How to Prepare for VMware Spring Professional Certification

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As I have passed this exam, I can able to guide you on how you can prepare for VMware Certified Professional Certification for Spring and Spring Boot.

Check out how I passed this exam: Now I am VMware Certified Professional for Spring and Spring Boot 2022 - Passed the Exam
View my verified achievement from VMware (click on the below image to see my badge):

About VMware Spring Professional Certification

Earning this certification will certify that the successful candidate has the knowledge and skills necessary to develop Spring applications leveraging key Spring and Spring Boot technologies such as Dependency Injection, Java configuration, AOP, Spring Data JPA, Spring MVC (REST-focused), Spring Security, Testing, Auto-configuration, and Actuator.

I divide this article into two sections. In the first section, I will talk about how I prepared for this certification as an experienced Java developer. In section, I am going to talk about how you can prepare for this certification step by step.

1. How I Prepared for VMware Spring Certified Professional Certification Exam

Well, I have been using the Spring framework for a decade now and I have written 1000+ blog articles and tutorials on each and every topic on the Spring framework.

Teaching on YouTube and Udemy helped me to learn the Spring and Spring boot topics in-depth.

How much time you have taken to prepare?

As I am an experienced Spring and Spring boot developer, it took me around 3-4 days to prepare for this exam.

You might be wondering only 3-4 days? how?

Well, I already knew everything about Spring and Spring boot in-depth (teaching helped me to learn in-depth and teach in-depth) so I just had a revision of all the topics required for the exam from my blog website and Spring official documentation.

It is obvious that if you are an experienced Spring developer and then you don't take much time to prepare for the exam right. You just have to recap all the topics that you already knew and take some mock tests - You are ready to take the certification exam.

How many hours a day?

Well, I have spent 4-5 hours a day recapping the Spring and Spring boot concepts and practicing some mock exams.

What are the Resources you have gone through?

First, I quickly had a revision of my blog articles, and tutorials on my blog website:
then, for advanced topics and for the latest information, I have gone through the Spring framework official documentation:
My teaching on YouTube and Udemy helped me to keep up-to-date information about Spring and Spring boot:

Have you referred to any Books and Courses?

No. I already knew all the topics for the exam so I haven't referred to any courses or books.

Have you taken any Mock exams?

Yes, in order to get some confidence I have taken a few mock tests.

Here is the Spring professional exam dump for practice:

Note that the questions in the real exam are far different from these Mock exams. Your knowledge and experience help you to pass the exam. Mock tests are just to give you some confidence and some idea about the question format.

2. How you can prepare for VMware Spring Certified Professional Certification Exam

In this section, we will discuss:
  • What is VMware Certified Professional - Application Modernization Develop 2022 certification
  • Exam details
  • Minimally Qualified Candidate
  • Exam topics
  • Resources to prepare for this exam

What is VMware Certified Professional Certification?

Well, This certification validates a candidate's expertise with major features of Spring and Spring Boot and the candidate’s ability to apply Spring’s features to quickly build and deliver production-ready applications.

As we know how popular Spring and Spring boot is and no doubt that Spring Professional certification is an industry-recognized certification issued by VMware.

Nowadays Spring and Spring boot are getting more popular so every organization asking for Spring boot skills for Java developers.

Exam Details

Questions: 50  (for me in the exam, I got 50 questions but this may change as per VMware )
Duration: 90 Minutes (for me in the exam, I got 90 minutes but this may change as per VMware)
Passing score: 300 score scaled (defined range 100-500) 
Cost: 250 $ ( depends on the location, for me 200$ + 36$ Tax)

Minimally Qualified Candidate 

Minimally Qualified Candidate (MQC) is recommended to have at least 6 to 12 months of experience. The MQC has both a strong conceptual understanding and programming experience using the Spring framework. 

The MQC understands the major features of Spring and Spring Boot, which include configuration, data access, REST, AOP, auto-configuration, actuator, security, and Spring testing framework to build enterprise and microservices applications.

Exam Topics 

As per the latest changes for this certification in 2022, here are the topics for this exam.

1. Spring Core

  • Java Configuration
  • Properties and Profiles
  • Annotation-Based Configuration and Component Scanning
  • Spring Bean Lifecycle
  • Aspect-Oriented Programming

2. Data Management

  • Introduction to Spring JDBC
  • Transaction Management with Spring
  • Spring Boot and Spring Data for Backing Stores

3. Spring MVC

  • Web Applications with Spring Boot
  • REST Applications

4. Testing

  • Testing Spring Applications
  • Advanced Testing with Spring Boot and MockMVC

5. Security

  • Explain basic security concepts
  • Use Spring Security to configure Authentication and Authorization
  • Define Method-level Security

6. Spring Boot

  • Spring Boot Features
  • Spring Boot Properties and Autoconfiguration
  • Spring Boot Actuator
I have listed exam topics at a high level but if you want to know specific topics then check out https://www.javaguides.net/2022/01/vmware-certified-professional.html

Do we get Questions on XML-based configuration?

No. You don't get XML-based configuration questions in the exam. You will get questions on Java and annotation-based configuration-related questions in the exam.

Do we get Questions about Spring Cloud and Microservices?

No. You will get questions on given exam topics.

Getting started link

Get started with this latest link for this exam: https://www.vmware.com/learning/certification/vcp-am-dev.html // this link has the latest info so refer to this link to get started with the exam preparation.

Resources to Study for this Exam

Spring Framework official documentation

It's always good practice to refer to the Spring framework official documentation:
I can understand reading big documentation takes a lot of time and it's kind of boring right.

So spend some time learning Spring and Spring boot basics with coding examples from popular tutorials, videos, and courses.

If you want to quickly learn using tutorials and examples then I recommend my blog articles, and tutorials on this blog website:

Udemy Courses

My teaching on YouTube and Udemy can help you learn Spring and Spring boot in-depth:

Practice Mock Exams

Once, you learn all the exam topics, then you can take mock tests to get some confidence.

Here is the Spring professional exam dump for practice:

Note that the questions in the real exam may differ from these Mock exam questions. Your knowledge and experience help you to pass the exam. Mock tests are just to give you some confidence and some idea about the question format.

How much time to prepare for the exam?

Well, it depends on your experience. If you are an experienced Spring developer like me then you won't take much time.

If you are a beginner then I think you need at least three months (it depends on how much time you spend a day) to prepare for this exam.

My Advice

The exam is hard since it requires intimate knowledge of how Spring operates under the hood, along with an understanding of various Spring components and design patterns. Many of the questions are made to trick you, and the fact that you must select all of the correct options to earn a mark for each question makes it even more difficult.

My advice for people taking the exam is to read every question twice and use the full 1.5 hours for the exam.

References

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