VCDX

My VCDX Journey - Fourth time's a charm!

I'm proud to be able to say I'm now VCDX #197. It seems somewhat of a tradition to write one of these, so despite the count of VCDX's reaching two hundred I'll have a crack. I started writing a blog entry back in 2012 when I originally embarked on this, but never finished it or hit publish.  Through the power and elephantine memory of Google here it is:

What led me here?
I recently received my VCAP-DCA result, appropriately enough, right after I presented a session at VMworld, and unexpectedly passed - I hadn't even answered all the questions before running out of time and knew I'd not scored on a couple.  Little did I know that was normal.  I'd already passed DCD, having taken the beta November 2010, so felt with both, plus a lot of time invested in pre and post sales vSphere consulting, that going for it and trying to make the final VCDX 4 defense in Frankfurt is worthwhile.  These days I'm no longer a consultant, instead part of the VMware alliance team at F5 Networks, which is great, but means it's going to take a long time to develop the depth of both architectural and real world understanding that I think are required of the VCDX - so waiting for version 5 doesn't appeal.  VMware are also going great guns enhancing the products with every release, so there's more to cover with each too, it just gets harder.
Reminds me a lot of the CCIE program back in the day - I took it twice, in 2001 and 2002, right when it contained the kitchen sink of networking:  DLSW, IPX, Token-Ring, Appletalk, VoIP, ATM, in addition to all the IP protocols.  VCDX is very different and to some degree you can self-select your specialties in choosing what to include in your submitted design, but still has that tendancy to get broader and broader, whilst remaining just as deep.  Of course you'll get questioned in the defense on whatever you didn't include too.

Back to present:
I didn't get to Frankfurt, I was too slow at getting it all together, but did submit and defend in Burlington May 2012. I now know that I was very close to passing but didn't, so I defended again in Barcelona in October 2012 and again missed, I suspect by further than the first time.
Roll forward a couple of years, my wife and I had a daughter the following year so VCDX was pushed off the stack for a while. Joining the GCoE pre-sales team at VMware in February of '14 things changed, the team was half VCDX's already and our manager made it clear he'd like the whole team to attain it.
I'd been working on a design already as my old one was vSphere 4 so no longer eligible, and I wanted to incorporate NSX. I was probably two-thirds done with the design and had only outlined the operations and implementation guide. The suggestion was made to do a group submission, with us each playing to our strengths in the sections we write and lots of review, and the pure division of labor, targeting the PEX 2015 defense round.
Working as a group wasn't perfect - we were all in different timezones for a start, and the group decision to go for the Cloud track not ideal for me, but we got it done. We were accepted and February rolled around, I did a horrible job in the defense. I was not expert on the material and nerves ate me up, I barely touched the white board and generally did a poor job of demonstrating the skills of a VCDX. Two of us passed though so I couldn't blame the panel nor the submission.
I was determined to go again as soon as I received the result, and used the experience of the defense to improve the design - there were decisions I couldn't justify because I didn't think they were good and plenty of contradictions and typos that had escaped the ten or so reviews. I'd also labbed lots of vCD in the interim, for me no amount of reading can substitute for hands-on time and researching all the tough questions from the first defense had led me to lots of background I had been missing; expert means expert and I had some holes. The defense was much easier for it, though still nervous I could remember enough to not feel like an idiot, and white board a bunch of stuff too. Still finished feeling I'd failed again but after four times I think that's normal.
My advice after all of this? Go for it, it's worth doing for the knowledge you develop along the way if nothing else. Though I'm a bit of a certification collector (I have worked for channel partners so was paid to) I find vendor certs to be a useful training/development path. I didn't anticipate having to persevere quite so long on this, but the two year break and track change contributed, CCIE took me two attempts too, if something's worth doing it's not going to be easy.
As to the VCDX itself, you need to be an expert on the material, both on your own design and the process of getting to a logical design for a fictional customer. Every decision must be justified by the requirements and constraints! If you're anything like me you need to have enough knowledge of it all that when your performance is impaired by nerves you can still demonstrate enough of it to clear the bar.
Up next? Well as a networking guy I'd rather like to get the VCDX-NV, and every two years after renewing my CCIE (with the Data Center exam last year), I toy with idea of taking another lab...
With respect to Walmart my version of their motto would be 'Always be learning. Always'