New VMware Partner program, the hunt for competencies

Earlier this year VMware announced their new partner program. In the past there were a whole bunch of titles/statuses you could achieve at VMware, VIP or VAC, Premier, Enterprise or Professional, VAC-only. That’s all going to change. The requirements to become a Premier, Enterprise or Professional Partner have also changed. Below are the new VMware Partner Network statuses a VMware Partner can achieve and the requirements.

Professional Partners have to achieve these new goals by October 31th, Enterprise and Premier Partners have until February 15th 2010 to meet the program requirements.

Besides that VMware announced a new collection of competencies a VMware Partner can earn. This way it is possible for a VMware Partner to stand out in a crowd of VMware Partners and display skill in four different areas, Infrastructure Virtualization, Business Continuity, Desktop Virtualization and Virtualization Management.

Infrastructure Virtualization (required)
Earning this competency is the starting point to earn more competencies. The Infrastructure Virtualization Competency recognizes partners for their demonstrated ability to virtualize and consolidate server environments using a VMware virtualization solution. To achieve this competency you need to complete the following accreditations:

• Infrastructure Virtualization Sales Accreditation 4
  
• Infrastructure Virtualization Technical Sales Accreditation 4
  
• IV Technical Post-Sales Accreditation: VI3 to vSphere 4 Upgrade
  
• IV Technical Post-Sales Accreditation: Assessment Fundamentals
  
• IV Technical Post-Sales Accreditation: Capacity Planner Fundamentals
  
• IV Technical Post-Sales Accreditation: vSphere 4 Design*
  

*The vSphere 4 Design Accreditation will be available in Q1 2010.

Business Continuity
Be the trusted advisor for architecting VMware virtualization deployments that minimize downtime and protect important data. This competency recognizes your company’s expertise in deploying VMware solutions for data protection, high availability and disaster recovery. To achieve this competency you need to complete the following accreditations:

• Business Continuity Sales Accreditation 4
  
• Business Continuity Technical Sales Accreditation 4
  
• BC Technical Post-Sales Accreditation: Managing Availability Using vSphere 4
  
• BC Technical Post-Sales Accreditation: SRM 1 Implementation Fundamentals
  

Desktop Virtualization
With achieving this competency you can show your skill by becoming a Universal Client Solution Expert and expand your desktop virtualization practice. This competency recognizes your expertise in deploying VMware solutions for virtualizing desktops and applications. To achieve this competency you need to complete the following accreditations:

• Desktop Virtualization Sales Accreditation 4
  
• Desktop Virtualization Technical Sales Accreditation 4
  
• DV Technical Post-Sales Accreditation: VMware View 3 Implementation Fundamentals
  
• DV Technical Post-Sales Accreditation: VMware View 3 Design
  

Virtualization Management
This competency is available now (2H09) and demonstrates your expertise to help your customers manage and grow their virtualized environments. This competency recognizes your company’s ability to implement VMware’s solutions for provisioning, capacity management, application performance monitoring, chargeback, and configuration management. To achieve this competency you need to complete the following accreditations:

• Virtualization Management Sales Accreditation 4
  
• Virtualization Management Technical Sales Accreditation 4
  
• VM Technical Post-Sales Accreditation*

*The Virtualization Management Technical Post-Sales Competency is currently under development. Content will be available 2H 20089

To receive a competency you do not only need to complete the required training at Partner Central, you also need to supply a customer reference case. When the reference case has been approved you will receive the competency.

With the new Partner status and the new competency model the hunt for competencies is on. At Centric we aim to maintain our status as one of four Premier Partners in the Netherlands and besides that show our skill at all four competencies. We already earned the required Infrastructure Virtualization competency and are now in the process of planning the last classroom courses to earn the Business Continuity and the Desktop Virtualization competency.

Because the Virtualization Management competency has not been released completely yet, we haven’t done anything here but the plan is to complete all four competencies before December 31st.