Since March 7th, Microsoft is selling booster packs which can be bought until August 31. The exams can be taken up until six months after your purchase.
The following boosters packs are available:
- Practice Test + exam for $200
- Exam + 4 free retakes for $200
- Practice Test + exam + 4 free retakes for $225
As always there are pros and cons to this offering. These are things that have gone through my mind about these booster packs:
- First of all, the retakes are not free because a regular exam costs $150 if you book it at Pearson Vue. Even though it is not free, it’s still a very good deal. If you would fail only once, you have saved money.
- I would never choose option 1, I would always go for either option 2 or 3.
- It can be good that people can get an exam with cheap retakes.
- It might prevent (some) people from using exam dumps, because additional certification costs for a failure are not an issue anymore. This is especially true for people who have to pay for their own certification or for small companies with limited budgets.
- It might help people that have the knowledge, but fail because their not used to the way it is tested with Microsoft Certification Exams.
- It might lower the value of certification
- With that many cheap retakes the chance that you’ll pass (by chance) increases.
- Especially since the number of exam questions is very limited, after a few retakes you could know most of the questions.
- Which makes it easier for people to create exam dumps.
- Without booster packs, the certification costs could become an issue.
- This only affects people/companies where certification is an issue.
- This could lead to people using exam dumps.
As with most things, when used for good it is a good thing. It will however be abused by some. Still this has always been the case and I feel it does not really matter. What I do believe however is that this large number of almost free retakes stresses again the need for a larger pool of Microsoft exam questions. But this has been a problem for a long time already and I doubt Microsoft will change this anytime soon unfortunately.
I wonder what other people think about this, so please leave a comment.
For more information on the booster packs see:
https://borntolearn.mslearn.net/b/weblog/archive/2016/03/07/introducing-new-microsoft-certification-booster-pack-offer
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Tags: Booster Pack, Booster Packs, certification, exam dump, Microsoft, Microsoft Certification Booster Pack, Microsoft Certification Booster Packs
Recently I had to get recertified for VCP and even though I didn’t really want to …. I did so anyways as you can read in my previous blog post: VMware VCP5-DCV Delta Recertification Exam (VCP550D) available until March 10th + resources to prepare for it
Apparently there were some technical issues and VMware decided to extend the VCP recertification deadline until May 8, 2015. VMware understood this might frustrate people who worked hard to meet the original deadline on time (before March 10th 2015), so they decided to give those people 65% off the VCP6 migration exam.
Even though I still don’t really agree with the recertification, this is a step in the good direction VMware. Keep it up.
For more information, you can read the original blog post: Short Extension For VCP Recertification Deadline (and a Reward for Those Who Met the Original Deadline)
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Tags: certification, Recertification, VCP-DCV, VCP5-DCV, VCP5-DCV Delta Recertification Exam, VCP550D, VMware, vSphere
Again I want to stress that I don’t agree with the way VMware is enforcing the recertification in this case as I’ve described in more detail here. Nevertheless I had to take the exam to keep my certification status, contribute to my company’s partner status and to prevent having to take another expensive course in the future to get certified. I have to admit I did learn about a couple of new things though.
But enough about that. Until March 10th it is possible to take the VCP5-DCV Delta Recertification Exam (VCP550D) that is based on new material between the vSphere 5.0/5.1 and vSphere 5.5 exams. Another benefit is that it is cheaper (90 euros) and that it can be taken online from any location.
I took the exam and passed, so I’m good for the near future. I am thinking about postponing vSphere 6.0 certification due to this re-certification policy though.
Here are the resources I used to prepare for the exam:
I know Veeam also provides VCAP5-DCA and VCP5-DCV study guides, but I haven’t used these yet.
I hope it’s useful to you. If you have any other useful resources or feedback, please leave a comment
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Tags: certification, Recertification, VCP-DCV, VCP5-DCV, VCP5-DCV Delta Recertification Exam, VCP550D, VMware, vSphere
Pluralsight is offering free access to selected courses. The offer is only available through April 30, 2015 and can be found here: https://offers.pluralsight.com/technet
There are 13 Pluralsight courses included with the TechNet benefit and I’m personally very interested in the ones about Azure. Here is the full list of the courses:
Microsoft Azure
Beginner
Intermediate
Windows Server 2012 R2
Intermediate
System Center 2012 R2
Advanced
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Tags: courses, Free, PluralSight, Technet
Microsoft Virtual Academy (MVA) is hosting 2 PowerShell Desired State Configuration (DSC) training classes on February 25th and February 26th:
- Getting Started with PowerShell Desired State Configuration (DSC)
- Advanced PowerShell Desired State Configuration (DSC) and Custom Resources
The links above provide include a course outline and a link to register for the Jump Start. And even if you can’t join live, the recordings will always be made available at a later time so you can watch whenever it suits you better.
PowerShell DSC is becoming increasingly important and I personally also still need to learn more about it and look forward to it.
I hope it’s useful to you as well.
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Tags: Advanced PowerShell Desired State Configuration (DSC) and Custom Resources, Desired State Configuration, DSC, Free, Getting Started with PowerShell Desired State Configuration, ICT, jump start, Learning, Microsoft Virtual Academy, MVA, networking, Powershell, Training, Windows
Title: Cloud Computing Concepts, Technology & Architecture
Number of pages: 528
ISBN: 9780133387520
Released: May 2013
My opinion:
The book is well written, is vendor neutral, covers both business and IT aspects and contains many great diagrams. It also has a lot of useful references to external resources.
What I disliked, is that because of the vendor neutral approach some aspects are relatable enough (especially for people that don’t have a lot of working experience). I feel the book would have benefitted by providing more real-life examples of products or services.
The book is a good start for experienced people and will especially come in handy as a reference when getting involved in cloud computing projects. It will help understand vendor specific products and services better.
I would recommend people that are new to cloud computing (or that have very limited working experience) to first read a cloud essentials book like the one from Sybex before reading this book though.
To take a look at the book and its content, you can visit the book’s companion website: http://servicetechbooks.com/cloud
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Tags: Architecture, Book, Cloud, cloud computing, Concepts, ICT, Learning, review, study, Technologies, Thomas Erl
Introduction
For those who haven’t read my previous blog posts, here’s a short summary. About 1,5 – 2 years ago I decided that I wanted to know more about cloud computing and get certified as well. I used freely available resources to attain these certifications:
In short, my conclusion was that the quality of the freely available resources were not sufficient. ITpreneurs were kind enough to provide me with access to their e-learning course and Train Signal (now Pluralsight) provided me with their video training. Reviews for both can be found here:
Even though both resources are good, I personally prefer a book over eLearning and video training. As such I picked up a copy of “Cloud Essentials : CompTIA Authorized Courseware for Exam CLO-001”
Review
Number of pages: 268
ISBN: 978-1-118-40873-5
Released: June 2013
My opinion:
The book is well written and knows to provide a very good basis of cloud computing both technical and non-technical. Even though the number of pages is limited, the most important aspects are covered in my opinion, which should be enough to provide insight and to pass the Exin and Comptia cloud exams.
What I disliked are some of the questions at the end of the book, because they are sometimes a bit strange. But as far as I can remember, this was also the case in the official exams … so better get used to it if you are going to get certified.
All in all, this is a very good book to get started with cloud computing.
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Tags: Book, certification, certify, CLO-001, Cloud, cloud computing, Cloud Computing foundation, Cloud Essentials, CLOUDF, CompTIA, CompTIA Cloud Essentials, Exin, Exin Cloud Computing Foundation, foundation, ICT, Learning, PluralSight, review, study, sybex, train signal, trainsignal
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