Well, with one day to spare before the "return of the class requirement" I have wrote and passed my VCP 5 exam. I thought,  just as many others have,  I would share my experience and thoughts around the exam.

First off I have read countless blog posts about how the VCP 5 was much harder and more difficult than the VCP 4. Personally I did not find this to be the case. Now maybe its the fact that I have another year of experience with vSphere under my belt or maybe I was simply better prepped this time around but I didn't see too much of a difference between the exams.  No, I don't know when VMware released different revisions of the VCP 4 exam, but I thought the style of questions that i seen on my VCP 4 last summer to be similar to the style that i seen yesterday on my VCP 5. And by style i mean more of a type of questioning revolving around experience with the product than just spitting out configuration maximums, In fact I cant remember one config max question at all!

So that being said my advice for those pursuing the VCP 5 would be to get as much experience with the product as you can, whether that be real world experience or lab experience. Also, use the resources that the community has created. Their is some absolutely awesome material available for free along with some that can be purchased.  Aside from all of the official vSphere 5 documentation the resources that I mainly used are listed below…

• My own OMG Study Guide – This was probably the most useful to me, as it kind of forced me to study every aspect of the blueprint.  If you are studying, I would recommend using all these resources and creating your own blueprint notes
• Jason Langer's and Josh Coen's Study Guide – Again, this is an awesome resource!  I've praised it many times!  Go through this before you write.
• Forbes Guthrie's notes – This guy is a note/reference machine!  Check out his VCP notes along with all of this reference cards.
• Andrea Mauro's VCP Study Guide – Similar to al of the other study guides but each one has a different take.
• Simon Long's Practice test – you can't think of a practice test without thinking of this guys blog.  Great to see where you are at in terms of knowledge.
• Damian Karlson and Cody Bunch's Brownbags – get these and watch them.  They did a great VCP 5 series with each webinar focused on a section of the blueprint.
• Trainsignal's VMware vSphere 5 Training – David Davis and Elias Khnaser do an awesome job at breaking down every single thing vSphere 5 has to offer.  I would recommend picking this up.
• Scott Lowe's Mastering VMware vSphere 5 – This is a great book not only for your VCP 5 studies but for your day to day management of vSphere.  Get it!

Again, these are just a few resources of thousands that are out there.  Get connected with the community and get certified!  Good Luck!