Beware of VMware certs

Just kind of a heads up to anyone thinking about getting a VMware certification...

Today is actually my last day working at VMware. Management here was great and good place to work, but their certification department is the worst I've seen. I passed the ICM back in January, took the vSphere foundations exam, then passed the VCP6-DTM shortly afterwards. Since it said it can take up to 30 days, I gave them a bit of time, but never got my certification.

I emailed their certification department regarding this. After a few days I get a response stating I didn't take the ICM and they closed my case. I call them up and reopen it, but the guy that owns the case isn't available. I let them know I did take it and it's on my VMware account. Get an email reply shortly saying the ICM I took (View 6.0 ICM) doesn't qualify because the class code doesn't match their supported ICMs. However I'm supporting the product they are certifying me on and the certificate I got for completing the ICM was signed by the CEO of VMware. This course was taught by a VMware employee and is their standard course for anyone supporting View, Mirage, Workspace, etc.

I got my manager involved and they ignored him basically. So looks like I won't actually have a VCP as I'm not spending money out of my own pocket for another ICM.

My situation is probably rare, but just word to the wise, make sure the ICM you take 100% qualifies or you'll be in the same boat as me. If I had spent 1500/2k out of pocket for this I'd be livid.

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Comments

ande0255

jfitzg wrote: »

Because its a money grab from VMware. First off, the fact that you need to re-test is pathetic. I have MANY certifications, most of which expire. The number that require a re-test to recertify is nill for me, they require CPEs. Lets look at other professions, do doctors have to re-take their boards? No. Do Lawyers have to re-take the bar? No. Why? Because these arent run by greedy scum sucking companies like VMware. On top of that, if they really cared about people keeping "up to date" with their skills (their pathetic BS excuse for doing this), they would require that you take the test on the SAME product to re-certify. Instead, I can pass my View exam and that will re-certify my VCP, WTF? Im patiently waiting for the day that the next big thing in virtualization technology comes along and puts VMware out of business, it will probably be a while, but hopefully it will happen and we can rid the wold of the joke called VMware.

OMG, AMEN TO THIS! I really hope another virtualization platform and makes vmware irrelevant sometime in the foreseeable future, that company needs to go away now.

markulous

For people saying VMware needs to go away, let's not confuse their products with their certifications. From a support point of view, I thought View and ESXi/vCenter were solid products.

scott28tt

DPG wrote: »

Which vendors have meaningless and unrecognized certifications?

Never heard of the phrase "Paper MCSE" then??

scott28tt

ande0255 wrote: »

OMG, AMEN TO THIS! I really hope another virtualization platform and makes vmware irrelevant sometime in the foreseeable future, that company needs to go away now.

Aww, how sweet.

tbgree00

ande0255 wrote: »

OMG, AMEN TO THIS! I really hope another virtualization platform and makes vmware irrelevant sometime in the foreseeable future, that company needs to go away now.

So you want VMware to "go away" because they want their certification candidates to continue to learn about their technologies? Or is it because they put a class barrier that keeps dumpers from getting the test without having exposure? It's funny that someone very active in the Cisco cert environment (per your avatar) would find issues with recertification requirements. I mean taking a CCNA Security test renews your Voice, right? How is that different from taking a Horizon test renewing your VCP5?

It makes as much sense to me that taking a current Horizon exam would imply you are actively learning their technology as taking a CCNA Datacenter exam would renew the CCNA Security.

GSXR750K2

scott28tt wrote: »

Never heard of the phrase "Paper MCSE" then??

No, but then again I'm probably a whipper snapper to many, so don't be too surprised. I'm not knocking VMware, and I can see that you are well versed in their products and may feel the need to defend your investment and knowledge, so don't take anything I saw as an attack on you personally. As with every certification, there are a lot who may not necessarily deserve it and there are a lot who actually do. I know, as I'm sure we all do, people who are "educated idiots", meaning they have the credentials but beyond the theory they learned in a book (or in a class), they couldn't apply it to save their lives.

So to an extent, while some certifications may be more recognized than others, any one of them could be meaningless depending on who holds it, VMware included.

jfitzg

tbgree00 wrote: »

Or is it because they put a class barrier that keeps dumpers from getting the test without having exposure?

Funny, a couple jobs ago I worked with a number of cloud engineers (VMware backend with VCD front end for customers), all they did was pass around **** to study for their re-certification (they were re-taking the ESXi 5 exam). Sure shows how effective that class barrier was! /s

jfitzg

joelsfood wrote: »

Doctor's boards do have recertification exams, as well as continuing education requirements (MOC)
https://www.abim.org/maintenance-of-certification/exam-information/infectious-disease/exam-dates.aspx

I stand corrected, my entire family practices medicine and I never remember anyone taking re-certification exams.

jfitzg

markulous wrote: »

For people saying VMware needs to go away, let's not confuse their products with their certifications. From a support point of view, I thought View and ESXi/vCenter were solid products.

Ummmm, Vmware offshores their support, and it is garbage. The only time I ever get a good support person is when I am transferred to the live queue (Ireland the last two times), other than that, it is horrible. My last experience with "support" was fixing a vcenter issue, I told the guy right off the bat what the issue was, and after watching him spend 1.5 hours surfing catalina.out logs, I googled some more and found a VMware KB article with my problem (which had absolutely nowhere near close anything to do with Tomcat). I fixed the problem on my own. VMware support is in a sorry state, but that's what happens when a greedy scum company like VMware cuts corners for higher profits...

tbgree00

jfitzg wrote: »

Funny, a couple jobs ago I worked with a number of cloud engineers (VMware backend with VCD front end for customers), all they did was pass around **** to study for their re-certification (they were re-taking the ESXi 5 exam). Sure shows how effective that class barrier was! /s

You're right, people **** their recertification. I can't argue against that and it's sad that you've worked in a place that values cheating that highly. I assume you don't feel the same since you're posting in a certification community that promotes fair testing and learning over ****. I just know I have worked with Server Engineers with MCSAs/MCSEs that can't add a server to a domain, don't know what Active Directory does, and can't add a static IP to a NIC. I've never run into a VCP that doesn't at least understand the fundamentals of working with vSphere.

What are you hoping to accomplish? Are you trying to get a rise out of us VMware nerds? I've worked with VMware products for 10 years now and never experienced your experiences with support and your obvious disgust with the company. I value their certifications highly and have invested a lot into knowing them. I'm sorry they have hurt you in such a personal way. I hope whatever company you base your career around has much better support and their certification program is altruistic, not a money grab and is valued highly in the industry.

JoJoCal19

scott28tt wrote: »

Never heard of the phrase "Paper MCSE" then??

VMware's VCP level exams are multiple choice correct, yes? Then there's paper VCP's just the same. And as far as meaningless and unrecognized, maybe when VMware's certs start approaching Microsoft's, Cisco's, or other vendors in the number of job listings asking for them, then you can try to claim that other certs are meaningless and unrecognized.

markulous

Ummmm, Vmware offshores their support, and it is garbage. The only time I ever get a good support person is when I am transferred to the live queue (Ireland the last two times), other than that, it is horrible. My last experience with "support" was fixing a vcenter issue, I told the guy right off the bat what the issue was, and after watching him spend 1.5 hours surfing catalina.out logs, I googled some more and found a VMware KB article with my problem (which had absolutely nowhere near close anything to do with Tomcat). I fixed the problem on my own. VMware support is in a sorry state, but that's what happens when a greedy scum company like VMware cuts corners for higher profits...

I worked support there and they have a huge support center in Colorado. I can tell you the department I worked in was fantastic. So I meant from a point of view from supporting the product.

TheProf

ande0255 wrote: »

OMG, AMEN TO THIS! I really hope another virtualization platform and makes vmware irrelevant sometime in the foreseeable future, that company needs to go away now.

why do you hope for VMware to go away?

Wagnaard

They are. Though VMware's support has tanked.

DPG

scott28tt wrote: »

Never heard of the phrase "Paper MCSE" then??

I've heard paper "insert certification here" for just about all vendors. There are plenty of "paper" CCIE's but that doesn't make Cisco certifications meaningless and unrecognized.

Lexluethar

I think it's a bit silly to say you want VMware to go away. You realize it's technically Dell because Dell bought EMC, EMC owns the majority share of VMware.

Ya Scott paper MCSE, we've interviewed a few people like that as well. Unfortunately unless a company has IT personnel interview candidates HR usually won't know how to weed those people out.

blargoe

I do agree that the recert requirement is a money grab, and having such a short recert time period is pretty terrible. I had to take 5.x twice to keep my cert active.

But when you are the market leader and your credentials have such a high demand, you can pretty much enforce whatever $$$$ and quality requirements you want, and people will pay for it. They currently have no disincentive to doing things this way.

jibbajabba

Is it just me who thinks that if people don't like it - to just move onto a different vendor and ditch VMware ?

joelsfood

No, I'd have to agree.

If you don't like the cert requirements, move on. If you find that getting your resume past HR requires you to have teh VCP, then I'd think that it's a small price to renew it every two years. Besides, the renewal itself is a way of requiring CPE, at least in theory, as you're going to have to prepare for the test. Do people ****? sure. That doesn't mean it should be dropped though.

burfect

scott28tt wrote: »

Never heard of the phrase "Paper MCSE" then??

And you think that someone sitting in a three thousand dollar class eliminates them from being the same? The amount of VCPs that I work with that have almost close to zero clue about virtualization is in the dozens.

It's no different than a paper CCNA just because you sat in a class for a couple days. It's a money grab, plain and simple.

I'm not upset about it but that's the reality...

scott28tt

burfect wrote: »

It's a money grab, plain and simple.

I'm not upset about it but that's the reality...

VMware didn't need the training revenue when they included the training requirement into the original VCP program, they were growing at more than 200% annually at the time.

burfect

scott28tt wrote: »

VMware didn't need the training revenue when they included the training requirement into the original VCP program, they were growing at more than 200% annually at the time.

Not sure I understand your point?

If you think that a company that does 6billion in revenue isn't savvy enough to take advantage of significant revenue stream presented via certification programs your being naive.

jfitzg

markulous wrote: »

I worked support there and they have a huge support center in Colorado. I can tell you the department I worked in was fantastic. So I meant from a point of view from supporting the product.

Funny how I have NEVER talked to an American support person, and my company bought the best level support that VMware offers. My most recent experience with India was trying to figure out where the lock was on a VMDK so I could delete snapshots off a VM. I was told there was no way to determine where the lock is from, and to clone the disks and just attach them to the VM and remove the old disks with the lock. Funny thing is, when you have a server w a snapshots, you are very limited on changing virtual hardware, and guess what you cant remove hard disks from a guest when the VM has a snapshot, but my VMware support agent didnt know this and assured me it would work (it didnt). Funny how VMware support doesnt even know basic things about their product. But thats what you get when you do business with a greedy scum sucking company like VMware who only gives a crap about $$$.

jfitzg

scott28tt wrote: »

VMware didn't need the training revenue when they included the training requirement into the original VCP program, they were growing at more than 200% annually at the time.

Funny how VMware didnt make the certifications expire initially, but decided to wait until they needed some more money to change that policy.

jfitzg

jibbajabba wrote: »

Is it just me who thinks that if people don't like it - to just move onto a different vendor and ditch VMware ?

If my predecessor hadn't signed a 5 year contract with VMware, my entire environment would already be in AWS...

scott28tt

burfect wrote: »

Not sure I understand your point?

If you think that a company that does 6billion in revenue isn't savvy enough to take advantage of significant revenue stream presented via certification programs your being naive.

You said it was simply a money maker, I said they probably didn't need the money at the time as their revenues were growing so quickly, mostly just on licenses.

VCP started 10-12 years ago when $6bn annually could have only been a dream - VMware was still very small back then, so making it compulsory when it was first launched was a very bold move.

scott28tt

jfitzg wrote: »

Funny how VMware didnt make the certifications expire initially, but decided to wait until they needed some more money to change that policy.

They actually made it cheaper for many people to retain their certifications - dropping the requirement to take a What's New class as part of "upgrading" and only making it necessary to pass an exam.

scott28tt

jfitzg wrote: »

But thats what you get when you do business with a greedy scum sucking company like VMware who only gives a crap about $$$.

Wow, I didn't realise every other IT company was a charity.

markulous

jfitzg wrote: »

Funny how I have NEVER talked to an American support person, and my company bought the best level support that VMware offers. My most recent experience with India was trying to figure out where the lock was on a VMDK so I could delete snapshots off a VM. I was told there was no way to determine where the lock is from, and to clone the disks and just attach them to the VM and remove the old disks with the lock. Funny thing is, when you have a server w a snapshots, you are very limited on changing virtual hardware, and guess what you cant remove hard disks from a guest when the VM has a snapshot, but my VMware support agent didnt know this and assured me it would work (it didnt). Funny how VMware support doesnt even know basic things about their product. But thats what you get when you do business with a greedy scum sucking company like VMware who only gives a crap about $$$.

Well like I said, I can't really speak for any other departments. If you have you use Horizon/View, then odds are you'll get someone from my old department and you should get some really good support. But that sucks you have horrible experiences. I wouldn't be happy with that either.

markulous

So Scott was trying his best to help me out here, which I REALLY appreciate, but sounds like they kind have dismissed him like they did with my (former) manager.

So I put in a "hail mary" and sent them a long email about this poor process and that it needs to be escalated. So they replied today and said they escalated it. We'll see if it does anything. If it doesn't I'll make sure their certification department doesn't receive a dime of my money in the future.