I was privileged to attend a three-day Veeam Availability Suite: Configuration and Management (VMCE) course provided by Veeam from December 7th – Friday, December 9th, 2022. Veeam Technical Education Services offers two industry certifications which are as follows “Veeam Certified Engineer (VMCE)” and the “Veeam Certified Architect (VMCA)“. In this article, I will be discussing the “Veeam Certified Engineer: A Review of the VMCE Training and Certification”.
After the completion of the course, you will be able to effectively install, configure and manage the Veeam Availability Suite. Thus, the knowledge gained will be evident in your practical and production environment. Here are some Veeam-related articles: How to uninstall Veeam Backup and Replication from your server, and how to migrate Veeam MsSQL Database to a new MsSQL Server.
Veeam Backup & Replication v11 brings balance to your data protection objectives with a 4-in-1 solution, combining storage snapshots, backup, replication and Continuous Data Protection under a single platform. Protect, manage and unleash your data with V11, with over 200+ new features and updates. Take a look at how to Set up Veeam Backup for Microsoft Azure [Part 1].
Why should you take the Veeam Certified Engineer Exam?
VMCE certification is a testament that an administrator or engineer has gained the necessary level of expertise to protect an organization’s data with Veeam Availability Suite. The VMCE certification is documented evidence that an engineer processes the required level of expertise to deploy correctly, configure, and administer Veeam Availability Suite V11.
This is a paramount and crucial function required by an organization to actively have its data protected. Please see Why you should attend VeeamOn 2023, and What is the difference between iDRAC, IPMI, and ILO.
This VMCE certification is a fantastic investment for an IT professional looking to increase productivity, reduce operating costs, drive personal career advancement, and obtain industry recognition in data protection. Below are some more reasons to be certified. As a VMCE, you can:
- Advanced troubleshooting skills and ability to resolve issues more efficiently.
- You will gain the confidence needed to meet the ever-increasing IT needs of your organization.
- Bragging rights, and the opportunity to display the VMCE logo on your social platforms and website! The VMCE certification will help distinguish you from your peers!
How can Enterprises benefit from VMCE training?
Offering professional development opportunities makes your company more attractive to new candidates. Offering your employees the opportunity for personal growth and development, you’ll have more skilled, knowledgeable people working for your company.
By becoming a Veeam Certified Engineer, you can more confidently rely on your team of certified employees’ ability to meet your data protection needs more consistently. Overall, it will be worth the investment. Veeam Certified Engineer training can provide your enterprises with the following additional benefits.
- Oftentimes, certified employees work more efficiently than their counterparts. Their participation can help boost productivity by increasing issue resolution speed and productivity..
- Enhance customer satisfaction internally and externally.
- Improve your IT plan’s overall effectiveness. This will enable your firm to achieve greater credibility and prestige at the company level.
- Encouraging employees to pursue and obtain certification will help improve data availability. VMCE training can help IT professionals better understand Veeam software, thereby improving data availability and recovery times.
- With a better understanding of Veeam software, IT professionals can more efficiently manage backups, perform restores, and reduce downtime for critical systems and applications.
This course teaches VeeamOne as well. With the ability to manage and monitor backups more effectively, IT professionals can improve the security of their organization’s data and ensure compliance with industry standards.
With the following points discussed, VMCE training can ultimately lead to cost savings for the enterprise.
Veeam Certified Engineer Course Outline
This training course is meant to help system administrators and system engineers responsible for protecting data with Veeam Availability Suite.
While Veeam offers easy-to-use and straightforward solutions, customer environments may be a bit more complex. So whether you’re a customer or a partner, understanding how Veeam works in specific deployments is crucial to getting the best out of your Veeam solution.
The competencies of this course were developed by certification specialists and subject matter experts based on identified tasks that relate to the day-to-day task of configuring and administering the Veeam Availability Suite. Veeam Certified Engineer course outline includes the following topics:
| Building backup Capabilities: – Exam weight = 28% | Create, modify and delete backup copy jobs – Creating Backup Jobs – Managing Backups – Managing Jobs – Backup Methods Use advanced VMware vSphere features – Advanced VMware vSphere Features Create, modify and delete NAS backup jobs – NAS Backup Support Create, modify and delete physical/agent jobs – Backing Up Physical Machines – Working with Protection Groups – Backup Policy (Mac) – Backup Jobs (Linux) – Backup Jobs (Windows) – Failover Cluster Support – Storage Snapshots Support – Veeam Agent for Linux – Veeam Agent for Mac – Veeam Agent for Windows Back up application workloads – Other Workloads, Including NAS and Enterprise Applications – Guest Interaction Proxy – Guest Processing (Hyper-V) – Guest Processing (vSphere) – Backup of Databases (Veeam Agent for Linux) – Backup of Databases (Veeam Agent for Windows) Back up the Veeam configuration – Configuration Backup and Restore |
Secondary backups
Here, we shall discuss the Secondary Backup Objectives. This process creates an additional copy of backup data that is already stored in a primary backup location.
This secondary backup is usually stored in a different location, often offsite, to provide an extra layer of protection against data loss in the event of a disaster or other catastrophic event that could affect the primary backup location to help businesses ensure the recoverability of their critical data and applications.
| Secondary backups – Exam weight = 10% | Create, modify, and delete backup copy jobs – Backup Copy – Backup Copy Modes – Creating Backup Copy Jobs for VMs and Physical Machines Leverage WAN accelerators – WAN Acceleration Create, modify, and delete tape jobs – Tape Devices Support |
Capacity Tier
Learn more about the Capacity tier which is an additional tier of storage that can be attached to a scale-out backup repository. The following objectives will make you grounded on how to store and move backups to the Capacity Tier.
| Protecting Data in the Cloud – Exam weight = 6% | Store data in the Cloud – Copying Backups to Capacity Tier – Moving Backups to Capacity Tier – Capacity Tier |
Restoring from backup
In this section, you will learn how to get your data back when lost or corrupted. You can use one of the following options to recover your data.
| Restoring from backup – Exam weight = 16% | Recover VM files – VM Files Restore Recover VM restores – Entire VM Restore – Instant VM Recovery – Entire VM Restore Perform a secure/staged restore – Secure Restore – Staged Restore Recover virtual disks – Virtual Disk Restore – Instant Disk Recovery – Data Restore in Direct SAN Access Mode Perform a restore from an agent backup – Creating Veeam Recovery Media – Restoring from Veeam Recovery Media (Linux) – Restoring from Veeam Recovery Media (Windows) – Performing Restore (Mac) – Performing Restore (Linux) – Performing Restore (Windows) Restore and migrate the Veeam configuration – Configuration Backup and Restore |
Object Recovery
This section discusses the objectives of object recovery for the exam, and they include Veeam Explorers for Microsoft Exchange, Microsoft SharePoint, Microsoft Active Directory, Microsoft SQL Server, and Oracle, including recovery options etc.
| Object Recovery – Exam weight = 14% | Recover guest OS files – Restoring Guest OS Files – Guest OS File Recovery (Hyper-V) – Guest OS File Recovery (vSphere) Recover applications with explorers – Restoring Application Items – Veeam Explorer for Microsoft Active Directory – Veeam Explorer for Microsoft SQL Server – Veeam Explorer for Oracle – Veeam Explorer for Microsoft Exchange – Veeam Explorer for Microsoft SharePoint |
Replication
Replication is a technology that helps you protect mission-critical VMwareVM environment. When you replicate a VM, Veeam Backup & Replication creates an exact copy of the VM in the native VMware vSphere format on the target host. Veeam Backup & Replication maintains this copy in sync with the source VM.
Replication provides a minimum recovery time objective (RTO) in case a disaster strikes because VM replicas are in a ready-to-start state. Veeam recommends you replicate VMs for which a recovery point objective (RPO) of hours is required. In this course, you will learn the following objects below.
| Replication – Exam weight 16% | Create, modify, and delete replication jobs – Replication jobs (vSphere) – Replication jobs (Hyper-V) Create a failover plan – Failover Plans Execute failover/failback – Failover and Failback (Hyper-V) – Failover and Failback (vSphere) Leverage WAN accelerators – WAN Acceleration |
Monitoring and administration
This section deals with the high-level overview of Veeam ONE for monitoring, reporting, and capacity planning in Veeam environments.
| Monitoring and administration – Exam weight = 10% | Use Enterprise Manager roles – Configuring Accounts and Roles Configure Veeam ONE – Configuring Veeam ONE Perform data protection monitoring – Data Protection Monitoring Perform reporting using the Veeam ONE Web Client – Predefined Dashboards and Reports Perform virtual infrastructure monitoring – Inventory Pane – Hyper-V Monitoring – vSphere Monitoring Perform monitoring using alarms – Configuring Alarms |
Lastly, you will also learn how to troubleshoot common Veeam-related issues and errors in any environment. Kindly refer to these related articles:
When the above course outlines are completed during the course of the class, then you have satisfied the prerequisite for taking the Veeam Certified Engineer (VMCE).
Is it possible to take the VMCE exam without the course?
No, this isn’t possible. In this link, you will find interesting comments from Veeam Legends and Vanguard about why this isn’t currently possible. To qualify to take a Veeam certification exam, candidates must attend the Veeam Availability Suite v11 course through a Veeam Authorized Educational Center (VMAEC) or hold the previous certification.
The VMCE exam is delivered live in a testing centre or virtually as online-proctored. Certification demonstrates you have the necessary skills to configure and manage a Veeam Solution. Please follow the instructions here to register for your VMCE exam.
VMCE Training prerequisite
Before registering for the Exam, it is recommended to have some hands-on experience working with a Veeam Availability Suite implementation for a period of six months.
This includes experience with virtualization technologies such as Microsoft Hyper-V and/or VMware vSphere. Storage technologies and basic tape (LTO) technology experience are not left out. Also, experience in administrating Windows Server and network Administration (routing and subnetting) will be vital for a complete grasp of the course.
VMCE Exam Format
It is worth mentioning that a 30-minute time extension will be available when the exam is delivered in a language different from the local language.
| Number of Exam Questions | 50 multiple-choice and multiple-response items. |
| Passing score | The passing score for the VMCE exam is 70% |
| Exam Delivery Language | English Languages |
| Time limit | Examinees will get 60 minutes to take the exam. |
| VMCE Cost | $180 USD |
Are there VMCE Practice Exams?
Exam preparation is one of the most important but challenging processes. This is why, Rasmush has prepared some VMCE practice exam questions. However, this should not be your only study material. Kindly take a look at the practice questions below for the practice questions.
A great benefit of enrolling with VMAEC is that you will get a virtual lab environment matching the Veeam lab guide. You can spin up the lab whenever wish and it runs for a period of one month even after the training. Try to complete the lab during the trainingConsidering your VMCE certification?
Step 1: Firstly Pricing is available from the VMAEC directly. VMAECs deliver classes in both classroom environments and online formats. Visit a Veeam Authorized Education Center (VMAEC) for their schedule.
Step 2: In order to validate your knowledge and register for the VMCE Certification exam, kindly log into the Veeam Certification Portal using your email ID. If you do not have an existing Veeam.com account under this email address, you can create one for this purpose
This exam can be taken at a Pearson VUE testing facility. Since the pandemic started, there is an option to take the exam at home. The passing score for your exam is 70% as mentioned above. Once you pass the exam, you will receive your VMCE digital badge as shown below.
It’s not easy to become a VMCE or VMCA, but it’s proof that someone is a Veeam expert. And when you’re dealing with data, you want to be dealing with experts. Get certified today.
VMCE Recertification
Certifications do not expire, but ProPartners may be required to update their certifications to remain compliant with the Veeam ProPartner program. Check your ProPartner program guide or reach out to your Veeam representative for more details on certification requirements in your region.
Veeam Certified Engineer Exam Summary
It is also expected that you have some commercial experience with Veeam prior to taking the course. Veeam strongly recommends independent study in addition to commercial experience and course attendance to significantly increase the probability of passing the exam.
Having learned about the VMCE program, and the Certification benefits, I urge you to enrol for a class today. Wherever you are, there is a class near you!!!
Now, you are a Veeam expert after completing and passing the exam. You can therefore employ the skills and technical knowledge gained to take full control of your data protection needs etc.
How to Qualify for the FREE VMCE and VMCA Training & Certification Exam
I will urge you guys to join the Veeam Community Hub today and then if you have not already done so. By participating actively, you could become a Veeam Legend or a Veeam Vanguard and be selected for the next training.
Congratulations! You were selected to receive 3 days of FREE VMCE training! 😊 This is Veeam’s way of saying thank you for all of your hard work and support! Your ongoing efforts at the Community Hub, on social media, and on your own properties are all valued by us.
This is a token of Veeam’s appreciation for our engagement! Kindly register today and start engaging…
Amidst our training, an enthralling moment was captured in a photograph that will forever encapsulate our experience.
Please see how to Fix critical Veeam Backup and Replication 9.5, 10, and 11, how to remove OneDrive from Windows via DISM, and how to Fix “There was a problem starting logilda.dll” in Windows.
Class completion [A review of the VMCE training and certification]
As you can see from the look on our faces, the class was indeed exciting and impactful. It is great we took a picture to remember this achievement!
Here are some exciting links: How to install Let’s Encrypt Wildcard SSL Certificate in cPanel using certify the web, and how to fix Veeam Agent Vulnerability: Fix Veeam Agent vulnerability for Veeam Agent for Microsoft Windows.
Get more detailed information on the Veeam Availability suite, Veeam provides a comprehensive guide available for the public to assess.
I hope you found this blog post helpful on “Veeam Certified Engineer: A Review of the VMCE Training and Certification”. If you have any questions, please let me know in the comment section.