Well, for a long time now I've been messing around in VMWare products. I cut my teeth on 3.5, worked with 4.1, and have kept up through 5.5 (just signed up for the 6.0 beta 2 actually as well).
I've never had a job where virtualization infrastructure has been my core responsibility. It's usually been anywhere from 50% to 10% of my duties though. Right now I spend probably about 20% of my time with it. Much less than I want.
As I'm kind of sort of job hunting, I've decided to do something, and actively make changes to push myself into this career path, since it's what I really would like to do full time. Something along the lines of architect, principal engineer and so on.
I found a job posting for a vmware engineer job, and applied for it. This was step one. I "happen to" know a couple of guys at the company, and they'll put in a good word for me. I also feel I know enough that I can get in there and work. My resume backs this a little, but certification would certainly help! However, I need to convince HR and the hiring manager as such as well.
Yesterday, I decided to start working on certification. I jumped through the (few, and easy) hoops to register for the VCA-DCV exam. Just to be sure, I went ahead and ran through the recommended free e-Course offered by vmware. All of this was very familiar grounds to me, so I felt comfortable jumping in and taking the exam tonight. Went ahead and dropped the cash on it, and got a 500. I think it took me about 35 minutes in total - mostly because there were a couple of questions that I ended up super over thinking, so I marked them and went back to them at the end.
It's not a lot - the VCA-DCV is very high level, and from my standpoint very simple. I believe I could have done just as well without the course, but it was nice to take anyway. I don't even think the VCA-DCV will be a true resume padding cert to add, but it'll go on anyway.
Not really much to discuss here, but I thought I'd post my experience all the same. I'm glad to be finally taking control of this and moving it along in a direction I want it to go. Of course, the next step for me is the VCP level, but that'll be harder simply due to the cost associated with it.
I've never had a job where virtualization infrastructure has been my core responsibility. It's usually been anywhere from 50% to 10% of my duties though. Right now I spend probably about 20% of my time with it. Much less than I want.
As I'm kind of sort of job hunting, I've decided to do something, and actively make changes to push myself into this career path, since it's what I really would like to do full time. Something along the lines of architect, principal engineer and so on.
I found a job posting for a vmware engineer job, and applied for it. This was step one. I "happen to" know a couple of guys at the company, and they'll put in a good word for me. I also feel I know enough that I can get in there and work. My resume backs this a little, but certification would certainly help! However, I need to convince HR and the hiring manager as such as well.
Yesterday, I decided to start working on certification. I jumped through the (few, and easy) hoops to register for the VCA-DCV exam. Just to be sure, I went ahead and ran through the recommended free e-Course offered by vmware. All of this was very familiar grounds to me, so I felt comfortable jumping in and taking the exam tonight. Went ahead and dropped the cash on it, and got a 500. I think it took me about 35 minutes in total - mostly because there were a couple of questions that I ended up super over thinking, so I marked them and went back to them at the end.
It's not a lot - the VCA-DCV is very high level, and from my standpoint very simple. I believe I could have done just as well without the course, but it was nice to take anyway. I don't even think the VCA-DCV will be a true resume padding cert to add, but it'll go on anyway.
Not really much to discuss here, but I thought I'd post my experience all the same. I'm glad to be finally taking control of this and moving it along in a direction I want it to go. Of course, the next step for me is the VCP level, but that'll be harder simply due to the cost associated with it.