Summer (May 20) 2013 Stanly CC vSphere 5 ICM Class Thread

xordis

I found this comment at the bottom of the page when ordering my voucher interesting.

"Please Note: This industry-recognized certification opportunity unlike the commercial offering, although recommended, does not require completion of a VMware-authorized training course or hands-on experience with VMware technologies."

Is that just saying you can do the exam without doing the course? (which I know you can)
The note doesn't really make sense.

descender421

Bloogen wrote: »

Yup. Here's the official instructions:

Doesn't work for me. Anyone else able to log in?

cyberguypr

I was able to log in with the moodle ID and regular pwd. Grabbed my voucher, licenses, etc.

emerald_octane

Same. Great deal too.

j23evan

WGU also has the same 70% off voucher through their VMware store portal. Though as inexpensive as the class is, and the quality of content it's really a no brainer. I emailed Nick Huneycutt last week and told him how well I enjoyed the class, and if there were going to be any other classes structured similarly and he told me he is trying to see how much demand there is for doing an EMC:ISM class. Which would be pretty baller.

descender421

cyberguypr wrote: »

I was able to log in with the moodle ID and regular pwd. Grabbed my voucher, licenses, etc.

Strange. Must just be me then. Says invalid email when I use my moodle ID and pwd.

ITMonkey

descender421 wrote: »

I emailed Nick Huneycutt last week and told him how well I enjoyed the class, and if there were going to be any other classes structured similarly and he told me he is trying to see how much demand there is for doing an EMC:ISM class.

Would love to particiate in a EMC (or NetApp) storage class too! Ditto other VMware courses.

I'm going to hold off ordering the exam voucher and VMware software until July. I see that the 12-month license is triggered on the date the license is purchased. As I have this class to finish yet, why lose a month of free educational time by ordering it in June?...

Great class; great price. Great instructor.

cyberguypr

Is there anyone who did not like the class? I can't say I was disappointed as my expectations were not very high.

emerald_octane

Finished up all the labs today. Started to sit up a little straighter on the HA stuff since I don't have too much experience but it wasn't too difficult. Off to finish my VCP Flash cards and review the associated CBTNuggets. Will probably schedule the test around July 20th. Great class, great price, no complaints. Thanks again to whoever posted this deal.

ITMonkey

emerald_octane wrote: »

Finished up all the labs today. .... Thanks again to whoever posted this deal.

I did the same yesterday -- labs, quizes, videos all finished. Now I intend to return read the two books that I bought to supplement the class. And of course, I'll be setting up my own test lab to "kick-the-tires" to prepare taking the certification exam in August.

STANLY_CC

Anyone interested in signing up for the Fall 2013 sections of VMware can put their name on the SCC VMware wait-list by going to https://vmware.stanly.edu/waitlist.php

STANLY_CC

Kinet1c wrote: »

Hey folks, I'm hoping to carry out this course in the fall and had a few questions.

1. What time (EST) are the course classes on?
2. Over how many weeks is it carried out?
3. I've used ESXi before but not in production, would the course be too advanced for me?

Classes run over an 8 week period and are conducted entirely online. We are currently in the process of setting up Fall 2013 sections. You can add your name to the wait-list by registering at https://vmware.stanly.edu/waitlist.php

Kinet1c

STANLY_CC wrote: »

Anyone interested in signing up for the Fall 2013 sections of VMware can put their name on the SCC VMware wait-list by going to https://vmware.stanly.edu/waitlist.php

Hey, looks like it's just Spring that is currently available for the waiting lists. Any idea when you will be announcing who has made it for the fall 2013 classes?

xordis

Anyone having trouble ordering a voucher from vmwarecertificationmarketplace?
Is it our only option for getting the cheaper voucher?
I ordered mine over a week again and they still haven't processed it and I can't seem to cancel the order.

emerald_octane

Same for me on the voucher situation. Try sending them an email if you haven't already.

Edit: I sent them an email and got the voucher 30 mins later. It's worth a shot.

emerald_octane

ITMonkey wrote: »

If anyone has found yet other good learning material, I'll give you a banana in exchange for your input.

No need for another banana, but I will mention that I decided to supplement vSphere certification guide with The vSphere 5.1 Clustering Deepdive ebook. I hear the deepdive is the gold standard on HA learnings.
Note for mods: I have absolutely no vested interests.

STANLY_CC

Kinet1c wrote: »

Hey, looks like it's just Spring that is currently available for the waiting lists. Any idea when you will be announcing who has made it for the fall 2013 classes?

We will be contacting registrants individually in the order they placed their name on the waitlist once the sections are created for the fall classes.

FireFire

emerald_octane wrote: »

Same for me on the voucher situation. Try sending them an email if you haven't already.

Edit: I sent them an email and got the voucher 30 mins later. It's worth a shot.

Did you pay for the full price? Stanly CC will send the coupon which xx% off after we done the class... I got 225.00 when I check vmwarecertificationmarketplace website...

emerald_octane

Nah, the discount code is already available on Stanly's onthehub page with all the vSphere demo license codes. Once I received that, I schlepped it over to the vmware education marketplace. I think the total was around $65 for the voucher. I booked it for the 13th.

Sounds Good

emerald_octane wrote: »

Nah, the discount code is already available on Stanly's onthehub page with all the vSphere demo license codes. Once I received that, I schlepped it over to the vmware education marketplace. I think the total was around $65 for the voucher. I booked it for the 13th.

Are there multiple shots at the test if you fail? Or can you purchase another voucher from them?

Also, do you feel you will be ready by the 13th based on the course alone? Or do you have prior experience with VMware?

emerald_octane

Sounds Good wrote: »

Are there multiple shots at the test if you fail? Or can you purchase another voucher from them?

Also, do you feel you will be ready by the 13th based on the course alone? Or do you have prior experience with VMware?

I think it's only one voucher. If you are enrolled in WGU, they also offer a VMWare voucher from their onthehub store, but no individual classes.

I can say that, based on what I see in the VCP5 official cert book as well as some blog postings about exam experiences, the class alone may not be sufficient in order to pass the exam, because the test allegedly gets into the weeds a little bit and demands hands on experience. Alot of stuff i'm reading says that test takers were woefully unprepared about questions relating to Bios setup, Auto-deploy and a host of HA stuff.

The course material provided by VMware simply doesn't go much into detail about everything needed for the test (as far as I can tell), strange as it is. It isn't a Stanly thing but a VMware thing.

So all in all I have/am doing the following: This course, CBT Nuggets VCP5, Official VCP5 Certification (Ferguson), vSphere 5 Study Guide (Atkinson), Clustering DeepDive 5.1, and labbing from the vSphere 5 Study Guide using nested ESXi. I scheduled the exam at this particular time mostly for work purposes.
I have a few years of ESXi experience mostly in Administration of large environments that have already setup. The inner workings of HA is toughest for me so far.

xordis

I got my voucher after a few emails to them.
I registered with a email that was hosted with google, and they didn't like that and for some reason it didn't see my update to a real email address.
Anyway it's all sorted now and I got my coupon.
Exam is scheduled for Tuesday week (9th) so I will start hitting the books this weekend.

From everything I have heard the course isn't enough to pass the exam, you need to read lots of tech articles and have some experience with vmware before attempting it.
For me I have been supporting it from a bare metal (network, updates, installs etc) level up for a few years now and have used it from an admin level (VM create, destroy, optimise etc) for maybe six years now, so I think it's worth a shot before I forget the simple stuff from the course.

One question I do have about the course/exam though.
When I got my voucher and coupon, I had to go for the VCP510PSE. Does anyone know what the difference is between the VCP510 and the VCP510PSE exams?

kiki162

I got my voucher. Just have to register for the exam...and figure out when I wanna do it.

descender421

xordis wrote: »

One question I do have about the course/exam though.
When I got my voucher and coupon, I had to go for the VCP510PSE. Does anyone know what the difference is between the VCP510 and the VCP510PSE exams?

I am wondering the same thing actually.

kiki162

descender421 wrote: »

I am wondering the same thing actually.

I sent a post to their twitter on that subject

j23evan

I took the exam Saturday, and failed it by 5%. It was far more difficult than I expected. I will beat it next time around now that I understand what the questions are like and how deep in the domains they go.

Sounds Good

j23evan wrote: »

I took the exam Saturday, and failed it by 5%. It was far more difficult than I expected. I will beat it next time around now that I understand what the questions are like and how deep in the domains they go.

What is your experience with the material? and where on the exam did you trip up? Formatting of questions/difficulty/etc?

xordis

kiki162 wrote: »

I sent a post to their twitter on that subject

VMware told me there is no such thing as VCP510PSE
I wonder what PearsonVue have to say about that.

xordis

PearsonVue have no additional information about the two exams.
I did get a response back from Vmware and they have said that there is no difference between VCP510 and VCP510PSE as far as exams go.

Hopefully they both count towards partner recognition as well.
Being certified is one thing, but the real value comes when your business needs to maintain a certain number of certified employees to hold a certain partner level/

scott28tt

There were a couple of comments about whether you need to know more than the ICM training for the exam, yes you do.

Get the exam blueprint from this page (VCP5-DCV) VCP-Datacenter Virtualization and make sure you are skilled in as many objectives as possible including some hands-on.