Exam profile: VMware Certified Associate – Cloud Exam VCAC510

Date: Nov 25, 2013

This article profiles VMware's VCA-Cloud Certification. Pearson IT Certification provides a variety of preparation tools to help IT Professionals in their quest for certification. As part of our service to you, we have developed this Profile series. Each profile is developed based on the experience of one of our trainers or authors. You won’t get exact questions or answers, but you will get a real feel for the Certification. This certification profile describes question forms, trouble spots, hints for exam preparation, and recommendations for additional study resources. Find out what you can expect for this certification and how to best prepare for it.

The VMware Certified Associate—Cloud Exam (VCAC510) is a new, entry level exam designed to test basic understanding of VMware cloud infrastructure solutions. This exam is aimed at individuals with 1-2 years’ experience in the industry and is familiar with the VMware vCloud Suite. This exam will test individuals’ abilities to identify core components of the VMware vCloud Suite product suite and how they solve specific business challenges. The VCAD510 exam is an online exam available through Pearson VUE; you must firstrequest authorization from via VMware to be eligible for the exam.

The VMware Certified Associate—Cloud Exam is the only exam needed to achieve the VCA-Cloud certification. There is no prerequisite required to takes this exam; however, it is recommended to take the VMware Cloud Fundamentals course prior to this exam. The VMware Cloud Fundamentals course is a free 3-hour e-learning course provided by VMware. For more details about the VCA-Cloud exam and recommended course, please see the VCA-Cloud Exam Profile and the VCA-Cloud site from VMware.

Exam Details

Number of Questions: 50 questions, with a pre-exam survey of 5 questions.
Types of questions: Multiple choice; some questions will require only one selection while others may require two or more selections. Questions clearly state the number of required selections.
Passing Score: 300, on a scaled score of 100 to 500.
Time Limit: 75 minutes for the exam plus an additional 15 minutes to complete the survey and agreements.
How to register: http://mylearn.vmware.com/quiz.cfm?item=47428 and http://www.pearsonvue.com/vmware

Trouble Spots

In general, candidates should have thorough knowledge of all aspects of the exam blueprint (listed below), but there are a few objectives that could cause particular trouble.

This exam has a very wide breadth of areas that must be understood. One must have knowledge of all the products within the suite; this includes vCloud Director, vCloud Automation Center (vCAC), vCloud Operations Manager, and the rest of the suite of products. This is a large amount of knowledge required to be successful, not including the fact that vCAC is fairly new and not widely available.

Over and above that the concepts involved in multi-tenancy and vCloud Network and Security are challenging in and of themselves. Toss in vCenter Operations super-metrics, and there are quite a few trouble spots in this exam one must navigate.

Preparation Hints

My first recommendation is download the exam blueprint, as well as the administration guides for each product, and apply for exam authorization via VMware. Get the ball rolling and enable yourself to take the exam when you are ready. After that is complete take the free online course; its only three hours long and its free. There is no downside to partaking in that offer. Read through as many admin guides as you can to get an understanding of the products and what they do.

Another, often overlooked, resource available is all the online content provided for these exams. Pearson, VMware, and many others provide valuable content to assist you in obtaining certifications. This comes in the form of exam profiles, practice exams, and just overall advice.

Finally, download the free trial offerings provided by VMware and get familiar with the functioning of the product. Hands-on experience is always beneficial. Follow the exam blueprint and become familiar with its objectives in your lab.

Recommended Study Resources

Listed below are the recommended study resources, many have been previously described in detail:

Exam Objectives

The following information provides general guidelines for the content likely to be included on the exam. However, other related topics may also appear on any specific delivery of the exam. In order to better reflect the contents of the exam and for clarity purposes, the guidelines below may change at any time without notice.

Section 1—Explain Cloud Concepts and How They Solve Typical Business Challenges

Objective 1.1—Identify and Explain the Concept of Cloud Computing

Explain cloud computing concepts
Differentiate types of cloud computing services
Differentiate types of cloud implementations
Identify cloud computing benefits

Objective 1.2—Identify Common Business Challenges Addressed by VMware vCloud Solutions

Identify common availability challenges
Identify common management challenges
Identify common elasticity challenges
Identify common efficiency challenges

Section 2—Identify, Explain and Differentiate vCloud Technologies

Objective 2.1—Identify vSphere Components used in a vCloud Implementation

Explain the function of vSphere in a vCloud implementation
Identify vSphere components used in a vCloud implementation

Objective 2.2—Identify and Differentiate vCloud Director Features and Technologies

Explain multi-tenancy
Identify vCloud Director features
Explain the use of vCloud Organizations
Differentiate Provider and Organization Virtual Datacenters
Differentiate Resource Pool Allocation Models
Describe vCloud Director provisioning methods

Objective 2.3—Identify vCloud Automation Center Features and Technologies

Identify vCloud Automation Center features
Explain Policy-based provisioning
Identify Blueprint components

Objective 2.4—Identify vCenter Networking and Security Features and Technologies

Explain purpose of vCNS in a vCloud implementation
Identify vCNS components
Differentiate vCNS network services

Objective 2.5—Identify vCenter Operations Manager Features and Technologies

Explain the concept of a Supermetric
Identify vCOPS performance capabilities
Identify vCOPS availability capabilities
Differentiate management capabilities
Differentiate vCenter Operations Manager editions

Objective 2.6—Identify other vCloud Suite Technologies

Identify features and use cases of vFabric Hyperic
Identify features and use cases of vCenter Chargeback
Identify features and use cases of vCloud Connector
Identify features and use cases of vCenter Site Recovery Manager

Section 3—Correlate VMware vCloud Solutions with Specific Business Challenges

Objective 3.1—Apply VMware vCloud Solutions to Common Business Challenges

Apply VMware Cloud technologies to resolve common availability challenges
Apply VMware Cloud technologies to resolve common management challenges
Apply VMware Cloud technologies to resolve common elasticity challenges
Apply VMware Cloud technologies to resolve common efficiency challenges
Differentiate SMB and Enterprise challenges and solutions

Where to Go from Here

The VCA-Cloud certification is an entry level exam which can be utilized to springboard your career in to the cloud realm. This exam is useful if you are an experienced vSphere administrator looking to expand your career in to cloud environments. This exam will give you the confidence to pursue other VMware certifications to demonstrate your knowledge of cloud.

There are numerous resources for VMware certification on the Internet; and a good place to start is vmware.com/certification.