VMware VCAP-DCV Design Exam Survival Guide

Window: Global | Advanced design exam (~60–70 Q / 150 min)

Must-do topics

• Requirements → Constraints → Assumptions → Risks mapping
• Compute: cluster sizing, DRS/HA admission control, N+1/N+2, reservations/limits
• Storage: vSAN/VMFS/NFS design, SPBM policies (FTT, RAID), IOPS / latency SLOs
• Networking: vDS, NIC teaming, LACP, MTU, multi-tenant VLAN/NSX overlay basics
• Availability & DR: RPO/RTO targets, SRM/replication, stretched clusters, witness
• Security/ops: roles/permissions, certificates, lifecycle (vLCM), monitoring

Top traps (avoid)

• Confusing requirements (must) with constraints (limits) in design justifications
• Overbuilding HA without admission control math
• vSAN policies that don’t meet SLA (e.g., wrong FTT/RAID for failure domains)
• Ignoring DNS/NTP dependencies and identity/SSO design
• Picking tech without mapping to business outcomes

Time split

• ~2–2.5 min/Q; read scenario → extract non-functional requirements first

Last-48h checklist

• HA/DRS settings & admission models; isolation response
• vSAN SPBM table; witness/stretched design patterns
• Design doc skeleton: Requirements → Design → Risks → Mitigations
• Capacity planning quick math (CPU/RAM/IOPS)

Quick facts

• DRS = balance; HA = restart; FT = continuous (limited use)
• vSAN = policy-driven; storage policy defines placement
• SRM uses recovery plans; test without disrupting production
• vLCM standardizes image baseline across hosts

Speed tactics

• Answer with why: tie config to requirement or risk mitigation
• Prefer simplest design meeting SLA/OLA; note trade-offs explicitly
• Eliminate choices that violate dependencies (DNS/NTP/identity)

Day-of mini-plan

• Warm-up: sketch a small 4-host cluster design with SPBM
• Underline business goals in each case; choose configs that meet them
• Leave 10 min to review risk/assumption mismatches