VMWare Certified Professional.

BoomAM

BoomAM

BoomAM

Soldato
Joined
5 Jul 2003
Posts
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Location
Atlanta, USA
Hi.
Has anyone taken this exam, and what are their views on it?
Im tempted to take it tbh, as im quite into my virtualisation and reading the supposid content of the course, i already know 90% of it anyway...

Thoughts?
 
As far as I know, you have to do the official course to be able to take the exam :(

This might have changed recently but I looked into it a few months back and it was certainly the case then.

edit: still the same - http://www.vue.com/vmware/

I know a few people who have done it and they said it was easy enough having done the course. Good thing to be trained/experienced in but sadly not cheap to get the cert as the course is two thousand quid or more.
 
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So basically its £2500+ to take the course, then however much for the exam!?
:(
Well i really want to do it, so im gonna have to find a way to get the money.

Whose good for courses in the NW, & for taking the exams?
 
BoomAM said:
So basically its £2500+ to take the course, then however much for the exam!?
:(
Well i really want to do it, so im gonna have to find a way to get the money.

Whose good for courses in the NW, & for taking the exams?
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Don't know anything about this particular course but a bunch of guys at a place I used to work at went to South Africa for a Java course because it worked out much cheaper. So maybe look at other countries. India?
 
One of my colleagues at work has done the course(s?) for this and is spending a few week revising before sitting the exam.

From what he's said it seems it's pretty tough and some questions can be rather tricky to answer. You really have to know ESX, VIC and general virtual infrastructure inside out.
 
R34P3R said:
One of my colleagues at work has done the course(s?) for this and is spending a few week revising before sitting the exam.

From what he's said it seems it's pretty tough and some questions can be rather tricky to answer. You really have to know ESX, VIC and general virtual infrastructure inside out.
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A friend of mine just took the exam (and passed), having done the course and spent several weeks revising and he barely scraped through the pass grade (75% I think)!

Very scary, since this guy REALLY knows his stuff :o

As it happens, I've been playing with our VMWare servers this morning :D Damn VMotioning not working between different revisions of Intel Cores :mad:
 
One of my colleagues did the course last year and their instructor said not to bother doing the exam until they had at least 6 months experience hands on with the product. Some things in the exam were apparently not covered in the course so you needed to learn through experience.
 
I did the course and did the exam straight after. I have to say it's one of teh weirdest exams I've done as it's more about the product with a couple of technical questions thrown in rather than a technical exam to which I am more used to. 6 months hands on experience... hmm I don't think it's overly relevant as there are questions like: what is the minimum system requirements to run esx server and other questions of that nature.

You have to do the course. The exam is around another £100 on top. If you pass you get a free licence key for VMWare Workstation which is about the same price as the exam.

On the plus side the certificate is nice.. :D



M.
 
Is it worth doing from a jobs perspective though?

Ive been faffing with ESXi 3 for about 6 months now, and about 2 weeks ago, ESXi 4.
 
BoomAM said:
Is it worth doing from a jobs perspective though?

Ive been faffing with ESXi 3 for about 6 months now, and about 2 weeks ago, ESXi 4.
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I know a lot of places when recruiting for VMWare people have started saying in the ads as well as being VCP you must have demonstrative experience because a lot of people are just going along, doing the course, getting the vert, without actually having any real world experience with it.

But like I always say, it's not worth doing if you don't want to go into VM stuff, but if you do then it is :)

Train to what you want to do, don't train then think right what can I do with this.
 
I want to get into virtualization as it fasinates me.
But im wondering if its worth doing a course that expensive if it doesnt significantely help me get a job in the field...?


Who runs the courses and where can i do the exams at?
 
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ci_newman said:
A friend of mine just took the exam (and passed), having done the course and spent several weeks revising and he barely scraped through the pass grade (75% I think)!

Very scary, since this guy REALLY knows his stuff :o

As it happens, I've been playing with our VMWare servers this morning :D Damn VMotioning not working between different revisions of Intel Cores :mad:
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Not technically true - google vmware evc clustering - it involves changing a few BIOS settings but allows you to vmotion between the same CPU maker - so AMD or Intel.


Anyway.....

The course is well regarded by employers however its not that tricky - I work with 2 VCP's as well as myself and I wouldn't let them touch any of our Infrastructure :eek:

If its something you want to make a career out of, by all means go for it - but if its not something you want to specialise in I wouldn't bother :)

And if you do go down that route you need to know SAN/NAS/DAS well too

Any questions just ask :)
 
I have noticed, recently, more and more jobs wanting VCP's. One of the main requirements for VMotion is shared storage so I hope you have that sorted out - it would be daft if you didn't!

I haven't looked at ESX 4.0 but seriously want to as soon as possible. Be nice if they've upgraded the SVMotion as using third party tools (instead of the commandline) isn't great.

I think I passed the exam in the late 80's - something like 88 or 89 - it wasn't that hard just a different type of exam that I'm used to.




M.
 
BoomAM said:
:(
And there was me thinking i'd self teach!
Cheapest ive found the course for is £2500!
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I just sent a colleague on it for £1500 so its do-able cheaper

You can sit the exam if you like but you wont get the cert until you do the course. Too many paper MCSEs and things about, I think its a good idea
 
Teledude said:
And if you do go down that route you need to know SAN/NAS/DAS well too

Any questions just ask :)
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To what extent do i need to know?
I know the theory behind the lot of it and have extensive knowlegde of the hardware behind SANs & NASs because of the hardware we have at work (MSA shelves & blades for example), which i setup, but im not too familier with DAS's beyond the theory.

iaind said:
I just sent a colleague on it for £1500 so its do-able cheaper.
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How did you get it that cheap?

Cheaper the better, as im gonna have to fund this myself.
 
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