Cheapest path to VCP?

ChooseLife · April 2011

qwertyiop wrote: »

Why cant one of the online classes be priced like that?

They may one day. Then thousands of VCPs flood the market. And then VCP becomes a requirement for helpdesk positions, like MCSE is now.

MentholMoose · April 2011

JDMurray wrote: »

I just noticed that the Summer 2011 session for Eric Chen's CST C220 VMware vSphere course at Coastline Community College in Garden Grove, CA is open for enrollment starting May 16th (continuing students) and May 23rd (new and returning students).

It's an 8-week course that meets on Monday nights starting June 13th. It's 3.0 units at $26/unit, so you aren't gonna find a more inexpensive, brick-and-mortar-with-lab VMware training deal anywhere. And quoted from the course page:

Upon completion of this course, students can take the examination to become a VMware Certified Professional. This course may be taken four times. Graded or Pass/No Pass option.

I probably won't make it in, as I am a "returning student" and must take the later registration date, but I'm gonna try.

So did you make it in?

JDMurray · April 2011

My registration date is May 23rd. Because I'm a "returning" and not a "continuing" student, I was given a later date in the registration cycle.

I did email the instructor;; he said that usually twice the number of students want to take the class than are able to enroll (max 30 students). Under those circumstances, I really don't expect to get in. I'll put my name on any waiting list to see if I can get in after the first-class-no-shows are dropped. It's worth a shot.

MentholMoose · April 2011

JDMurray wrote: »

My registration date is May 23rd. Because I'm a "returning" and not a "continuing" student, I was given a later date in the registration cycle.

Oops, I asked a month too early.

JDMurray wrote: »

I did email the instructor;; he said that usually twice the number of students want to take the class than are able to enroll (max 30 students).

Wow, that is quite some demand.

JDMurray wrote: »

Under those circumstances, I really don't expect to get in. I'll put my name on any waiting list to see if I can get in after the first-class-no-shows are dropped. It's worth a shot.

Good luck! Hopefully more community colleges will get on this. I know some CIS faculty at Mt. SAC but have had no luck getting them interested in joining VAP.

nhan.ng · May 2011

JDMurray wrote: »

My registration date is May 23rd. Because I'm a "returning" and not a "continuing" student, I was given a later date in the registration cycle.

I did email the instructor;; he said that usually twice the number of students want to take the class than are able to enroll (max 30 students). Under those circumstances, I really don't expect to get in. I'll put my name on any waiting list to see if I can get in after the first-class-no-shows are dropped. It's worth a shot.

The demand for that course is crazy. Last semester when I was enrolled, they had so many students that they ended creating a 2nd class to fill it

. The 2nd class was full, too. As long as you show up on the first day and put your name on the list, he'll give you priority over those that come later. He's a very nice guy

me and you will be fighting for a spot lol

JBrown · May 2011

nhan.ng wrote: »

The demand for that course is crazy. Last semester when I was enrolled, they had so many students that they ended creating a 2nd class to fill it . The 2nd class was full, too. As long as you show up on the first day and put your name on the list, he'll give you priority over those that come later. He's a very nice guy

me and you will be fighting for a spot lol

Well, who would not pay less than $100 for something that usually cost ~$4,000.
The hardware itself (even if you follow the minimum requirements ) will run you about $30,000.

JDMurray · May 2011

JBrown wrote: »

Well, who would not pay less than $100 for something that usually cost ~$4,000.

The class uses the official VMware VCP4 courseware, which students are required to buy from the college bookstore, so I don't know what I'll end up paying in total.

scott28tt · May 2011

I know exactly how much a VATC has to pay for the courseware - it's not cheap...

JBrown · May 2011

Our school is part of vITA and VMware charges us zilch for using their courseware (and we still could not afford it) and they go out of their way to help with howtos, best practices and etc. We were about to start offering ICM course ourselfs, but the course was nixed because we did not budget the hardware cost during the previous year.
Hopefully it will work our next year.

What is amusing me is, I could not find a single school in NYC that would offer ICM as part of a curriculum or even offer it at all.

MentholMoose · May 2011

JDMurray wrote: »

The class uses the official VMware VCP4 courseware, which students are required to buy from the college bookstore, so I don't know what I'll end up paying in total.

It should be about $50 for the student materials (that's how much I paid when I took the ICM course at another community college).

JDMurray · May 2011

OK, I'm enrolled in CCC's vSphere class as student 27 of 30. It's an 8-week Summer class, so it's either gonna be fast-paced or modules will be skipped. If it turns out that I'm serious about trying VCP4, I'll take the class again in the Fall.

nhan.ng · May 2011

I'm pretty sure he'll make good use of every single minutes of it, and will possibly go overtime

JDMurray · May 2011

It's three hours lecture plus one hour lab and ends at 10:15PM. I've been in a couple of Eric's Cisco classes with that same format. I'm gonna be getting into work late on Wednesday mornings for a while.

nhan.ng · May 2011

Hopefully I'll have enough energy to stay til the lab's hour

EmpoweredBizTech · May 2011

I am student 28/30 I can't believe I made it in I was getting worried waiting seeing the enrollment go up before I was allowed to enroll. $94 before books can't be beat vs the avg of $3495 I love 97% Off. I live down in San Diego but it will be well worth the hike for 2 months even if I need to stay at motel a night or two

JDMurray · May 2011

nhan.ng wrote: »

Hopefully I'll have enough energy to stay til the lab's hour

In Eric's Cisco classes the lab and lecture time was interleaved (I still have the PIX 501 I bought for his firewall class), and the class ends around 9:30-ish with the option to stay the full time. I hope they are running ESXi 4 on something more than a bunch of old Dell Optiplex desktops.

nhan.ng · May 2011

I was in his class last time but didn't finish. I dropped at half way due to changing work schedule. Before I dropped I heard he was having his servers being delivered. He spec'ed them out and it took a while for the school to approve it. If I remember correctly he said it'll have 60 or 70gig of RAM or something like that, EACH!!!!

He had 3 or 4 machines running Openfiler that time, and some of the guys brought in their own machines as well.

JDMurray · May 2011

Very nice! There's so many vSphere features that I don't use (vMotion, DRS, HA) that I need to get to know. And now Openfiler too.

Now I need to find an inexpensive Linux-base NAS that I can load with ESXi and run Openfiler on as a VM. That would make a decent home media server.

nhan.ng · May 2011

loads openfiler on that server. I read alot of good reviews on it and it's pretty affordable

ConradJ · May 2011

IF you can find them. I've been in the market for an HP Proliant Microserver for a little while, and they're very difficult to track down, in Canada at least. I've found two online retailers, and that's it.

nhan.ng · May 2011

it must be a Canadian thing because it's everywhere here

ConradJ · May 2011

And no doubt significantly cheaper, too.

Rip off Canada strikes again! Just like the Dell T110.

nhan.ng · May 2011

have some one u know buy one and ship it to you

terryfera · May 2011

There are a few retailers around but you're right, it is more expensive here. Just look at the shopbot prices :S

HP ProLiant MicroServer - Price comparison - Canada's Cheapest Prices

The lowest prices aren't even in stock

nhan.ng · May 2011

then time to build your own

JDMurray · May 2011

SuperMicro has a line of ~$200 server motherboards that support up to 6 SATA3 drives, dual Gb NICs, fanless dual cose Atom CPU, and up to 4GB RAM. They also have onboard RAID, but Openfiler uses software RAID, so hardware RAID isn't needed. You can also load/run Openfiler on a USB stick or SD card and leave the drives for pure storage.

nhan.ng · May 2011

not sure if there's a bug in the latest release of OF, because it wont detect all of my 8 drives, unless i raid them. It will only see 6 drives individually, and the the last 2 as if it's on a raid array. This is on the LSI controller btw. Currently I have them in 2 raid arrays and they're working fine in OF

I had OpenIndiana installed on it before but took it off to installed OF to get ready for Eric Chen's VMware class

Hopefully he'll still be using OF or else i have to wipe it again

ConradJ · May 2011

Once you've added a case and a decent psu, it really is barely worth the hassle of a self-build. My dedicated ESXi box was that way. It's a great machine, but wasn't worth the hours spent checking compatibility and hunting down parts vs. just buying a server - even taking into account I get all hardware at cost.

Unfortunately none of our suppliers have the Microserver available.

Incidentally, for my home use I use NexentaStor.

nhan.ng · May 2011

I agree. But once again, nothing beat the experience of building your own and watch everything boot up in front of your own eyes

yeah im nerdy like that

ConradJ · May 2011

This is true, and tailoring your system to you is ultimately pretty rewarding.

Still, I want a Microserver, dang it!

Cheapest path to VCP?

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