Last Thursday while on vacation in Tucson, Arizona, I sat the VMware Certified Associate – Workforce Mobility exam (exam code VCAW510). This is the third of three currently available VCA level exam I’ve attempted in the last three weeks. I wrote about the previous VCA exam experiences here and here.
VMware’s take on VCA-WM preparation:
There is no training requirement, however there is a free, self-paced elearning class that can help you prepare.
VMware summarizes the VCA-WM certification as follows:
With the VCA-Workforce Mobility certification, you’ll have greater credibility when discussing workforce mobility and end-user computing, the business challenges that VMware Horizon Suite is designed to address, and how deploying the Horizon solution addresses those challenges. You will be able to define workforce mobility and provide use case scenarios of how Horizon and workforce mobility can deliver freedom, flexibility, and manageability while connecting people to their data, applications, and desktops.
VMware further explains that a successful candidate who passes the VCA-WM will realize the following benefits:
- Recognition of your technical knowledge
- Official transcripts
- Use of VCA-WM logo
- Access to the exclusive VCA portal & logo merchandise store
- Invitation to beta exams and classes
- Discounted admission to VMware events
- Greater opportunities for career advancement
Once again, I recognize two additional benefits to this exam experience:
- The exam can be taken online from any location with a compatible internet web browser and an internet connection
- By virtue of the above, coffee is available in the exam room – those who know me know this is a perk
Chris Wahl has a new blog post introducing The New VMware Certified Associate (VCA) Exams. His video includes VCA exam background, preparation, as well as step by step instructions covering exam registration.
Length for native English speaking vGeeks is 50 questions in 75 minutes. Both multiple choice and multiple select style of questions. VMware’s exam summary was consistent with my exam experience. While I don’t design and manage VMware VDI environments on a daily or even semi-regular basis, I’ve managed one in my own lab for the past few years and I’m familiar with all of the components in the Horizon Suite. I expected this exam to be slightly more difficult than the VCA-DCV exam but a little easier than the VCA-Cloud exam based on my overall experience with all technologies involved. Basically, knowledge is needed about each of the features in the Horizon Suite and what is appropriate and where from a product/solution positioning standpoint. In a word, this exam was frustrating. I felt good about all of the straight forward questions addressing features and functionality and plowed through those quickly. However, I encountered about a dozen questions of a particular style in which I wasn’t quite sure what was being asked based on the answers provided. Without explicitly divulging test questions, the ask was to identify an infrastructure or business challenge that would need to be addressed in order to deploy a given VMware Horizon Suite solution. That is the way each of the questions of this style was worded. While that is all well and good, the answers provided seem to discuss areas that the resulting Horizon deployment would implicitly address, rather than areas that needed to be addressed prior to a deployment – and in many cases, each of the provided answers were correct to a degree. For each, I chose the closest answer but again I didn’t feel any of the answers fit the wording of the question being asked. I left comments on each of the questions I felt weren’t clear and I also grabbed screenshots of each of these questions which I may reference should VMware wish to contact me regarding my comments.
The laptop I was taking the exam suffered an Internet Explorer crash four times and I had to resume the exam each of the four times. The test engine appeared to handle these scenarios well.
Now… I will move on to the VCAP5-DCA which I’ve been blowing off successfully since its launch. That exam is scheduled for early November (earliest available slot at my nearby exam centers) with a 70% off voucher, again thanks to my friends on Twitter.
