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Immortal
Immortal

VCDX defense opportunities aren't capacity-controlled

A VCDX candidate alerted me that there's a misconception out there that I am happy to dispel.

The incorrect belief: that candidates are competing for a fixed number of defense slots at any given session.  Not so.  What determines how many people can defend in, say, Singapore or Frankfurt?  It's simply how many applications we receive that, based on technical review, show that their candidate has a material chance of passing.  If, somehow, we got 2000 such applications, we'd figure out how to hold 2000 panels.

This is depicted on the VCDX4 Process flowchart document: http://mylearn.vmware.com/register.cfm?course=102447

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weinstein5
Immortal
Immortal

Nice - Thanks for the infor Brian

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admin
Immortal
Immortal

I got some pushback on my assertion here... a lot of people said O RLY?  So I asked around and got some confirmation.  Yes, I can confirm that VCDX defense opportunities are not capacity-controlled.  What this means to candidates: You should not feel pressured to submit your VCDX application before it is ready, out of fear that we will run out of space in your preferred defense opportunity.

In the past, we had some language on our website that implied we were capacity-controlled.  I am removing this language.  Fortunately, we never had to implement capacity controls; and we plan to keep it that way.

Having said that: yes, resources to support any given VCDX defense opportunity are finite.  In the same way, any McDonalds in the world has a finite ability to produce Filet-O-Fish sandwiches (mmmm, mayonnaise).  You can go into a McDonalds and order 2000 Filet-O-Fish sandwiches, and people do.  But the manager will appear and have an earnest talk with you about how that order might be structured.

If for some reason we get an unexpected flood of people applying for a given defense opportunity, we will do a technical review of them in the ordinary way, applying the ordinary standard: people who appear to have a material chance of success at defense get to advance to the defense stage.  If, after review, we now have a flood of qualified candidates who want to defend, we will call up some of them and find creative ways of scheduling.  Some candidates might be asked to accept a later or earlier week and/or a different location.  We'll be as flexible as logistics permit.

However, nobody is going to be denied the chance to attempt VCDX solely because a lot of other qualified people applied at the same time.  That would be contrary to the intent of the program.

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depping
Leadership
Leadership

I've been involved with all VI3 VCDX defenses as a panel member and have seen all submissions and although some defenses have been challenging to schedule we never turned people down because we were full. In order to solve this we did parallel sessions 3 times a day. (yes that was cruel for the panel members)

Duncan

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