VMware VCAD510 exam retired in 2017. We are continuing to make this content available for those who wish to use it to study the foundational information it contains.
Trust the Official Cert Guide series from VMware Press to help you learn, prepare, and practice for exam success. They are the only VMware-authorized self-study books and are built with the objective of providing assessment, review, and practice to help ensure you are fully prepared for your certification exam.
- Master VMware certification exam topics
- Assess your knowledge with chapter-opening quizzes
- Review key concepts with exam preparation tasks
- Reinforce your learning with web-based practice exams
- An excellent "fundamentals" book on vSphere
The Official VCA-DCV Certification Guide presents you with an organized test preparation routine through the use of proven series elements and techniques. “Do I Know This Already?” quizzes open each chapter and enable you to decide how much time you need to spend on each section. Exam topic lists make referencing easy. Chapter-ending Exam Preparation Tasks help you drill on key concepts you must know thoroughly.
The Official VCA-DCV Certification Guide focuses specifically on the objectives for the VCA-DCV, the VMware Certified Associate on Data Center Virtualization exam (VCAD510). Experts Matt Vandenbeld and Jonathan MacDonald share preparation hints and test-taking tips, helping you identify areas of weakness and improve both your conceptual knowledge and hands-on skills. Material is presented in a concise manner, focusing on increasing your understanding and retention of exam topics.
Well regarded for its level of detail, assessment features, comprehensive design scenarios, and challenging review questions and exercises, this official study guide helps you master the concepts and techniques that will enable you to succeed on the exam the first time.
The official study guide helps you master all the topics on the VCA-DCV exam, including the following:
- Datacenter virtualization: What is it and what are the components?
- Business challenges solved by virtualization
- Core components of vSphere: the virtual machine, ESXI, high availability
- vSphere storage, including physical versus virtual, storage types, thin provisioning, and more
- vSphere networking fundamentals, physical versus virtual switches, components, policies, I/O
- Mapping business challenges to vSphere solutions
The Official VCA-DCV Certification Guide is part of a recommended learning path from VMware that includes simulation and hands-on training from authorized VMware instructors and self-study products from VMware Press. To find out more about instructor-led training, e-learning, and hands-on instruction offered worldwide, please visit www.vmware.com/training.
Author Bios:
Matthew Vandenbeld (VCDX-DC, VCDX-CLOUD, VCAP-DCD/DCA, VCAP-CID/CIA) is a Solutions Architect in the Global Center of Excellence at VMware. His role is to create solutions pertaining to the Software Defined Data Center (SDDC), train experts in delivering SDDC solutions, and assist in high-end escalations. Matt is passionate about virtualization and in assisting the development of others in the industry. He participates at VMUG events, participates in community podcasts, and maintains a blog at cloudmatt.com and the twitter handle @vcloudmatt.
Jonathan McDonald (VCAP5-DCA, VCAP5-DCD, VCP-Cloud, VCAP-CID)is a Senior Solutions Engineer at VMware, involved in the development of validated solution architectures, comprehensive professional services and scalable deep technical training as a part of the Professional Services Engineering group of VMware Global Services. Jonathan regularly speaks at VMware conferences and workshops sch as VMworld, Tech Summit, VMUG, and Customer Support Days) as well as other industry events. He has also participated in the development of VMware’s VCP- and VCAP-level content for Datacenter and Cloud certifications.
Table of Contents:
About the Authors xiii
Dedications xiv
Acknowledgments xv
About the Reviewers xvi
We Want to Hear from You! xvii
Reader Services xvii
Introduction xviii
Chapter 1 Datacenter Virtualization 3
“Do I Know This Already?” Quiz 3
Foundation Topics 6
What Is Virtualization? 6
Datacenter Components 7
Compute 8
Storage 9
Why Virtualize? 11
Optimization 11
Availability 12
Management 13
Scalability 14
Summary 15
Exam Preparation Tasks 16
Review All the Key Topics 16
Definitions of Key Terms 17
Chapter Review Questions 17
Chapter 2 Business Challenges 21
“Do I Know This Already?” Quiz 21
Availability Challenges 24
What Is Availability? 24
Common Business Challenges 25
Hardware Availability 25
Application Availability 26
Maintenance 26
Environmental Availability 26
Management Challenges 27
What Is Management? 27
Common Business Challenges 28
Datacenter Management 28
Provisioning Management 29
Compliance Management 29
Scalability Challenges 29
What Is Scalability? 29
Common Business Challenges 31
Infrastructure Scalability 31
Virtual Machine and Application Scalability 31
Optimization Challenges 32
What Is Optimization? 32
Common Business Challenges 33
Monitoring Optimization 33
Efficiency Optimization 33
Performance Optimization 34
SMB Versus Enterprise Challenges 34
Size of the Company 34
Summary 36
Exam Preparation Tasks 37
Review All the Key Topics 37
Definitions of Key Terms 37
Review Questions 37
Chapter 3 vSphere Components 41
“Do I Know This Already?” Quiz 41
Foundation Topics 45
Virtualization Concepts 45
Virtual Resources 45
Processor 46
Memory 46
Hard Disk 47
Network 47
Virtual Machines 48
Hypervisors 50
ESXi Hosts 50
Others 51
Managing Resources 51
vCenter Server 52
Clusters 53
Managed Hosts 53
Clusters of Hosts 53
Resource Pools 54
Distributed Resource Scheduler 55
DRS Scheduling Functions 55
Distributed Power Management Functions 56
High Availability and Disaster Recovery 57
VMware High Availability 57
VMware Fault Tolerance 59
VMware Application High Availability 60
vSphere Data Protection 61
VMware vCenter Site Recovery Manager 62
vSphere Replication 64
Migration 64
vMotion 65
Storage vMotion 66
Physical to Virtual 67
Other VMware Datacenter Software 68
vCenter Operations Manager 68
vCenter Confi guration Manager 70
Summary 70
Exam Preparation Tasks 71
Review All the Key Topics 71
Definitions of Key Terms 72
Review Questions 72
Chapter 4 vSphere Storage 77
“Do I Know This Already?” Quiz 77
Foundation Topics 81
Physical Versus Virtual Storage 81
Direct Attached Storage 82
Network Attached Storage 83
Storage Area Network Array 83
Storage Protocols 83
Filesystem Types 84
NFS 84
vSphere Datastores 84
vSphere Datastore Clusters 85
Virtual Machine Disk Types 86
VMDK 86
RDM 87
Storage DRS and Storage I/O Control 87
SDRS 87
Storage Policies 89
Other vSphere Storage Technologies 90
vSphere Storage Appliance 90
Virtual SAN 90
vSphere Flash Read Cache 91
Virtual Volumes 91
Availability 91
Disaster Recovery 92
vSphere Data Protection 93
vSphere Replication 94
Summary 95
Exam Preparation Tasks 96
Review All the Key Topics 96
Definitions of Key Terms 97
Chapter Review Questions 97
Chapter 5 VMware vSphere Networking 101
“Do I Know This Already?” Quiz 101
Foundation Topics 104
Physical Versus Virtual Networking 104
VMware Virtual Switches 106
Virtual Standard Switch 106
Distributed Virtual Switches 109
Third-Party Virtual Switches 111
vSphere Networking Components 111
Portgroup 111
VMKernel Network Adapter 116
Network Input/Output Control 117
Quality of Service 119
NetFlow 119
Summary 119
Exam Preparation Tasks 120
Review All the Key Topics 120
Definitions of Key Terms 120
Chapter Review Questions 120
Chapter 6 Virtualization Solutions That Solve Business Challenges 125
“Do I Know This Already?” Quiz 125
Foundation Topics 128
Availability Challenge Solutions 128
Solutions to Availability Challenges 128
Solving Common Business Challenges 129
Hardware Availability 129
Application Availability 129
Maintenance 130
Environmental Availability 130
Management Challenge Solutions 131
Solutions to Management Challenges 131
Common Business Challenges 131
Datacenter Management 132
Provisioning Management 132
Compliance Management 133
Scalability Challenges 133
Solutions to Scalability Challenges 133
Common Business Challenges 134
Infrastructure Scalability 134
Virtual Machine and Application Scalability 134
Optimization Challenges 135
Solutions to Optimization Challenges 135
Common Business Challenges 135
Monitoring Optimization 136
Efficiency Optimization 136
Performance Optimization 137
SMB Versus Enterprise Challenge Solutions 137
Size of the Company 138
Summary 139
Exam Preparation Tasks 139
Review All the Key Topics 139
Key Technologies 140
Review Questions 140
Appendix A Answers to the “Do I Know This Already?” Quizzes and Chapter Review Questions 143
Glossary 153
About the Author :
Matthew (Matt) Vandenbeld is a dual VCDX, obtaining the certification inboth Cloud and Data center (VCDX-DCV, VCDX-CLOUD). He also holds VCAP-DCD/DCA/CID/CIA and many other industry certifications. He is currently a Solutions Architect in the Global Center of Excellence at VMware. His role is to create solutions pertaining to the Software Defined Data Center (SDDC), train experts in delivering SDDC solutions, and assist in high-end escalations. Matt is very involved in the VMware community; he regularly attends VMUGs in his region, blogs at cloudmatt.com, participates in community podcasts, and is active on Twitter (@vcloudmatt). Matt is passionate about virtualization and assisting the development of others in the industry.
Jonathan McDonald is currently a Senior Solutions Engineer at VMware, participating in the development of validated solution architectures, comprehensive professional services, and scalable deep technical training as a part of the Professional Services Engineering group of VMware Global Services. He has been with VMware since 2005. Prior to joining Professional Services Engineering, Jonathan was a Staff Technical Support Engineer with VMware Global Support Services, specializing in the vCenter product and supporting technologies. In this role, he dealt with customer escalations, mentoring, and interactions with the internal product engineering teams. Through these different functions, he was able to provide not only reactive support for in-depth technical problems, but also proactive support by trending on the most commonly experienced problems and providing this information to engineering. Jonathan regularly speaks at VMware conferences and workshops (VMworld, Tech Summit, VMUG, and Customer Support Days) as well as other industry events. Jonathan is a great supporter of VMware Certifications, having completed 17 VMware technical certifications since 2006. He has also participated in the development of VMware’s VCP- and VCAP-level content for Data center and Cloud certifications.
