Earlier this week a new blog post was released by VMware Professional Services and Education Insights detailing New Digital Badges which were available for vSAN and vRealize Operations.
Here is the official description of a VMware vRealize Operations 2017 Specialist:
The VMware vRealize Operations 2017 Specialist is a technical professional who plans, manages and helps scale software-defined data center (SDDC) and multi-cloud environments through unified monitoring, automated performance management, cloud planning and capacity optimization. The badge holder helps organizations streamline and automate IT operations from applications to infrastructure across physical, virtual and cloud environments.
As I primarily work on vRealize Operations with customers and hold the title of Technical Lead for vRealize Operations – EMEA in my day job at VMware, I decided to take the qualifying exam in order to obtain the digital badge but also to help backup my existing knowledge of the product.
Eligibility + Preparation
In order to be eligible for the Specialist designation you must hold a current VCP6 or later across any solution track (DCV, CMA, NV).
To prepare for the exam, you should have a good understanding of vRealize Operations and know your way extensively around the product in order to have the best chance of success. If you do not have good experience with vROps you are recommended to take the VMware vRealize Operations Manager: Install, Configure, Manage [V6.2] course.
As with other exams, your 1st point of call should be the Exam Preparation Guide (EPG) which details the objectives and areas of the product which you should focus on.
Note: The exam focuses on all versions of vRealize Operations up to and including 6.5, however it DOES not have any content around 6.6 at this time.
Exam Format
The exam is delivered online so you do not need to visit a Testing Center like with other exams, this meant I was able to set aside a few hours and sit the exam which was convenient. To pass the exam you have to get a score of over 300 as with all other VMware exams.
The exam consisted of 60 questions and I had around 2 hours to complete them. The exam topics for the most part matched the EPG objectives however there were a few curve-balls which required a bit more thought.
I am happy to say I passed the exam and am just waiting for my digital badge from Acclaim to be released so I can share this across my social media platforms.
–Lukas
lukaswinn.net 
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