Whos a VCP and who actually has their paper cert!

dales

So after numerous emails to vmware and the generic reply of you are confirmed please wait 1 week for your certificate, I was wondering how many other people are still actually waiting for their certs to drop through the letter box.

Found a blog post that suggests there are 53k VCP's of which 15K are Vsphere VCP's, So either vmware are printing our certs on a HP deskjet or they are just taking their time to actually post these things out.

I know they have had a rebranding recently but come on does it really take this long to send a template and DB to a printing press for at most 53K copies!

dynamik

I expect to wait 4-6 weeks for any certs that are mailed out. I don't think I got my 3.5 VCP any faster than the others.

kingpeter

I passed the VCP-410 exam a few weeks ago having attended the official course. I enquired as to when I could expect my transcript to update and my certificate to arrive and I received the following response:

"During the first quarter of 2010, we will be updating transcripts to include the VMware Certified Professional certifications. You may not see your certifications reflected on the transcript immediately, as we are in the process of verifying that certifications are being tied to the correct VMware Education account. Please expect an email notification when this update occurs for you.

VCP3 certifications will be uploaded first, in phases. We are unable to accommodate individual requests for updates. Currently VCP3s who were certified by October 16, 2006 have had transcript updates.

If you have questions regarding your certification status, please contact certification@vmware.com."

HeroPsycho

Still waiting mine. I passed my exam mid December. It is getting a little ridiculous. I don't care about the paper cert. I just want it official and my free copy of Workstation 7.

kalebksp

I took the VCP4 in the beginning of September and received the paper certificate last month. I haven't received the free copy of Workstation 7.

Mishra

Haven't gotten it BUT I only passed in January. I have a co-worker that passed in December and still hasn't had his transcript update nor his certificate mailed to him.

astorrs

The problem was the number of people who were certified at the end of the year. There were over 15,000 people who passed the VCP4 exam in the past 6 months! The VMware certification staff is just overwhelmed right now.

P.S. The VMware Workstation 7 license keys started going out yesterday.

meadIT

kalebksp wrote: »

I took the VCP4 in the beginning of September and received the paper certificate last month. I haven't received the free copy of Workstation 7.

+1 Just received the certificate a few weeks ago after passing exam in Sept or Oct. Still waiting on the license.

HeroPsycho

astorrs wrote: »

The VMware certification staff is just overwhelmed right now.

P.S. The VMware Workstation 7 license keys started going out yesterday.

Stop taking up for your vBuddies!

Hyper-Me

Wow for 3 grand im surprised by 2 things

1. That there are that many VCPs (its a good thing, shows how dedicated people are to the vendor and technology)

2. That VMware isnt doing a better job of getting this stuff updated and sent out. Afterall, 53000 VCPs at 3k per class is 159 million $

MentholMoose

Hyper-Me wrote: »

2. That VMware isnt doing a better job of getting this stuff updated and sent out. Afterall, 53000 VCPs at 3k per class is 159 million $

The training is done through authorized training centers so I don't think VMware gets much of that. Even so, it's definitely lame to take months to mail out a certificate or email a license key.

JDMurray

kalebksp wrote: »

I took the VCP4 in the beginning of September and received the paper certificate last month. I haven't received the free copy of Workstation 7.

Isn't a "free copy" of Workstation 7 just an activation code sent to you via email? I wonder what the hangup could be with that.

Hyper-Me

MentholMoose wrote: »

The training is done through authorized training centers so I don't think VMware gets much of that. Even so, it's definitely lame to take months to mail out a certificate or email a license key.

Yeah but they have to have some incentive to force everyone to take the course.

Even if they got just 25 million of it, thats more than enough to fund the program of people to get this stuff done in a timely fashion.

MentholMoose

Hyper-Me wrote: »

Yeah but they have to have some incentive to force everyone to take the course.

I think the incentive for having a mandatory course is to reduce the number of paper VCPs. If they cared a lot about profiting from the courses, then they wouldn't have created their IT Academy Program (you can take the course at regular schools for the cost of tuition).

Hyper-Me wrote: »

Even if they got just 25 million of it, thats more than enough to fund the program of people to get this stuff done in a timely fashion.

Regardless of how much they get from the course, they should send out the certificates and license keys faster. They benefit from having people certified on their products, so they should put in the effort required to properly run a certification program.

dales

Yes the course was expensive and I wonder how much vmware saw of my course fee. I was lucky enough to mention that I wanted to be a vcp to my boss and chatted about the course, he said that cause I paid for all my other exams and study material etc then they would pay for the course.

As I said before the amount of end of year VCP being earnt excuse doesnt really wash with me that much. I can understand that their was a rush to get the vcp's in before end of year but come on.. 53k vcp's thats not really that many (considering thats not the number that actually was caught up in the rush).

Send out the blimin certs already or get the transcript thing working, my HR department needs to see this cert!

I could also find a workstation licence really handy right about now, which I believe I earned over two months ago, if MS can send me my certs within a couple of weeks why cant vmware.

Hyper-Me

MentholMoose wrote: »

Regardless of how much they get from the course, they should send out the certificates and license keys faster. They benefit from having people certified on their products, so they should put in the effort required to properly run a certification program.

Agree 100%. Im gonna have to look into the IT academy thing, maybe I can actually become a VCP for a reasonable amount of money.

MentholMoose

Hyper-Me wrote: »

Agree 100%. Im gonna have to look into the IT academy thing, maybe I can actually become a VCP for a reasonable amount of money.

It's still pretty new, so it's difficult to find a school that is local and actually offering the course (a lot of schools are listed that don't offer the course yet). If you're lucky you can take the course for a very low price, though, so it's worth checking out.

JDMurray

Tech training schools like New Horizons also have VMware courses, but they are hardly inexpensive.

Hyper-Me

According to the list of participating schools, 2 local community colleges participate in the program. Now to find out how to go about this.

MentholMoose

Hyper-Me wrote: »

According to the list of participating schools, 2 local community colleges participate in the program. Now to find out how to go about this.

Check their website, class schedule, and catalog, or call their CIS dept. Also you can send an email to the address listed on the IT Academy page to ask for the contacts at those schools. Good luck!!

kalebksp

I don't know why it took so long but I finally received the license key for my "free" copy of Workstation 7.

jibbajabba

kalebksp wrote: »

I don't know why it took so long but I finally received the license key for my "free" copy of Workstation 7.

Completely forgot about it. Got my paper cert "ages" ago but still haven't received a VMWorkstation license.

HeroPsycho

Got my notification for my Workstation 7 license. Interestingly, I've not gotten any notification that says officially I'm a VCP4 yet. LOL...

Hyper-Me

Hyper-Me wrote: »

According to the list of participating schools, 2 local community colleges participate in the program. Now to find out how to go about this.

Well one of the schools closest to my house uses VMware in classes but dont actually teach THE class.

Im gonna look into the other one thats about 30 mins away. Not looking good, though.

HeroPsycho

Hyper-Me wrote: »

Well one of the schools closest to my house uses VMware in classes but dont actually teach THE class.

Im gonna look into the other one thats about 30 mins away. Not looking good, though.

Remember they also offer official classes online.

MentholMoose

HeroPsycho wrote: »

Remember they also offer official classes online.

But it's still around $3000, right? It's tough to justify paying this much out of pocket, especially in this economy. Doing it at an IT Academy school can be way cheaper.

Hyper-Me

Are they any cheaper?

HeroPsycho

Hyper-Me wrote: »

Are they any cheaper?

Dunno. It was offered after I did my training course.

MentholMoose

I just checked the pricing for the online ICM class. It's not a cheaper option than the standard training.

Name: VMware vSphere: Install, Configure, Manage [V4]
Date: 03/09/2010 - 03/12/2010
Time: 9:00 AM - 5:00 PM
Location: Online
Class Price*: $ 2995 (USD) + Tax (if applicable)

dales

Weirdly enough I had my workstation licence emailed to me today, hopefully that means the cert is on its way as well.

Even more interestingly I've only got the vcp 3 but got a workstation 7 licence key, brucy bonus!

Hyper-Me

MentholMoose wrote: »

I just checked the pricing for the online ICM class. It's not a cheaper option than the standard training.

I really wish VMware would get off their high horse and quit sticking it to people.

Not every IT pro that would like to certify their skills work for a company that will pay 3000$ for that right.

Ridiculous.