Long story short, I passed.

Exam was fair, tougher in my opinion than the VI3 exam which is a good thing since I managed to pass that exam without ever having used ESX, Virtual Center, etc outside of the required training course. There were a lot of good questions in the VCP4 exam that require you to actually know how to use ESX, vCenter, Update Manger, etc and not just be able to recall facts or figures. That said, it’s well worth studying the configuration maximums and install, administration, upgrade guides, etc as many questions also come from there. I heard there was less memory test type questions (like configuration maximums) in this exam but I definitely got a few in my questions set.

I was time poor in studying for this exam and really would have liked more practical knowledge of vSphere before going into it. The study resources I previously posted about were brilliant. Simon Long’s blueprint links and Forbes Guthrie’s vReference card are outstanding resources and I found myself continually going back to them. Know the exam blueprint and study what it indicates you should study.

But most importantly, to understand vSphere and what the exam wants you to know, you need to use it. So download ESX 4, vCenter, Update Manager, VMware Data Recovery and get them setup in a lab and use the 60 days of evaluation period to really understand how it all works. You might not be able to do everything (not everyone has FC, iSCSI and NFS boxes lying around), but most features you can get a good overview of by setting up a single host or even better two virtualized hosts.

Since VMware are allowing currently certified VCP3′s to do the VCP4 exam before December 31, 2009 without having to take the Install, Configure, Manage course AND are offering a free 2nd shot [link], I have booked in my exam. Giving myself about 2 weeks to study the new stuff in vSphere / vCenter Server and refresh everything VI3.

Study will be based around the following:

• VCP4 Exam Blueprint - By far the most important since the exam is based on what’s in this
• Simon Long’s vSphere Study Notes – Also based around the blueprint inlcuding links to content on most of the blue print sections
• VMware Communities Certification Forum – Lots of good questions and answers
• vSphere 4 Study notes at vReference - From an upgrade point of view a good, well, reference.
• VCP Mock Exams – Not really as a study tool, more as a diversion or memory refresher

Beyond that I’ll get some practical time in running up ESX hosts, building vCenter, using Update Manager, trying to test as much as possible of the new features (vMware FT, Distributed vSwitches, DPM, etc).