Monday 10 March 2014

Recertification policy for VCP level certifications

Well here's a change in policy from VMware - those that hold VCP-level certifications will now have to recertify in order to retain their certification and all the related benefits.

Here's the official announcement on the new policy:

http://mylearn.vmware.com/mgrReg/plan.cfm?plan=46667&ui=www_cert

There are 2 milestones to watch out for:

- If you earned all your VCP level certifications prior to March 10th 2013 you have til March 10th 2015 to recertify
- If you earned your most recent VCP level certification since March 10th 2013 you have 2 years from the date you earned that certification to recertify

You can recertify in any of these ways:

- Pass the current exam for the VCP level certification in the same discipline
- Pass the current VCP level exam in another discipline
- Pass a current VCAP level exam in the same or another discipline

Note: there is no training requirement for recertification - this is a shift in policy as previously individuals would have to take a What's New class (in the case of DCV) or even a full class as part of updating their VCP certification to a new version once a grace period had passed

Today there are 3 disciplines that have VCP certifications - Data Center Virtualisation, Cloud, and Desktop - expect to see VCP for additional disciplines such as Networking Virtualisation added in the future.

If you do not recertify by the relevant milestone your certification will be revoked and you will no longer be entitled to use the certification logo or represent yourself as VMware certified. To regain certified status, you will need to meet all the prerequisites for the specific certification.

At this time there are no recertification policies for VCA, VCAP, or VCDX certifications - but I suspect that will change in the future so watch out for other announcements.

6 comments:

  1. I'm VCAP5-DCA and VCPA5-DCD certified. If I am understanding well the recertification policy on March 10th 2015 I will lose my VCP5 certification but I won't lose my VCAP5 certifications. This does not make any sense.

    Am I right?

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    Replies
    1. Login to myLearn and have a look at your transcript - it will show the expiration date for your VCP...

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  2. What If I took the VCP5 course 2 years ago, and haven't earned my VCP5 title yet by writing the exam. Does this mean I will have to take the training course over again?

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    Replies
    1. No, your VCP certification does not have an expiry date as you've not achieved it yet - you will have 2 years from when you pass the exam. Currently you can take the VCP510 exam based on vSphere 5.0/5.1, or the VCP550 exam based on vSphere 5.5 - I would act soon though as the VCP510 exam may get retired.

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  3. Let me think this through because it appears VMware haven't...

    If you take advantage of the early upgrade there is no course to take but now there is a sting to it... The next version of the product may not be out within 2 years and you will have to retake the same VCP you did before (with updated questions).

    Surely the current credential should not expire before the next version is out... They are almost punishing early adopters and these are usually the really pro-VMware people...

    Hello... McFly...

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    Replies
    1. There's been some discussion internally on the mechanics of the policy - I was invited to join a few calls and gave a real-world and community view on how this affects folks. I can't go into detail of what was discussed unfortunately, but the team is listening and aware...

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