VCP410 Question

nasu

Can I just take the exam by itself without the expensive 4 day courses from VMWARE. ? I study and used vmware vsphere from books and video tutorials from TrainSignal. I know some people did this but I understand that they won't issue the certificate unless u take the classes. Let`s say I do my exam now and in less then a year I do have the money or my worker will pay for the class. Would that be fine so I won't have to take the exam once again ?

Also for the couses:
# If you are NEW to VMware

* Attend the VMware vSphere: Install, Configure, Manage, the VMware vSphere: Fast Track OR the VMware vSphere: Troubleshooting course.

So you need to attend to the first 2 classes or only the one troubleshooting course ?

Please let me know guys.

astorrs

Yes you can do them in any order, though like you said you won't be given the certification until both parts are completed (so is it really worth it?).

Any one of those 3 classes meets the course requirement.

azjag

If you find a class near you that is still fairly empty wait till 10 days before class starts and look for it to be on-sale. The class I'm in had 1 person signed up 9 days before class and had 3 seats left 6 days before class starts. The main reason is VMware offered 30% off the class to fill the seats. Cost went from $2995 to $2096.

I'm in the Install, Configure, Manage class and it's 4x8hr days. The troubleshooting class is also a 4x8hr class. The Fast track class combines both Install, Configure, Manage as well as troubleshooting into one class that is 5x10hr days. The best way I can define amount of instruction in this class is it's like drinking from a fire hose.

Hyper-Me

2096 is still highway robbery.

Im really bitter about the cost of this.

HeroPsycho

Yes, but it does make having VCP more valuable. That's the uptake for IT Pros who do have it.

MentholMoose

Hyper-Me wrote: »

2096 is still highway robbery.

Im really bitter about the cost of this.

Unfortunately most courses cost this much. I'd like to take the RHCE course, but it's $3000, or various Microsoft courses, but they are $2000+. So I mostly have to learn by self-study, and figuring out how to get free or cheap training (going to free seminars, trying to take the ICM course through the VMware IT Academy, etc.).

Keep in mind that the requirements for offering the VMware courses are higher than other courses. For many courses you can do everything in VMs on a decent desktop. I've done a MS course before ($100 through a special promo instead of $800) and this is exactly how it was done.

For the VMware courses, every student needs their own server, and not an old junk one but a newer one that supports vSphere features (e.g. FT requires the latest Intel and AMD CPUs). Besides having a dedicated server, students also need their own SAN (iSCSI) and NAS (NFS) space. A gigabit network is mandatory, and probably managed switches for using VLAN functionality.

In any case, the course cost isn't much of a hindrance to learning vSphere. You can still self-study it on your own using evaluation copies, and you can even take the VCP exam, you just can't say you've earned the actual VCP certification until you finish the course. And as the IT Academy program expands, the course will be more and more accessible.

kalebksp

MentholMoose wrote: »

For the VMware courses, every student needs their own server, and not an old junk one but a newer one that supports vSphere features (e.g. FT requires the latest Intel and AMD CPUs). Besides having a dedicated server, students also need their own SAN (iSCSI) and NAS (NFS) space. A gigabit network is mandatory, and probably managed switches for using VLAN functionality.

As far as I'm aware you can try out every vSphere feature in Workstation 7, so you really just need a decent desktop. I'm not as upset about the course as Hyper-Me (partly because my work paid for it), but if they're going to force a course upon you it should be more in depth than the Install, Configure, Manage course. I found it to be boring and learned very little. Though I find most classes exceptionally slow and useless.

azjag

Hyper-Me wrote: »

2096 is still highway robbery.

I never said I paid out of pocket for it. It was one of those negotiating techniques. In lieu of larger salary I get x amount training $$$ a year. The price just helps the training budget go further. That and I didn't want to waste it on Microsoft training which I can easily build in our lab. Like the SCCM deployment I just did. Three days start to finish, including fixing a botched SMS2003 install mucking up AD.

I've found the VMware training to be very good. We don't have an iSCSI or Fibre channel storage only local storage and powervaults running SCSI 3. Different network setups and configuration scenarios were part of the labs as well. I would have liked to do the Fast track and get the troubleshooting aspect in there as well. Maybe when it goes on sale I will go for it. I'm scheduled for the test next Tuesday so it's gonna be a busy weekend.

astorrs

kalebksp wrote: »

As far as I'm aware you can try out every vSphere feature in Workstation 7, so you really just need a decent desktop. I'm not as upset about the course as Hyper-Me (partly because my work paid for it), but if they're going to force a course upon you it should be more in depth than the Install, Configure, Manage course. I found it to be boring and learned very little. Though I find most classes exceptionally slow and useless.

Most of the courses use connections into a remote VMware lab so there is no special hardware requirement (that went away a long time ago).

If you thought ICM was too basic, why not take Design, Secure, Analyze (for VCP3) or Troubleshooting (for VCP4)? Those counted as prerequisites as did the applicable Fast Track course.

kalebksp

astorrs wrote: »

If you thought ICM was too basic, why not take Design, Secure, Analyze (for VCP3) or Troubleshooting (for VCP4)? Those counted as prerequisites as did the applicable Fast Track course.

Mostly because the ICM was discounted and actually in my state, which is how I sold it to my manager. Official courses don't come up here very often. Besides, how would I know how basic the course was without taking it first?

My point wasn't so much that I was upset that I had to sit through the course, but that requiring a basic course adds little value to the certification. Though, as you pointed out, price of admission does make it a bit more exclusive.

MentholMoose

astorrs wrote: »

Most of the courses use connections into a remote VMware lab so there is no special hardware requirement (that went away a long time ago).

I'm doing ICM through the IT Academy program and the school has it's own lab, so I'm not familiar with VMware's remote lab. With the remote lab, do students have exclusive access to an ESX host for the duration of the course?

astorrs

MentholMoose wrote: »

I'm doing ICM through the IT Academy program and the school has it's own lab, so I'm not familiar with VMware's remote lab. With the remote lab, do students have exclusive access to an ESX host for the duration of the course?

Each pair of students gets their own host plus vCenter I believe.

azjag

astorrs wrote: »

Each pair of students gets their own host plus vCenter I believe.

The current lab setup is:

Students are paired up. We each have a workgroup pc that is used to connect to a citrix desktop to gain access to our virtual DataCenter. In our class there are 6 servers 01 - 06. 2 students per server (studentA and studentB)The citrix desktop has a vsphere client and some other tools used for troubleshooting and labs. You RDP from the Citrix desktop to Vcenter server to do other labs as well. There are 24 labs in all.

Hyper-Me

I realize it adds exclusivity and that is great for those people who have it.

I just think its unfair to make it a hard requirement simply because it excludes people who have the potential to be very good VCPs.

Id be willing to pay around 1000$, which would still maintain exclusivity but open it up to people who are serious about it but dont have 3000$ to blow.

I can get every MS virtualization cert out there and get good using vSphere and it still not amount to as much as just having the actual VCP, i bet.

nasu

the thing with me is that I implemented and worked with VMware Vshepere. All the nice fancy things DRS, Vmotion, Svmotion, HA with fault tolerance. I will go for the exam and when I will have the money to get that course I will take it only to refresh my knowledge and get the actual certificate.

Thanks to the person for letting me know about the discount thing. I'll try to do that.