In a recent arti­cle, VCP 5 cer­ti­fi­ca­tion course dead­line looms over VMware pros both vNinja.net con­trib­u­tors (Chris­t­ian and Ed) are quoted in rela­tion to the VCP 5 cer­ti­fi­ca­tion upgrade dead­line of Feb­ru­ary 29th 2012.

While I can´t speak for Ed, I can clar­ify my own com­ments a bit. The fol­low­ing is a quote from VMware, taken from the arti­cle in question:

“That require­ment is in place to main­tain the integrity of the cer­ti­fi­ca­tion. If peo­ple could pass the VCP 5 with­out expo­sure to and hands-on expe­ri­ence with vSphere 5, it would devalue the cer­ti­fi­ca­tion,” a VMware spokesper­son wrote in an email.

While I do see why VMware has that stance, and why they try to keep the exam “real”, my prob­lem is that there is no way for any­one to do the VCP cer­ti­fi­ca­tion with­out class­room train­ing. I don´t mind that VMware has a train­ing require­ment, and I don´t mind that you have to pay for it. What I do have a prob­lem with is that I´m required to sit a 5 day train­ing class. Why not offer an online VCP-prep course that you can com­plete in your own pace, com­plete with a pre-exam test that you can use to val­i­date your skill set? That way VMware can still require a min­i­mum of train­ing pre-exam, get paid for it, and stu­dents can do their train­ing in their own pace and when they have avail­able time for it. Seems like a win-win (bingo!) sit­u­a­tion to me?

As far as I´ve heard the VCP5 exam focuses less on min­i­mum and max­i­mum con­fig­u­ra­tion lim­its than the VCP4 which is a good thing, but at the same time I don´t think the Install, Con­fig­ure and Man­age course by itself is enough to pass the exam, so in essence VMware is already “devalu­ing” their own exam by requir­ing train­ing that does not cover the entire curriculum.

The hands-on require­ment is a good one, and I applaud it, the best way to ensure that would be to turn the VCP exam into a hands-on-lab envi­ron­ment where you get tasks to com­plete, instead of mul­ti­ple choice questions.

Dis­claimer: I have not yet tried to do the VCP 5 exam and I´m only com­ment­ing based on feed­back pro­vided by oth­ers who have.

As far as the time avail­able for exist­ing VCPs to upgrade from VCP4 to VCP5, I also believe the time­frame is too short, and to be com­pletely hon­est I don´t really see why there should be a time limit at all? After all, if you have the VCP4, you pretty much know what you´re in for with regards to the VCP5. Why rush it, and have peo­ple attempt to upgrade before they are ready? Let peo­ple do this on their own, in their own sched­ule, I don´t see how VMware ben­e­fits from enforc­ing a time­frame at all. Unless the moti­va­tion is sell­ing more train­ing, of course.

Chris­t­ian Mohn