VMware or Microsoft? Let’s Talk Certifications!

My co-worker, Matter Hester, is VCP Certified. Most of my peers that are a part of out VMware or Microsoft series are also VCP certified. In the next few weeks I will be taking my VCP Exam as well. Why? As a “Technology Evangelist” it is important that I know not only my own products, but the products of our competitors. I also need and want to be familiar with technologies in general (I am a geek!)

Matt delivered a blog post this morning about his certification process and makes a comparison between the VMware VCP Exam and the Microsoft Exam process. Here is an excerpt -

“In a sense the VCP exam did remind me of the old NT 4.0 exams that I took way back when I first started down my certification path. So what changed with our certifications other than the exams got harder and more solution focused. In talking with my teammate Keith Mayer , I learned that Microsoft Learning actively reached out to IT Pros, IT Hiring managers and Industry experts worldwide to gain insight into the skills that companies were looking for. This is reflected in the holistic approach we have to our certification process. To make the certifications more valuable you have to move from a product focused to implementation and solution focused. This is what companies are looking for, while it is important to know what port you need for xyz technology, it is more valuable the underlying solution that needs that port opened.

I think this comparison also highlights the difference between the companies and their approach to private cloud technologies. At Microsoft we see private cloud more of as a how and not a what. It is about the automation and process and not just about virtualization. In a sense knowing about the hyper visor and virtualization technologies is really just table stakes. “

Matt has much more to say on this topic so I encourage to take a look at this blog post here for more information -

VMware or Microsoft? Let’s Talk Certifications!

-Cheers!