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Sorry, the only courses that satisfy the course requirement for VCP are those with a hands-on component: live-online or in-person instructor-led. I do hope to change this in the future, but it won't happen in 2008.

If some modules of Self-Paced Online training is free would that meet the VCP exam prerequisite? or Self-Pace online is for personal knowledge only not fully design like VI3.5: Install & Configured course? If we pay the rest of the fee for Self-Pace Online training, would we be eligible to sit for VCP exam this way it might be cheaper for those who already work with VMware products on a daily basis. If you found this information useful, please consider awarding points for "Correct" or "Helpful". Thanks!!! Regards, Stefan Nguyen iGeek Systems Inc. VMware, Citrix, Microsoft Consultant

Yes, that's correct: live-online classes are priced the same as in-person classes. (On the other hand, self-paced online classes (eLearning) are indeed substantially cheaper.) Live-online classes and in-person classes use the same instructors, the same course materials, the same server and Storage Area Network hardware, and the same registration infrastructure. These are the major components of the cost to VMware of delivering any instructor-led class, live-online or in-person. For an in-person class, we do have to rent a classroom, and that does add a cost. But it pales in comparison to the cost of the other items. We strongly believe that live-online classes have the same value for participants as do in-person classes, with the added convenience of not having to travel.

Brian, While I i love the possibility to take your courses online, I would have expected them to be (way) cheaper than the sitting-in-a-class-with-an-instructor approach. That doesn't seemt to be the case. VI3 - Install and Configure V3.5 in New York: US$ 2695.5 VI3 - Install and Configure V3.5 Online: US$ 2695.5. Any thoughts on this? Cheers, Hannes

Let me add a little bit of clarification to Tom's (generally correct) statements. the VCP exam is taylored for the Install and Config course It would be more accurate to say that the VCP exam and the Install and Config course are both tailored for the same job role. I&C is intended to teach the knowledge and skills necessary to run a VI3 of at least small to medium-size complexity, and the VCP exam is intended to measure a person's attainment of that knowledge and those skills. The VCP exam is not the "final examination" for the Install and Config course. Although there's a lot of alignment of the course content and the exam content, people should study for the VCP exam using the VCP exam blueprint first. The I&C course materials will be valuable help, as will hands-on experience, the VI3 documentation set, and the VMware website. No you can take any class you wish The DSA course satisfies the course requirement for VCP, because it covers VI3 in general (just like I&C) but at a larger scale and higher level of complexity. Also, the VI3 Fast Track Program is effectively the union of I&C and DSA in one week, so it also satisfies the VCP course requirement. But courses that are not hands-on or not directly relevant to the VCP exam blueprint do not satisfy the course requirement for VCP.

When I try to register for the 3.5 DSA, it states I need to take a prereq test and pass before I can register. I have the 3.0 install and configure on my transcript as complete but it appears I have to have the 3.5 install and configure complete. Was seeking verification.

Hi Brian shame on me - I really missed your answer from 1 april - sorry But here's my question for you, Ulli and Oliver. Imagine that VMware produced, for each of its products, a really good document called "Troubleshooting productname". It would contain all the under-the-surface detail that you'd need to troubleshoot this product: vmx file flags, important log file messages, etc. Would that be good enough? I claim no. Well - I guess you simply don't have the manpower to write such "a really good document". Very likely it would be outdated when it appears .. The really tricky problems occur when unexperienced users work with your products - you can't write those troubleshooting guides you mentioned before the product meets the public I guess. I think that only a small number of folks is really interested in "hard core" troubleshooting - when I remember the times Petr was visiting VMTN only a few guys were listening to him like to a teacher. IMHO this was a pretty cost-effective way of support for your company. Folks like Oliver, Rob , me and many others learned a lot - now we continue the work in VMTN or by running trouble-shooting websites like Its a pity that this channels are closed nowaday - I also don't think its clever. I guess I followed Petr through maybe 5 snapshot-repairs - in the following times I solved hundreds of this problems on my own - and have told lots of other how to help themselves. Brian - every bit of information that you give to use - reduces your support-work ten and hundredfolds. Why are you so closed ? Bring back some teachers - or at least some folks who answer our technical questions ... Such a document would help with the product's supportability, but it would be a total surrender on the product's self-supportability. Isn't it reasonable for people to expect to be able to troubleshoot most problems using the normal GUI they do all their other work in? Imagine that your Mercedes had no fuel gauge. To measure the amount of fuel left in the tank, you would need to stop the car and insert a dipstick into the fuel tank. Our friends in Stuttgart would never accept this compromise. Hmm - that comparison doesn't match I think - I thought we were talking about a level of troubleshooting deeper than the service you get in a gas-station. I guess users don't expect that they can recover their data after a systemcrash using the GUI. Like if the gasoline is empty they go to a gas-station (GUI) - if they have a flat tyre they go to a garage in the neighborhood. Brian - Oliver, Rob, me and folks like us do the garage-work - if you help us - you help yourself If I had a budget of $X, how much should I spend on self-supportability features, and how much should I spend on writing new troubleshooting documents? What about a third option ? - spend some money for trouble-avoiding education.Take an example - the tricky part in snapshot-repair on hosted platforms is the fact that you have to hexedit in the default case. Setting a user-friendly default would be very cheap - compared with writing docs on how to safely hexedit ... By the way - I like your idea of a VM-comparing tool Sorry for late reply Ulli ___________________________________ description of vmx-parameters: VMware-liveCD:

Many thanks. I'm an MCT, and my feedback for both classes was broad and deep. I must emphasize the instructors were excellent; it was the materials which lagged. In fact, I am stunned to hear that so many best-rated presentations at VMworld were based on classroom materials! I can only conclude they have evolved from the time I took classes, in late 2006 and early 2007. At that point (I'm paging through my student manual for VMware Infrastructure 3: Install and Configure as I write), the content left a lot to be desired. The model I had in mind were the student manuals from MS or Citrix classes, which were deep, broad, and has tons of supplementary materials, even on CDs. The MS course manuals in particular are usually enough for you to learn everything on your own. I'd love to see VMware materials on a par with those. Can't wait to check out the youtube materials. I love the mp3s from VMworlds past; on the treadmill the other day I was listening to Kit Colbert explaining virtual/physical/machine memory from last year; great stuff!

Hi, Kwajalein. I'm sorry you found the classroom training you experienced not well organized. I hope you gave us unvarnished feedback at the time. If you didn't have a chance to, or if you'd like to send me specific comments on particular courses, modules, slides, or labs, my email is brice at (obvious domain). From your use of plurals, I take it that you took part in more than one classroom course. Thanks for the gesture of trust that represents. I greatly appreciate the point you made in your last paragraph. You drew a contrast between the presentations you saw at VMworld and VMware's classroom training. It might surprise you to learn that, for the last several years, VMworld presentations that were heavily drawn from our course materials were among VMworld's top five best-rated. As you point out, we need to do a better job of harvesting information in the opposite direction: reaping detail from the best VMworld presentations and rolling them into our training offerings. We're doing a lot more of that, notably with the VI design courses we're building. We're constantly working to improve the classroom materials we use in our instructor-led courses. The materials we deliver today are a lot more than just Powerpoints, and customers do tell us they use them intensively after class. Customers also tell us that there's work we need to do to make the materials easy to use after class use: we need to provide better indexes and references, and bundle them with more job aids. We're working on that. You mentioned webcasts, podcasts, and walkthroughs. We in Customer Education are building a lot of new things online, and many are available free. An example is our new YouTube channel. Another area we're working on improving is how we integrate online training (whitepapers too, which you also mentioned) into our instructor-led classes. In another message in a different thread, you asked how our online training works. I hope you don't mind if I answer that in a separate thread, to make it easier for others to find. Thanks again-- -- Brian Rice Education Services Product Manager Professional Services Organization, VMware, Inc.

There are two types online courses one are identical to the public classes delivered by an instructor through WebEx I believe - cover the same material and labs - the link brian referred to is an On Line class that is self paced presents what's new in 3.5 - I believe once you have added to task list you can run through is as many times as you want -