VCP5-DCV Certification Renewal?

M

Mabrito

Supreme [H]ardness
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I am a little confused on this subject. I been VCP5-DCV certified since 2013 and when I took the mandatory course, the instructor said that there are no cert renewals/expirations once you are certified. The VCP5-DCV cert is good for all 5.x releases until 6 and above come out. He also mentioned there is no expiration date (such as 3 years for Cisco).

I have an email from VMware saying my VCP5-DCV will expire in May and that I have to renew it. Either I can take another course such as NSX/Desktop/Cloud or take a more advanced test such DCA. Or I can renew the current cert and take some Delta test.

So first question...was this instructor full of shit when he said they don't expire? My plan was to wait until the 6 release track comes out and and re-certify in that.

I got the VMware cert as I thought I would use it in my career path...turns out, the company I am with stayed with Hyper-V. My VMware knowledge has slipped in the past 2 years and not even sure some Delta test is worth taking.

VMware/NSX is looking promising in our growth (not anything immediate, but just in the roadmap as a possible solution) and I planned on waiting until the 6 cert paths are out and work on those. Not that my existing VCP cert expiring in May is such a big deal....but it does goes against what some VMware certified instructor told me.

Just looking for clarification.
 
Yeah, your instructor wasn't lying - VMware was.

My non-expiring cert expires in May as well. I hope v6 software and exams are out in enough time that I don't have to recert on 5.
 
markwo said:
Yeah, your instructor wasn't lying - VMware was.

My non-expiring cert expires in May as well. I hope v6 software and exams are out in enough time that I don't have to recert on 5.
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No kidding. Same feelings here.
 
Never underestimate the power of greed, erm, revenue models. Why have non-expiring certs when you can make bank by having expiring certs instead....

I get that some certs need to have an expiration, but requiring recertification for version specific certs is nothing but milking the cert cash cow.
 
They should have announced going forward, starting with the VCP6, that there would be an expiration not added an expiration to what was supposed to be a non-expiring cert like the VCP5.

Blatant cash grab.
 
Ugg... thanks for reminding me that I only have until March 10th to take the VCP delta to keep my VCP :( Really having a hard time finding it worth my time and stress since I hate tests... and really stress out on them.
 
On the upside the test can be taken from your home and not in a testing center... at least thats what i had when i took it about a month back...

One thing to mention if u take an advanced cert like the VCAPS it should renew that cert as well IIR....
 
Child of Wonder said:
They should have announced going forward, starting with the VCP6, that there would be an expiration not added an expiration to what was supposed to be a non-expiring cert like the VCP5.

Blatant cash grab.
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These are my thoughts on the subject as well.

Oh well....ill just wait until VCP 6 is out and work on that track. If I loose my current VCP5, not a big deal minus the annoyance.
 
Lazy_Moron said:
These are my thoughts on the subject as well.

Oh well....ill just wait until VCP 6 is out and work on that track. If I loose my current VCP5, not a big deal minus the annoyance.
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If you do that, then (presumably) you're going to have to take another qualifying VCP course and incur that expense.
 
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"take another qualifying VCP course and incur that expense."

which is just the biggest load of crap out there..
 
Just passed the VCAP-DCA 550 to "extend" my VCP. Not too bad of a test and you should consider it if you are up for renewal.
 
Honestly if you have your VCP and you choose not extend it, it will still say VCP on your resume..
 
i doubt ill renew mine. they will be less and less valuable in the next 5 years as it is the way the industry is massively changing. Perfectly comfortable having it on my resume with an (expired) next to it but continuing to work with it day in and day out.
 
4saken said:
i doubt ill renew mine. they will be less and less valuable in the next 5 years as it is the way the industry is massively changing. Perfectly comfortable having it on my resume with an (expired) next to it but continuing to work with it day in and day out.
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How is the industry changing?
 
REDYOUCH said:
How is the industry changing?
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The beginning of companies owning, leasing and maintaining their own infrastructure is in the infancy of vastly shrinking or disappearing altogether. I'd say the IT world is in one of the biggest states of flux and change since Virtualization became mainstream. Just staying ahead of the curve. Of course I am making a broad sweeping statement, but all it takes is one to look at where tech is heading and what many large companies are beginning to do. Don't read too much into what I am saying, there is still value, but don't start betting your lifeline on virtualization/san administration if you are just entering the field, and begin diversifying your skillsets. VMware only admins or "other" will be dinosaurs if they don't change with the landscape.

Of course what my company and other players are doing now, versus what some other enterprises are doing now is different, but I work in a part of the industry where this change is having direct affect and we are making sure we are pushing and moving forward with it to develop strategies and technologies to stay very relevant. Ask why VMworld was a joke this year compared to just 2 years ago? They were basically advertising companies that would be directly responsible for them losing business. VMware has gotten caught offguard and is scrambling to secure their place in the new face of IT service delivery. Many traditional MASSIVELY VMware enterprises, have dropped it already for AWS/GCE/Openstack/CoreOS/Containerization technologies. Their CAP has drastically dropped in a very short amount of time. Why would any new company entering the field bother with VMware with far cheaper and manageable options is the real question.
 
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4saken said:
The beginning of companies owning, leasing and maintaining their own infrastructure is in the infancy of vastly shrinking or disappearing altogether. I'd say the IT world is in one of the biggest states of flux and change since Virtualization became mainstream. Just staying ahead of the curve. Of course I am making a broad sweeping statement, but all it takes is one to look at where tech is heading and what many large companies are beginning to do. Don't read too much into what I am saying, there is still value, but don't start betting your lifeline on virtualization/san administration if you are just entering the field, and begin diversifying your skillsets. VMware only admins or "other" will be dinosaurs if they don't change with the landscape.

Of course what my company and other players are doing now, versus what some other enterprises are doing now is different, but I work in a part of the industry where this change is having direct affect and we are making sure we are pushing and moving forward with it to develop strategies and technologies to stay very relevant. Ask why VMworld was a joke this year compared to just 2 years ago? They were basically advertising companies that would be directly responsible for them losing business. VMware has gotten caught offguard and is scrambling to secure their place in the new face of IT service delivery. Many traditional MASSIVELY VMware enterprises, have dropped it already for AWS/GCE/Openstack/CoreOS/Containerization technologies. Their CAP has drastically dropped in a very short amount of time. Why would any new company entering the field bother with VMware with far cheaper and manageable options is the real question.
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I concur with 4saken here. The hypervisor is a commodity now and things are moving toward Automation, Cloud (private, public, hybrid), and Containerization technologies.

VMware is scrambling to get their own Cloud service going, so as to be on the same sentence as Azure and AWS.

4saken is probably working in the Linux world so he's talking about Openstack and AWS. But if one is invested in the Microsoft world, the equivalent is System Center Suite which include everything for setup up Automation and Private/Hybrid Cloud, easily extending to Azure. VMware have their own Cloud suite too that is glued together from acquiring products from other companies, not as streamlined as System Center.

Anyway, back on topic, VCP expiration is lame as, I think, VMware is not trying to make extra dough but to force VMware admins to focus on vSphere so as not to lose them from jumping shipt to Microsoft, Amazon, and other areas. I said screw the VCP expiration and am jumping ship to Hyper-V, System Center (which I already work with) and Azure.

If one wants to become relevant in the future, in my view, focus your career on Automation, Cloud, and the upcoming Containerization technology. The hypervisor is just a small piece of the pie. The tough part is to choose which vendor, Microsoft, VMware, Amazon, or OpenStack. Maybe the answer is to be the super admin or architect, and know everything about everything. What do you think?
 
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4saken said:
Many traditional MASSIVELY VMware enterprises, have dropped it already for AWS/GCE/Openstack/CoreOS/Containerization technologies.
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Cite your source.

I agree that VMware-only admins are no longer needed for many enterprises, but I don't see the massive departure from VMware that you are talking about. In fact, I'd submit for consideration that none of the technologies/services you mentioned are direct competitors of VMware. AWS/GCE are certainly not competitors to VMware at all.

With Openstack you trade VMware's licensing costs for FTEs needed to run and code for Openstack for no savings and a lot more headache because inevitably people are less reliable than technology.

Their CAP has drastically dropped in a very short amount of time. Why would any new company entering the field bother with VMware with far cheaper and manageable options is the real question.
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Cheaper? Yes, for sure.
More managable? Only if you don't count the cost of labor.

Not sure which CAP you are talking about.

There are slices of industries where raw compute counts above all. For everyone else it's less about saw CPU cycles and more about integration, automation, app support, and just plain reliability paired with 24/7 Level 3 support. That's what you pay VMware for, not for the actual hypervisor technology.
 
Nobody is dropping VMware anytime soon.. No one does hypervisor better then ESXi with vCenter.

Why? A monkey can install vSphere and get core functionality.

Automation software is all the rage, nd growing in popularity but is significantly more complex.

Easy wins over better every day of the week..
 
"If one wants to become relevant in the future, in my view, focus your career on Automation, Cloud, and the upcoming Containerization technology. "

This...

The system admin roll is being swallowed up into DevOps.

Exciting but scary times.

I've been thinking about this a lot. Pick one of these to stay relevant
Powershell, MS SQL, Postgres SQL, Java Script.
 
lodoss900 said:
The system admin roll is being swallowed up into DevOps.
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Yes and no.
If your organization has DevOps then sure, systems engineers are better off in that department. However, I think it's fair to say that most organizations which use virtualization don't actually have a DevOps team because they literally don't do any development.

Systems engineering will remain strong for literally eternity because there's just that much work that has to be done.
 
Thuleman said:
Yes and no.
If your organization has DevOps then sure, systems engineers are better off in that department. However, I think it's fair to say that most organizations which use virtualization don't actually have a DevOps team because they literally don't do any development.

Systems engineering will remain strong for literally eternity because there's just that much work that has to be done.
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System admin and engineer number will approach zero because once more stuff move to the cloud, the amount of work will also be reduced.

The cloud vendors' favorite propaganda is the cloud will give sysadmins and engineers more time to focus on things more relevant to the business. I say BS! Sys admins and engineers work with computer systems and don't know or care too much jack about the business.

The way I see it is that it depends on the size of the organizations.

SMB/E > Most will move all systems to the cloud, if security and industry regulation is of no concern. Admins and engineers working in this sector will feel it.

Enterprises > most systems will remain on-premise due to security, regulation, and established investment in infrastructure. Some work loads requiring elastic resources will move to the cloud. Guys/Gals with enterprise experiences will do just fine.
 
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