Virtualization - Skills and Certifications

What skills/certifications have you found to be most useful and in demand by employers while working in the virtualization field?

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Daniel333

I am not specifically a virtualization guy. But I get by. Generally places seem to be looking for VCP and Storage certifications. Also seem Microsoftr cloud engineering certs might take off.

jibbajabba

I think personally I answered this one a few times but unfortunately I cannot find my own posts right now

But let me repeat myself so it makes sense... You should NEVER pursue a certification, in any field, VMWare, Cisco, Microsoft etc., because employers demand it.

Technology changes constantly and the last thing you want to do is going towards a VMWare certification because most company using it. Then years down the line Microsoft brings out Hyper-V 5 and all companies are 'all over it' - then what ?

I can only say one thing - go towards the technology YOU LOVE - in order to excel in any job, you NEED To like / love it and stay up to date with the technology. There is no point in going the Hyper-V route if you hate Microsoft products just because x-amount of companies using it. You set yourself up for failure.

My suggestion : Download the evals of either and play with either product. See what feels right and try to master it.

At the end it also depends where you end up working.

For example, a hosting company selling cheap VMs is likely to use open source - Xen / KVM etc. A hosting company, one I worked for for example, selling high performance VMs, is likely to use VMWare, a pure Windows shop might go with Hyper-V as they have the licenses anyway. A massive scale company offering VDI is likely to use Xen Desktop and a small infrastructure likely to use VMWare View. Or neither of the above ...

No way of knowing 100% - only two things are certain, you'll die eventually and to master a technology you need to love it...

kevozz

I searched but couldn't find what I was looking for. Got the message search terms returned too many results. If you find the other posts let me know.

Thanks for the information. Makes sense. Just trying to figure out another direction for my career.

Essendon

To continue what jibba said, download both Hyper-v and vSphere and see which one you like and GUN for the cert. Really go after it. A year or so ago, I played with both software, liked vSphere better and got me the VCP 5. Now that I have the cert, the learning hasnt stopped - I still read whitepapers/blogs/books on vSphere all the time. Never slack off!

ajs1976

jibbajabba wrote: »

I can only say one thing - go towards the technology YOU LOVE - in order to excel in any job, you NEED To like / love it and stay up to date with the technology. There is no point in going the Hyper-V route if you hate Microsoft products just because x-amount of companies using it. You set yourself up for failure.

Back in the day, I knew a lot of people that loved Novell Netware and hated MS Windows. Any guesses as to which OS they are working with now?

I agree with going towards the technology that you love, but you have to keep an eye on the market too.