So here is the skinny on taking the vSphere 6 Foundations Exam (2V0-620). The first thing that should be noted is that it is a non-proctored exam which means you take it wherever you want that has internet access. You do not have to go to a testing center and no one is watching you take the test. Nice! PearsonVue delivers the test. Upon paying for the exam, you can start the test immediately, or you can take it within the next 72 hours, which gives you the luxury to take it whenever whenever your brain is at its best. The Foundations exam contains 65 questions, which is not as many as previous exams, but this doesn’t make it any easier. The VMware website shows the duration to be 90 minutes but when I signed up, the PearsonVue site showed 75 minutes.
Because the test is non-proctored, you might be tempted to approach it as open book and not study as much as for a closed book exam. You could just look up the answers to the questions you don’t know right? Not so fast! (I mean that literally) With only 75 minutes to answer 65 question, you are not likely to be able to look up the answers fast enough to finish before time runs out. I recommend you take some time to study beforehand.
With all VMware exams, the first place to start when preparing is the Exam Blue Print. It provides details on the exam objectives and the publications that contain the corresponding information. Parsing through the Blue Print, here is the list of guides that should be read in preparation for the exam:
- What’s New in vSphere 6.0 – Platform
- vSphere Installation and Setup Guide
- vSphere Availability Guide
- vSphere Storage Guide
- vSphere Server and Host Management Guide
- vCenter Server and Host Management Guide
- VMware vCenter Server™ 6.0 Deployment Guide
- vSphere Networking Guide
- Administering VMware Virtual SAN
- What’s New: VMware Virtual SAN 6.0
- vSphere Virtual Machine Administration Guide
- vSphere Administration with the vSphere Client Guide
- vSphere Resource Management Guide
- What’s New in VMware vSphere Flash Read Cache
- VMware vSphere® Data Protection™ 6.0
- vSphere Data Protection Administration Guide
- VMware vSphere® Data Protection™ Evaluation Guide
- vSphere Troubleshooting Guide
- vSphere Monitoring and Performance Guide
- VMware vCenter Operations Manager Getting Started Guide – vSphere UI
- VMware vCenter Operations Manager Getting Started Guide – Custom UI
- VMware vCenter Operations Manager Administration Guide (Custom UI)
- vCenter Operations Manager Evaluation Guide
That’s a lot of reading! We are talking more than 1000 pages out of which 65 questions were pulled. What is a person to do?
After taking the test, let me suggest you shorten the list. You will get the most bang for your effort by reading these:
- vSphere Administration with the vSphere Client Guide
- vSphere Availability Guide
- vSphere Monitoring and Performance Guide
- Administering VMware Virtual SAN
- vSphere Networking Guide
- vSphere Upgrade Guide
These guides don’t cover everything on the exam but they will help with a large number of the questions. The side benefit is that these guides cover information useful to vSphere administrators and are helpful references when you are working on your production systems. Happy exam taking!
