I finally sat the VCAP5-DCA exam on Friday a week ago, way overdue and necessary before I can start teaching the vSphere Optimize and Scale course.
My experience was similar to many others and similar to my experience with the version 4 exam. There are a heap of resources out there including the vBrownBags and many vExpert’s writings.
My one piece of advise is to not use the vSphere client from inside the vCentre VM, as I did for most of the exam. There is a vSphere Client shortcut in the launcher that is the first thing you see in the lab. Always use the vSphere Client from the launcher, it is way more responsive and paints the screen more reliably compared to inside the RDP connection to the other machines. If I’d taken this advice I would have had another half hour more time to do real work on my answers.
great advice. i made the mistake of using the vsphere client within the rdp session & wasted at least 30 minutes watching the screen refresh!