Virtualization Council?

Who the heck are these people? I'm seeing more boot camps and classes offering the VC certs as opposed to the actual VMWare certification. While I'm not opposed to vendor-neutral certification, I think it should be run by a well-established organization, e.g. CompTIA.

On the Virtualization Council website, I see some pages of information, an offer to become a free "member". . . and that's it. No idea who started it, who backs it, etc. Strikes me as a shady deal, almost like that "certified business professional" cert that was being hawked a few years back.

Thoughts? Insights?

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JDMurray

CompTIA offers entry-level certifications. I can't think of much that's "entry level" with VMware. I prefer any vendor-specific certs that I get to come directly from the vendor itself rather than from an unsanctioned, 3rd-party agent.

tiersten

If it is a VMware orientated cert and it doesn't have the actual backing of VMware then its not good. VMware won't recognise it and most other places won't either.

petedude

JDMurray wrote: »

CompTIA offers entry-level certifications. I can't think of much that's "entry level" with VMware. I prefer any vendor-specific certs that I get to come directly from the vendor itself rather than from an unsanctioned, 3rd-party agent.

i'm not endorsing the idea of an "entry-level" cert with VMWare. There are other industry standards organizations that provide certs (ISC2, for example) that are geared more toward IT disciplines than specific products. I think the same approach could be taken with VMWare, Xen, HyperV and the like-- cover key overall issues, then focus in on specific product implementations where important. I think it could be done-- I just wish it would be done by a legitimate organization.

blargoe

I don't agree... virtualization, regardless of the vendor, has a very broad reach, and an "entry" into virtualization would have prerequisites of A+, Network+, and whatever is accepted as entry level storage foundation. And then, are we talking about server/hardware virtualization? Desktop virtualization? Thin app virtualization? Waaaaaaay too much to roll into an vendor neutral, entry level cert, in my opinion.

HeroPsycho

blargoe wrote: »

I don't agree... virtualization, regardless of the vendor, has a very broad reach, and an "entry" into virtualization would have prerequisites of A+, Network+, and whatever is accepted as entry level storage foundation. And then, are we talking about server/hardware virtualization? Desktop virtualization? Thin app virtualization? Waaaaaaay too much to roll into an vendor neutral, entry level cert, in my opinion.

I gotta disagree here. It's unnecessary for an entry level virtualization guy have storage skills, a ton of networking skills, etc. Knowing basics between application, hardware, and other types of virtualization is fine. Etc. And most of this stuff does have a common core at the basic level conceptually, which can be said about topics in A+, Network+, etc.

I'll be honest. I personally don't see much value in CompTia certs in general, but if there's value in them, why not have a CompTia virtualization cert?

petedude

HeroPsycho wrote: »

. . .
I'll be honest. I personally don't see much value in CompTia certs in general, but if there's value in them, why not have a CompTia virtualization cert?

I don't think an entry-level cert would have as much value as an industry-standard cert covering advanced topics at a broad level. I think some standards organization should develop one covering all the competing technologies to some degree while emphasizing the underlying basics and necessary networking skills to properly manage these technologies.

JDMurray

The new Server+ exam revision contains objectives on server virtualization. And I don't remember seeing CompTIA calling for virtualization SMEs to start contributing items to a Virtualization+ exam pool.

HeroPsycho

petedude wrote: »

I don't think an entry-level cert would have as much value as an industry-standard cert covering advanced topics at a broad level. I think some standards organization should develop one covering all the competing technologies to some degree while emphasizing the underlying basics and necessary networking skills to properly manage these technologies.

The advanced topics aren't common enough to justify that. For example, how you optimize multipathing for storage between two hypervisors is completely dependent on what storage you're using, what HBA's, multipathing agents if any, and which hypervisor.

Capacity planning between Hyper-V that doesn't have things like memory overcommit and transparent page sharing and VMware ESX/ESXi radically changes the equation.

You simply can't do anything beyond an entry level cert for virtualization IMO and be vendor neutral, with the cert actually being valuable in the practical world.

jibbajabba

Virtualization Council - Home

Aparently vendor neutral but yet vendor specific ... random ...

JDMurray

"The Virtualization Council offers certification in the four major virtualization platforms." --Virtualization Council

Virtualization wasn't first defined by an open standards body and then implemented by vendors, as Ethernet and wireless networking were. Instead, virtualization was initially created by technology vendors (Citrix, VMware, VI, MS) and currently exists only as closed (i.e., propriety/patented) standards. Other than the basic concept and uses of virtualization, there is very little in the way of interoperability between these vendors. Separate vendor certs makes perfect sense, but the "vendor neutral" tag line is a little boggling.

sidsanders

couldnt you say ibm came up with virtualization long before any x86 plat existed? vm (z/vm) is still kicking. i must admit to deriding the mainframe in the past. i still think jcl is kinda lame, however vm on z9+ gear seems quite nice...

also, hp has the ia64 vm prod, sun has ldom's and zones and its own x86 line of prods, ibm also has powervm for the ppc. so much to pick from and not just x86 plats now.

for fun, go get vm/370 and run it under hercules (all free)... a mainframe vm env from the 70s that looks suprisingly (to me at least) like the current z/vm.

JDMurray

sidsanders wrote: »

couldnt you say ibm came up with virtualization long before any x86 plat existed? vm (z/vm)

Yes, true, IBM is the father of all VMs. I tend to forget that when thinking of virtualization in the "modern age."

atreat

But this still doesn’t answer the question; is this a certification that holds weight in the industry. I can see getting a VCP, THEN adding to it with the vc-vip, but by itself, I haven’t found anyone who has it. Further, i know several in the industry and had no idea what i was asking about when approached.
I have decided to stick with certs that people won’t ask 'who are they?' when they see it on my resume.
A~

astorrs

Here's the clearest answer I can give:

atreat wrote: »

is this a certification that holds weight in the industry.

Nope, none what so ever.

DigitalZeroOne

I would not waste my time with this cert, I have been a VCP for about 3 years now, and yes, it sucks that you have to take the official class (and pass the exam) to become a VCP, but that keeps the market from becoming saturated with VCPs.

I work in DoD contracting, and I have never seen a request for any other "Virtualization" type cert other than VMware and Citrix. From what I've seen VMware is the top dog when it comes to DoD (still haven't seen anyone using Hyper-V) and the VCP is the cert that accompanies it.