VCP Certification Compared to MS Certification?

[alestan3]

Hello Community,

I have attained VCP certification on 3/6/2012 and now I am up for promotion.  My employer of 2 years is wanting to compare the cert to Microsoft's MCSE or MCSA certification path.  Is this an accurate comparison?  I personally think the VCP is more valuable because you have to draw more skills from different areas like Storage, Networking, Virtualization, Scripting etc.

I know this is like comparing Apples to Oranges but does the VCP compare to MCSE or vice versa?  Is one more valuable than the other?

Any input would be greatly appreciated cause I have the big conversation tomorrow!!!

Thanks!

[Josh26]

Hi,

The primary difference is that the VCP is current, whereas the MCSE is deprecated. MS' current goal is the MCITP: Enterprise Administrator.

The VCP will ultimately be more valuable because it costs more. The MCSE when I did it took seven exams, each being $180. The VCP required a classroom led course, setting us back over $4,000.

The MCITP covers much more networking than the VCP, from the point of view of the repeated issues I see in every network with poorely implemented AD DNS infrastructure.

[chriswahl]

Really depends on what it is you do. Being a holder of both, I thought the MCITP:EA required more effort (5 exams, wide variety of topics) vs VCP (1 exam, 1 course).

However, it is my understanding that the VCP holds more monetary value in the job market.

[alestan3]

@Josh26,

I hear ya, but  my feeling going throught the VCP exam blueprint is that it expects you to have a high level understanding of each topic especially MS AD, DNS etc.   Good point though.

[AndreTheGiant]

Please note that the MCITP is just a series of different certifications.

If you are talking about the one in virtualization it covers not only the part related to Hyper-V and SCVMM, but also some part related to desktop and presentation virtualization.

But VCP IHMO cover more about the storage part and the virtualization concepts, so actually is still the more complete.

[BradClarke]

I think the course requirement for VCP makes it more expensive and time consuming to get, and that adds to it's value over MCSE/MCITP. I also think the VCP exam questions are much closer to real world situations than any of the MCITP exams.

[alestan3]

Thanks for the input guys.  I'm happy to report that everything worked out great and my boss now sees the value in VCP!