Certification

As of February 4th the requirement to re-certify every 2 years when you hold an active VCP certification no longer exists (unless you are a VMware partner or are in some other program that requires you to have a more current certification).

This means you will now have more time to study towards a more recent certification, plus the upgrade path is shorter in many cases by simply taking the latest version of a specific VCP exam.
This shorter path can be taken as long as you are no more than 3 versions behind the most current VCP version for any particular track.

This announcement also means that some VCP certifications that were previously de-activated now have become active again !

For all details (like understanding that this is only for the VCP level certification, that there are different requirements when you upgrade to a different track, etc.) please see the official VMware blog post on this announcement.

Happy re-certifying !

Last week VMware Education announced a change in naming the various certifications, where the year in which the certification is achieved is reflected in the name of the certification.

Until now the name of the certification reflected the version of the product that it was related to (for example VCP6-DCV referred to the vSphere 6.0 release). This may cause confusion about the currency of a specific certification, since the pace where product releases are made available is not very strict, which is also reflected in the certification (-exams). For example my VCP4-DCV certification was 15 months older than my VCP5-DCV certification, but the latter was over 3 years older than my VCP6-DCV certification.

Also both my “DCV” and “DTM” certifications are valid but one is called VCP6 and the other is called VCP7 (as they relate to vSphere 6.0 and Horizon 7.0 respectively).

So changing the name to reflect the year where the certification was achieved does make sense and will result in certifications like VCP-DTM 2019 and VCAP-DCV Deploy 2020.

It is important to understand that the change is only with regard to the naming of the certification. This means that there are no changes in requirements to achieve a certification or for re-certification (so a certification is still valid for 2 years and can be renewed by taking a newer exam in the same track or taking an exam in a different track). Also the name of the certification exam wil still reflect the product version that the exam questions are based on.

More detailed information about this announcement can be found in the FAQ document on the VMware certification website.

During the VMware courses I teach I often get questions about the way to get certified and stay certified as a VCP. This blog post will try to explain your options.

First of all you need to be aware that several VCP certifications exist. The “classic” VCP (which focuses on vSphere) is called VCP-DCV nowadays (DCV being short for DataCenter Virtualization) and for those focusing on other VMware product lines additional certifications exist (specifically VCP-DTM for Desktop and Mobility, VCP-NV for Network Virtualization and VCP-CMA for Cloud Management and Automation).
Although these other certifications do not focus on vSphere they still require people that want to achieve them to at least have a solid base knowledge of vSphere. Therefore VMware has created a Foundation exam that every individual that wants to earn their first VCP certification (any type) needs to pass in addition to passing the specific VCP exam.

Read more

Recently VMware introduced the VMware Certification Manager website. Linked to your MyLearn account this portal gives you a very clear overview of your existing certifications (with expiration dates) and the history of exams you have taken in the past as well as a list of possibly expired certifications.

The portal also gives you access to logo material  related to your certification status, allows you to create .pdf versions of your certifcations and create transcripts which you can share through several social media (like sharing it on your website … check out my certification transcript for example).

Finally you will be able to check out any new VMware certifications you would like to pursue and the paths you can (need to ) take to achieve these.

Just go to http://www.vmware.com/certification and click the “Certification Manager” link on the right, provide your MyLearn credentials and see for yourself.

Happy certifying !