VMWare Certified Professional.

Well while employers want it then it's valuable for an employee. In my last two jobs I've gotten them with the assistance of the Microsoft qualifications. I assume in my next job it will be because of my Microsoft and VMWare qualifications (or Cisco if I go down that road).

Qualifications are never devalued. There's always someone looking for it.



M.
 
I am fascinated by those prices - what could there possibly be to train involving configuration and installation of VMWare for £2500? Unless of course it's somewhat like Solaris exams - not much about what it actually does, but more about what THEY think it SHOULD do, and hence need to go through a course providing correct, if somewhat untrue or unrealistic answers which couldn't be done based only on even most thorough experience.
 
I'm a VCP and general virtualisation/cloud/storage bod. I'm not sure it's worth that much to be fair, maybe in the short term, I often forget I have it. It's not the same feeling I felt when I got my CCNP, probably due to the exam... it's stupidly easy!

Let's be fair... the hardest part is the funding. The easiest way would be to get your company to stump up for install and configure which should be around £1500-£1600. VMWare courses are hard to discount.... think I got around 12% off mine last year. That's in contrast to 85% discount on Microsoft.

As for the qualification. I'd not necessarily employ anyone with just a VCP as I believe in living, breathing and washing in virtualisation. It's a game changer, much like VDI will be soon and therefore should be the core of everything, rather than an add-on.

And FYI, on top of the VCDX, there's also talk of a Master VCP track coming soon!
 
NiCkNaMe said:
Devalued by whom, yourself? :p

I'd hardly say an MCSE has been "devalued".
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I'd say it was devalued, to the point of being very nearly meaningless when companies began to churn out MCSE's after a 5 day "boot camp" and also when it became possible to pay an Indian to take the exam for you.

The exams were changed to include more simulations, and they've tightened up their processes to stop the fraud but damage was done.

Nowadays having MCSE is only of use to get your CV onto the shortlist, since agents don't have the skills to shortlist on experience and look for the easy way, even if they do it manually.

It doesn't mean you know your stuff, it just means you passed the exam, although the recent addition of simulations is improving this.

Feel free to think differently, but when i'm recruiting i'm looking for things other than MCSE.
 
I don't think the MCSE has been devlaued per se, I just think it compliments your experience in that kind of thing nicely. In all fairness no sound employer hiring will look at a CV that has an MCSE but zero experience and think "ooh they have an MCSE, on the pile they go" as it will be blatently obvious they have no real world experience. And whilst their selection criteria might well say must have mcse, I'll bet it also says must have experience in x y z as well.

Read through my job descrition the other day, apparently I'm supposed to have an MCSE, Prince 2, CISSP and more lol. I don't, but I have the skills and experience needed to do the job to a high standard :)

m4cc45 said:
Well if you had to do the MCSE via courses then you're looking at £1500 x 7 = £10,500 and then the exams on top so another £1,000 for that makes it really impossible to do even if you're supported by a very good company.
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Although if you go the boot camp route which is how many of these so called paper mcse people do it you can get it for 3-4k. I was booked on one (and cancelled it) and think at the time we were paying about £3500 for it.

I'd say a lot of people who don't go down the boot camp route will self study the majority of it, maybe going on a course or 2 for some of the harder bits.

Also you can always get deals with training providers, they are terrible for hounding you for business so use it to your advantage.

I wanted to go on one specific MS course with a book price of £1500, they outright offered me 2 courses for that and said they would do me 3 for £2000! Took the free one and the one I wanted in the end for £1500.

Firebrand have also just offered me the CEH course for 2k which wasn't bad, just need to sweet talk the boss into sending me on it so soon after the Sec+ course I did the other week :p
 
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I pride myself on not having any MCPs :D

I am handy with all MS products, and excel in Exchange and Powershell. I just have no qualifications thus rely on experience and references.

It's a catch 22 though I agree, no qualifications and you may not get an interview to gain experience. No experience, qualifications meaningless. Luck of the draw and all that.

On that subject, PowerCLI is immense for vSphere.
 
v0n said:
I am fascinated by those prices - what could there possibly be to train involving configuration and installation of VMWare for £2500? Unless of course it's somewhat like Solaris exams - not much about what it actually does, but more about what THEY think it SHOULD do, and hence need to go through a course providing correct, if somewhat untrue or unrealistic answers which couldn't be done based only on even most thorough experience.
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The I&C course is a bit deceptive by name - the install part of it is about an hour's worth as the installation isnt exactly complicated. The DSA course goes into a lot more detail on unattended installations etc. Most of the I&C is resource management, security, best practices etc
 
I too am looking to get myself certified! Our company already runs three machines as part of a cluster and I've done most of the sysadmin type with regards to installing / configuring / vmotion etc over the last 18months since we started.

It's a real pain if you *have* to go on the course to get certified :(
 
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