The infamous, dreaded “don’t let your VCP lapse” email hit my inbox back in July 2017, reminding me that I had until January 2018 to renew my certification. There are 3 ways to avoid expiration according to current VMware recertification rules:

1. Upgrade to VCAP
2. Update with the latest VCP exam
3. Certify in a different technology track

I chose option #2, taking the VCP6.5-DCV Delta Exam (code 2V0-622D).

Yay – just passed VCP-DCV 6.5 Delta Exam. Not super hard, but a few tricky questions as usual… I feel I could have done better, not much time to prepare. Anyway, a Pass is a Pass! ? pic.twitter.com/l6FUrneEpA

— Danilo Chiavari (@DaniloChiavari) January 12, 2018

The Exam

There are 70 questions (5 more than the previous delta exam I took) and you are given 105 minutes to complete the exam. Most questions are pretty quick and don’t require too much thinking, so time is not really a problem in my opinion. I was able to finish the exam with still roughly 30 minutes left – and I took my time while answering, reviewing carefully at the end questions I was unsure about.

Just like the VCP6-DCV delta exam I took two years ago, questions were balanced in my opinion: not too hard, not too easy and quite evenly distributed across topics, both old and new. Another returning pattern: only a few questions, at least in my case, were related specifcally to vSphere 6.5. There were of course questions about vSAN 6.x, but I had also a few questions about very basic HA/DRS and resource reservation concepts! All in all, I can say I liked this exam being consistent with the previous one in terms of content.

A few questions were about upgrade scenarios and processes, which is useful and only fair in my opinion. There were also some design / planning type of questions and some related to troubleshooting (such as log locations or potential misconfigurations). I noticed a decrease of purely mnemonic questions – a welcome change for sure.

Questions were all very clear and polished, as far as I can remember. This avoided confusion, such as multiple answers potentially being correct, incorrect wording or spelling/grammar errors. Since this exam has been around for at least 9 months now, I believe it matured and underwent a few revisions over time.

Useful Resources

Preparation is a must and having a lab to play with is very highly recommended – nothing new here. VMware provides a nice and free study guide to prepare:

• Official VCP6.5-DCV Delta Exam Preparation Guide (also accessible from the “Additional Resources” section in the bottom of the exam’s page on mylearn.vmware.com)

Unfortunately, I found out a practice/mock exam is not offered for free anymore – it is provided by MeasureUp and can be purchased on the VMware Certification Marketplace for 109 $ (USD) at the time of writing.

BUT – community to the rescue! As usual, some fine individuals in the blogosphere kindly prepared learning and preparation materials, available for free:

• VCP6.5-DCV Study Guide (also valid for the delta exam) by Vladan Seget
• VCP6.5-DCV Practice Exams by Simon Long

This section wouldn’t be complete without some recommended Hands-On Labs (HOLs) to spin up while preparing for the exam! The ones I found most useful are:

• HOL-1811-04-SDC – vSphere Security – Getting Started
• HOL-1811-01-SDC – vSphere v6.5 – What’s New
• HOL-1808-01-HCI – vSAN v6.6 – Getting Started

I hope this little post can be helpful to someone out there. Good luck!