 6.5
- VMware vSphere Replication – 6.5
- VMware Site Recovery Manager – 6.5
- NSX for vSphere 6.3
- vRealize Automation – 7.2
- vRealize Orchestrator – 7.2
- vRealize Orchestrator Plug-in for NSX 1.0.4
- vRealize Business for Cloud – 7.2
- vRealize Operations Manager – 6.4
- vRealize Operations Management Pack for NSX for vSphere – 3.5
- vRealize Operations Management Pack for vRealize Log Insight – 1.0.1
- vRealize Operations Management Pack for vRealize Automation – 2.1
- vRealize Operations Management Pack for Storage Devices – 6.0.5
- vRealize Log Insight – 4.0
- vRealize Log Insight Content Pack for NSX for vSphere – 3.5 vRealize
- Log Insight Content Pack for vSAN – 2.0
- vRealize Log Insight Content Pack for vRealize Automation 7 – 1.5
- vRealize Log Insight Content Pack for vRealize Orchestrator – 7.0.1+ 2.0
- vRealize Log Insight Content Pack for vRealize Operations Manager – 6.x 1.7
- vRealize Log Insight Content Pack for Microsoft SQL Server – 3.1
- vSphere Data Protection – 6.1.3
A couple of items were a surprise to me because I realized you can just ask anything about any product in the VVD. A couple of interesting subjects were:
- Hardware requirements
- Recovery of the entire platform
- VMware licensing
VMware Validated Design – Study Material
An interesting video related to the VMware Validated Design (VVD) exam is this “What’s New” video. This video is created by VMware to get a introduction to the VVD 4.0 version. There is just a lot of information that you need to know for the exam. It covers all the components and all the changes they did for version 4.0.
Sources:
Here is a list of valued web pages and articles that I used for studying for the VVD exam. Most articles are directly from the VMware website, there is not a lot of information about this exam on blogs or other media:
- VMware Validated Designs for Software-Defined Data Center 2017 – Page
- VMware Validated Designs for Software-Defined Data Center 2017 Badge Exam (5VB-101) – Exam Preparation Guide
- VVD 4.0 – Release Notes
- VVD 4.0 – Poster
- VVD 4.0 – Main page
- VVD 4.0 – Migration
- VDD 4.0 – Certificate Generation Utility
- VVD 4.0 – Certificate Replacement
- VVD 4.0 – Decision Checklist
- VMware Solution Enablement Toolkit – VMware Validated Design for SDDC (only available for partners)
Final word
In the blog post, I cover the VMware VVD Exam that is a nice to have for your badge and certification collection. I don’t think it is as valued as a VCP or VCAP exam in the market but still, it’s another certification.
At the moment I still need to pass the signing off by a customer and the interview with the VMware Education Team. I will probably update this article in a later stage when I completed these steps and share my experience.