VCP5 VMware Certified Professional on vSphere 5 Study Guide: Exam VCP-510 1st Edition

It's a good book that covers the Blue Print of the VCP5 exam in order however it could have been proof read much better, Chapter 4 (Plan and Configure vSphere Networking) has many errors when talking about vSwitches and DvSwitches, there are numerous times when the two are confused and he's referring to one type while the book is written with the others name. It's quite confusing for someone trying to learn from this book.Example: Page 195 "Note that in steps 6 and 7 of Exercise 4.18 you are choosing the options to move all virtual machines connected to the virtual machine port group on a vSwitch to a dvSwitch. In steps 13 and 14, you are choosing the options to move all virtual machines connected to the virtual machine port group on a vSwitch to a dvSwitch. In other words, you are reversing steps 6 and 7."This is just one example where it's confusing all over in this chapter. Definitely should have been proofread more and I can count at least 10 instances in this chapter where he's confused the two in writing. I hope there is a version 2 of this book that fixes these problems.

I have been using VSphere 5 Enterprise Plus for several months so I've had significant experience with it. I discovered that this book had been released a week before my scheduled exam. I sat down in my apartment and read the entire book and did all of the review questions over about 15 hours. When I took other practice exams I found that the book had got me about 90% of the way to passing. I used the excellent exam cram outline from Vidad Cosonok's blog and it filled in the gaps that I needed to pass the exam. I gave the book 4 stars instead of 5 for the gaps and the fact that the book format expected me to do long involved "labs" that seem to add little value. I recommend it for exam prep.

The book was very informative and I did learn a lot... however it doesn't cover all of the material for the newest exam which I just took (and barely passed). It comes down to one thing and this is uniform for all certs: never solely use one source for studying. I got the bulk of the newer material from another source. Overall the information was good but it could have been shortened by like 50 pages. For example, in the Troubleshooting chapter it takes a long paragraph in each section to tell us that we need to "get to the root source of the problem and figure it out." Well no s*** dude... thanks for telling me. Practically every section in that chapter had that section repeated with almost the exact same syntax in it. Those little wastes of half of the page sections reminded me of my high school days trying to squeeze a 3 1/2 page paper into a 5 page paper.

The content of the book is great. I was worried this book would have a lot of overlap with the Mastering VMware by Scott Lowe. I'm glad I bought both books. Both of these books are much better than the books provided by VMware in their official training classes.The on-line test is clearly half-updated from vSphere4. For example, the practice test claims RAID 10 is the only supported level for the storage appliance. VMware documentation says the appliance supports RAID 5,6, and 10. The questions were clearly not proofread by a native English speaker.

I loved this study guide as it is concise and straight to the point. The author does a good job of covering all of the topics that will be covered in the exam. I thought that the flow of the material was logical and well organized. There was a distinct direction that the guide is working towards and that is getting you as ready as possible to get your cert. As with any of these guides, this book is meant for people that have some exposure to vSphere and VMware. Thinking that you can come in blind to any OS or computer framework, read a book and pass an exam is foolishness. This guide, coupled with some studying and some real world experience will get you passed every time.Well done!

The book seems to basically cover what the VCP 5 exam will go over. However, it skips simple stuff and just expects you to know how to do it. For instance, Chapter 2 shows you how to install ESXi. Then Chapter 3 expects that you've already added it to vCenter. However, it doesn't go over how to add it or even tells you to actually do it.I did learn some stuff, but not a lot since there is not much in depth detail.Just seems to skim the surface of the basics of vSphere and I don't think with this book alone you'd pass the exam.

This is a great book that follows the test objectives pretty much verbatim as they appear from VMWare. There are good labs to help you with the material being discussed as you are going through the book. You will have to do a bit to get a lab environment set up depending on the hardware you have to work with, but it is not impossible. Only criticism that I have of this book is that the last sentence in most sections says what will be covered in the next session which in most cases is on the same page. It is redundant and only adds to the amount of reading.

Took the training course and the instructor said that this is the ONLY solution for preparing for the certification exam. It is quite dense. I wish it came with a CD that I could use to take more practice tests on the computer. It does have exam-style questions at the end of each chapter that are fairly comprehensive.

I have a few VMWARE books and this is probably one of the only books I have read that actually has labs you can use to learn. For me, this is invaluable even when you compare to other more popular books by Scott Lowe Master VMware Vsphere 5 and others. For this reason I am going to rate it a 4. What is lacks though is more depth in discussing various topics so as a book you can come back to for reference material, there are probably better books out there. However, overall, this book gives a excellent overview of VSphere 5 and its features. All I am saying is that it lacks that level of detail which would give it 5 stars.Brian Atkinson has done an excellent job in my opinion with this book. He has the ability to describe steps so they are easy to understand. He also covers just about every aspect of VSphere 5 that everyone should know. You learn by doing and if you want a book that actually has labs for you to follow, this book is for you.

This book is full of useful labs and will definitely get you through the exam however, it is written in such a way that the reader feels like they are reading a manual. The writer needs to engage the reader more and talk to the reader in a way that reflects a conversation. This book is like one of those lectures you attend that is full of bullet points and great information but very hard to get through. If you are looking for an exam study book, it's 5 out of 5, if you're looking for a long term resource, 1 out of 5.

This book isn't the most entertaining thing in the world but, well, it's a study guide. If I wanted entertaining I'd read a fiction book.It does exactly what it says on the tin. Content-rich, perhaps a little dry, but a great book for those looking to obtain their VCP certification and wanting all the information they could need in one single place.

What you Expect from a Manual

Happy with purchase