A Journey to VMCE 2024 Certification: What I Learned and How You Can Pass

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You know that feeling when you’ve been staring at your screen for so long that your hot beverage has gone cold three times? That was me, preparing for the Veeam Certified Engineer (VMCE) 2024 exam. But guess what? I passed! And I’m here to share my experience, including the good, the bad, and the “why didn’t I study this more?” moments.

The Exam at a Glance

First things first, let’s talk about what you’re getting into:

60 questions (60 multiple choice items, 50 of which are scored and 10 of which are unscored, “seeded” items)
60 minutes to complete (I got 30 minutes extra as a non-English speaker)
Passing score: The Veeam Certified Engineer V12 exam uses a scoring scale of 300—9002 with a cut score of 720.
Proctored online or at a testing center

Remember that: The VMCE certification is documented proof that an administrator or engineer has the necessary level of expertise to protect an organization’s data with the Veeam Data Platform. So, you need to take The Veeam Backup & Replication v12.1: Configure, Manage, and Recover (VMCE) training course before the exam registration. Find an authorized education center near you from here.

See more about the exam guide from here.

I opted for the online proctored exam because, well, who doesn’t love taking tests in their pajama pants? (Pro tip: wear a professional top though – they do check!)

What’s Actually on the Test

Here’s what kept me up at night studying:

Backup Infrastructure

Remember playing with Legos as a kid? This is kind of like that, but with enterprise backup components. You’ll need to know:

Backup proxy deployment and scaling
Repository types and their use cases
Scale-out Backup Repository (SOBR) configuration
Backup server installation requirements

Backup Methods and Features

This is where things get interesting. You’ll dive into:

Different backup methods (Forever Forward, Forward Incremental, Reverse Incremental)
Synthetic operations (because who doesn’t love a good synthetic full backup?)
Various restore options (Instant VM Recovery, file-level recovery, etc.)
NAS backup specifics

Job Configuration and Best Practices

The meat and potatoes of the exam:

Backup job configuration
Replication job setup
Backup copy jobs (my personal favorite)
SureBackup and SureReplica

My Study Strategy

Here’s what worked for me:

Hands-on Lab Time: I used Veeam’s official hands-on lab for some advanced features and new products that I didn’t use. Plus my own experience managing my real environment.
Documentation Deep Dive: Veeam’s documentation is pretty good (and I’m not just saying that because I passed). I particularly focused on:
- User guides
- Best practice guides
- Release notes (yes, really!)
Practice Tests: I took every practice test I could find. Some were harder than the actual exam, which helped boost my confidence.

The Big Day

Picture this: It’s exam day. I’ve taken a nap before the exam time to power myself up. My webcam is positioned just right, and my desk is cleaner than it’s been in years.

The actual exam experience was… surprisingly smooth. The questions were clear, and while some were tricky, none felt unfair. Time management was crucial – I marked uncertain questions for review and came back to them later.

Tips and Tricks

Focus on the Why: Don’t just memorize settings – understand why you’d choose one option over another. (This is an important one and helped me a lot)
Read the Scenarios Carefully: Some questions are sneaky and include important details in the scenario text.
Think Practically: Many questions are based on real-world scenarios. If you’ve done the hands-on practice, these will feel familiar.
Don’t Panic: If you hit a tough question, mark it and move on. You can always come back later. And also, don’t feel that you missed something. When you come back, you will find that it was familiar but needs some time to focus.

Next step….VMCA

The VMCA certification is the highest level of Veeam certification and demonstrates that an individual possesses a high level of both technical and business skills to design complex, enterprise-level Veeam deployments.

Final Thoughts

Passing the VMCE 2024 was a mix of relief, pride, and “Wow, I can finally delete all these study materials from my desktop.” Was it challenging? Yes. Was it worth it? Absolutely.

The certification not only validates your Veeam knowledge but also gives you a deeper understanding of backup and recovery concepts that are valuable regardless of the technology you’re using.

Plus, now I can officially say I know more Veeam features than I thought without googling. 😉

Remember, everyone’s journey is different. Take what works from my experience, adapt it to your style, and most importantly – don’t forget to back up your study materials!

Good luck on your VMCE journey!