I am already a VMware Certified Professional on vSphere (VCP4) and have a couple of years of experience as a consultant implementing the technology.

This book is what it's advertised as; a concise book intended to prepare the reader to take and pass the VCP-410 exam. It does not cover everything on the exam but enough so that, in combination with hands-on experience and the required classroom curriculum, you should be able to hit the 300 of 500 needed to pass. If you are looking to learn about vSphere (ESX 4) this isn't the book for you. It's only intended to prepare you for the exam.

I would recommend this book to anyone looking to augment their studies to pass the exam but this book alone is not enough. Fortunately, (or not, depending on your perspective) VMware requires a hands-on classroom experience to even be eligible to take the exam and this book plus the required course will give you the knowledge required to pass, just barely. The practice questions in this book are similar to but not the exact questions on the exam but they are definitely designed to prepare you for the questions you will see.

The online edition and the companion CD which includes a practice exam engine are very nice features that will let you read from anywhere and give you a first hand experience of what the actual exam will be like. Also, when taking past exams, I have found that the "Cram Sheet" included (or one of your own) is a useful tool to study just before entering to take the exam (usually in the parking lot).

For me, this book has two annoying aspects:

1) The author is not a native speaker of English and much of the exposition is awkward.

2) The exams at the beginning and the end of each chapter don't seem to have much relationship with the content of those chapters.

This book would benefit from a thorough technical and grammatical editing.

I got this book after liking the Exam Cram for VCP 310 book, but the editors and just the plain topic coverage just didn't show up. Example. Chapter 1, Section 1 is supposed to cover the VMkernal, vCenter Database Design, and vCenter preinstallation. An odd place to start, but none-the-less... The pre-section cram questions are right on topic for that, but then the section itself in which you do the actual learning doesn't even mention vCenter once! The post-exam questions are once again all about vCenter. I did give Pearson's site a chance for errata, but none there at all. Did the editor even read this?