VMware Courses and Certification Announcements – VMworld 2013

VMware announced many new courses and certifications at VMworld 2013 in San Francisco.  Here are some of the details.

VMware now offers a new entry-level certification level, the VMware Certified Associate (VCA) for each of the three existing tracks, Datacenter Virtualization, End User Computing, and Cloud.  The VCA certification verifies and validates your core foundational knowledge and understanding of vSphere (data center virtualization) , vCloud Suite (cloud) , and Horizon Suite (end-user, workforce mobility).  The VCA certifications have no training requirement, but VMware offers free eLearning to help.  Temporarily, VMware offers a 50% discount for taking VCA exams.  VCA Details.

VMware also announced a new Certification Track on Network Virtualization with the entry-level VCA on Network Virtualization (VCA-NV) coming soon.  The VCA-NV certification verifies and validates your core functional knowledge and understanding of VMware NSX, VMware Network and Security (vShield), and virtual switches.    For details, see the Network Virtualization section the VMware Certification page .

VMware announced updates to existing courses, such as the vSphere Install Configure and FastTrack classes for VMware vSphere and Horizon View.  These are just typical, expected updates that correspond to product updates to version 5.5.  Individuals, who already took the  associated version 5.0 or 5.1 versions of these classes should not need to take the version 5.5 classes.  Individuals, who have taken a a pre-version 5.x class on vSphere or Horizon View, should consider taking the appropriate What’s New in Version 5.5.

VMware announced these brand new classes, which are not simply updated versions of existing classes:

• VMware vCloud Automation Center Install Configure Manage 5.2 – covers the implementation steps and basic concepts of vCAC – available now.
• VMware vCloud Network and Security Install Configure Manage 5.5 – covers the implementation steps and basic concepts of VMware vCloud Network and Security Server – available in October 2013 (version 5.1 is available now)
• vSphere Troubleshooting 5.5 – covers the methodology for diagnosing and repairing vSphere issues caused by infrastructure (hardware, storage and network) problems and misconfigurations – (available now, the class wont have any significant changes specific to version 5.5)
• VMware vCloud Automation Center Extensibility – covers extending vCAC via VMware Orchestrator integration, which is something 80% of vCAC administrators should know – available in Dec 2013.