long-term value of VMware's VCP?

[Thuleman]

What's your take on the long-term value of the VMware Certified Professional cert?

Sure, right now there's a little bit of a "gold rush" going on where many shops are switching to VMware and are out there looking for VCPs to hire. However, will that still be true a year from now, or two years from now?

The VCP seems easy to pass and I can see it turning into "the cert everyone has" as the only thing you really need to do is "buy" it. You attend a certified training course ($3k + travel expenses) and voila, the VCP is your's. Sure, 200 questions may seem like a lot, but considering that you only need to get 70% right to pass, that you get 99 tries at the very same questions during mock exams at VMware.com, and that it's multiple choice thus logic can help you out a lot, it doesn't seem like the VCP is really going to be any kind of valued industry standard cert once we get past the early adopters.

If anything the VCDX will perhaps be worth doing as there is a lot more effort and knowledge needed to pass it.

 

[sabregen]

As a VCP holder, I can tell you that the test isn't terribly difficult. However, I should qualify this statement. I had a few months of VMWare ESX administration, VMWare Workstation usage, creating double nested VMs in an "environment in a box" on my laptop, had virtualized ESX hosts hitting a virtual iSCSI Openfiler VM for storage, tons of machines at work to play on/test theories. Then, there was the class itself (which you have to take), some more practice...reading the best practices guides, reading a 500page book in ESX 3.5 management and administration, and studying the course materials, then the test.

The time between my class and my test was about 4 months, when I had initially planned for 2 weeks, but was busy with customers at work. About 10% of the questions on the test are not direct. This is to be expected, and they are in the traditionally misleading realm of test questions that every cert test has. However, half of them were so terribly worded that I wasn't even sure what the question was asking. I will also qualify this statement. I do not mean to say that they were so terribly worded that I was confused. I mean the sentences didn't even make grammatical sense in the normal construction of a sentence, type of way. I passed the VCP on my first try, but just barely.

It's not a test to take lightly. The only other ones that I have taken that were this difficult were the IBM System X Technical test, and the Brocade 4Gb CFP exam. The sheer scope of the test is the largest reason for this. They have questions on GSX, Server, Workstation, and ESX (in all of its flavors, and features).

I did get a raise for passing it, and the company paid for the class, the travel, the incidentals, and the test itself. I have a nice arrangement, that way. However, my compensation increase is not inline with what VCPs are fetching, because of the cost to the company for me to obtain it (which also includes time on the clock, during normal business hours...so part of my normal wages were in there, too). In regards to the validity of the cert, two or three years from now...hard to say. VMWare is a big push for my division (I'm the Division head), and my company for 2009. We're Enterprise VIP partners, and are jumping into the VAC program this year, to increase our market share, and our visibility in the area.

I am hoping to get to go to the VCDX class in 2H 09, and halve already been given a target amount of sales ( in $) to reach, in order to get the green light on that idea. VCDX is much more involved, and requires:

Class attendance
Passing Enterprise Administration exam
Lab Exercise (like a Cisco cert does) as an exam
Presentation and successful defense of VMWare ESX deployment for a mock company (in front of VMWare VCDX personnel, certified trainers)

 

[sabregen]

no one else, eh? Also, I don't recall the test being 200 questions. I think there's 200 questions total on all versions of the test, but each test only has ~70 or so on it. I took it in November, I'd have to look at my PearsonVue score sheet.

 

[Thuleman]

Guess things are too much in flux right now to really put a value on certs like the VCP.
It's probably fair to say that those who get one today will have a leg up on the competition.

Tom Silver, senior VP and chief marketing officer for the
technology jobs Web site Dice.com, says that the total job
count for his site was down 12 percent from January 2008
through the first week of November. But for those with
virtualization experience, including both VMware and general
skills, available jobs increased by 43 percent and 37 percent,
respectively.

as read at http://virtualizationreview.com/features/print.aspx?editorialsid=2604

I was more curious about whether it would be worth to get into the offering certified vmware courses business, which is more of a long term commitment.

 

[Orinthical]

I chose "NO, 200 multiple choice questions is hard, and $3k isn't cheap, I paid for that cert!" - I don't much care for the wording but I happen to think the certification is worth something and will continue to be worth something as time goes on. VCDX will be worth even more, though is much much harder to obtain, but has VCP as a prerequisite so you're stuck either way. VCDX is specifically designed so that you cannot simply buy your way to the top like you can with many of the current microsoft exams via boot camps.

The test is also not 200 questions - there are simply 200 questions in the pool. It's been a while (over two years now) but I believe there were actually 75 questions on the test. It was relatively easy but I can say that because I had already been working with VMware for six months or so. You cannot just go in off the street and ace it, you need to be familiar with the product. The test included aspects of administration, security, install/configure and command-line troubleshooting. It was actually a pretty well put together test.

But as with any middle-tier certification (read VCP, MCSE, RHCE, etc), there will always be people who go out, find the test keys, memorize the answers and ace the test. Ranger, CCIE, VCDX and other top-tier certifications aim to change that but are very costly, procedural and time consuming to obtain.

 

[MrFace]

My company paid for about $12k in class fees(took three classes), I spent three years working with Vmware products, and I bought a Vmware book. The test was nothing like any of the practice tests I did, which was strange. The test focused on a lot of stuff that had nothing to do with ESX. It's a good cert, it's not an "easy" test by any means.

 

[FibreChanMan]

I would say yes it will be useful in 2-3 years. Here are my reasons:

1. With the economy, the new solutions/equipment out now are perfect for virtualization, and will save lots of money on administration costs, downtime costs, power/cooling costs, etc...
2. It's becoming a standard for more and more people/organizations every day, so I see this being a mainstay in the IT Industry.
3. The organization I work for has recently implemented some VI 3.5 solutions, and we are now looking at consolidating most of our datacenter with a VI 3.5 solution. Before, it was rack and stack, and load Server 2003.
4. VI 4 is moving virutalization into the future with the 2.6 Linux Kernel breaking the 2TB barrier for storage/luns, enhanced monitoring capabilities including iPhone monitoring, and more I can't remember at the moment

Is the VCP test adaptive or just a standard set of questions? It being adaptive would definitely help keep it's value/importance.

 

[sabregen]

VCP is based on the version of the product currently out. It's product specific, and with each new product release, they toss out the questions on old products no longer being released or supported.

 

[FibreChanMan]

VCP is based on the version of the product currently out. It's product specific, and with each new product release, they toss out the questions on old products no longer being released or supported.

With adaptive testing, each test for each test taker is different. Adaptive tests will pull questions at random from a database of questions so the test is never the same for each test taker. My A+ exam back in the day was like this. This keeps people from making braindumps of the tests like the MS tests that are always the same. I'm hoping the VCP doesn't turn into another paper tiger exam like the MCSE did.

 

[sabregen]

I do not believe the VCP is an adaptive test. I recall the instructor in the class saying there were 4 versions, pulling from a total of 200 questions.

 

[FibreChanMan]

Ok cool. That's good that they have 4 different versions. That should help keep it a reputable test.

 

[versello]

I got a free copy of VMWare workstation outta it... that's all I wanted Company paid the rest.

 

[oakfan52]

I got a free copy of VMWare workstation outta it... that's all I wanted Company paid the rest.

Pretty much. I wouldn't go out spend the money on my own to get it. If your company pays for it then I say go for it. The accelerated training class is worth it. Since you get a voucher to take the VCP you might as well.

 

[sabregen]

lol, people taking the cert test for Workstation? I got a copy too, but that's a little backwards, isn't it?
Class: $3k
Travel Accomodations and incidentals for the week: $1k
Your salary while on travel: (insert amount here)
Study time (either at work, or at home): has some dollar value
Test Fee: $175

Minimum cost for test: $4175 +your salary on travel + study time
Cost of Workstation: ~$190
Being a whore, and milking company funds for your $190 license: priceless