Enterprise Vault Training

Well, it's better than that. The EV7 exam was released *very* shortly before EV8 got released... We all wondered then why you didn't just create an EV8 exam. I hope that there will be an upgrade exam, too. Cheers Michel

I had a reply from Education in the UK:

There are 2 interesting trainings:

Symantec Enterprise Vault 8.0 Differences
2-day course, 1050 GBP, first = 7-8 may 2009, 2nd = 8-9 July
in Reading
Symantec Enterprise Vault 8.x for Exchange: Administration
5 day course 2625 GBP, each month, Reading, London, Harrogate, (Virtual Academy (whatever)

As you see from some of the non Symantec contributers to this forum who are extensive EV users and extensive contributers, they have the demand for an upgrade exam.

This confirms that the demand is there for the upgrade.
I think it is time for Symantec to do more than consider offering the upgrade and actually put one on offer in the comming months as they need to meet the demand

In line with the comment above, if you are interested in training in APJ (Asia Pacific & Japan), see the schedules listed here:

http://go.symantec.com/edu_training_apj/

I see there has been no further responce from the Education section.

I think Symantec needs to offer the upgrade. They already are working on the plans for the full exam. Just pull out the parts that only apply to the new version and build a seperate exam for that. How hard can it be 

Hi Liam,

Thank you for your input on the upgrade exams.  We do value your comments and we do take them into consideration when planning our exam offerings.

Unfortunately, planning and developing exams takes time.  I encourage you to remain supportive of our new Certification program (which is only 1 year old) as we continue to develop and improve it.

Sincerely,
Elizabeth

I'm all on board to support the Symantec Education on the EV product, that is why I did the Beta exam last fall when it was announced.

I'm even consider doing the EV 8 Beta when it becomes available but since each product version lifetime is only 18 months on EV I strongly believe that not only are upgrade exams are a requirement but I also believe that releasing an exam to beta when there is only 12 months left in the release version is too slow.

I'm not saying that the Symantec Educational group are not doing their job, I'm saying that because of the product version releases shelf life is so short that for Symantec to wait until after release to develope the educational requirements is unfair to the user community

In my view the educational requirements should be developed inline with release so shortly after product release (1 month) the training classes should be available along with certification. 

As an example, when a company like Microsoft release a product it has a 5 year shelf life. Their exams and training are released very shortly after product and in some cases at the same time of product release.

If the release of the product and education were in line then at least the certification would be valid for the 18 months the product is in it's current version. At the moment we, the admins, are playing catch up all the time. This is unfair to the system admins who need to maintain certification.

The one way to make it a little more even on the admins is to offer them the upgrade path. At least that way they wont view it as starting all over again it will be seen as a brush up on the new features.

A lot of time goes into getting prepaired for these certifications and at present no sooner do you complete the process you need to start all over again.