Am considering SCP NPM and NCM to start. Are these, or any SCP worth the effort: Job offers, Increased pay, consulting opportunities? Are the exams "open book" or I have to commit a bunch of mostly worthless info to memory?
TIA
I've seen it come up as a requirement for some contracting work. Might want to ask a recruiter for their view
Let me throw a question back at you... is it worthless info, or is it just info that you have not discovered or will never use in your environment? The exams are not open book.But as to value, surely that's for you to decide, but as @adam.beedell points out he has seen it as a requirement. YMMV
@ggatten, let me throw my two cents in. I have seen it as a requirement for several SolarWinds specific jobs to at least have one of the SCP's so it does offer some value in that regard; took a while for companies to start making it a requirement, but within the last 6 months or so i've seen it become more common.
The exams are not open book, but i will let you know from experience that the questions (at least when i took it), are great foundational questions both specifically to SolarWinds and then in relation to monitoring as a whole. I've found myself still using concepts that are found within the exam to this day (a lot more when i was doing SolarWinds consulting but still frequently in my new role thats not consulting). This is one of those exams that i feel you could pass on experience alone, which equates to having real applicability to your everyday life as a SolarWinds admin. So while you might have to study because you may not have the experience i believe it'll come full circle at some point for you.
You have to consider the other people that are applying for the same job. If they have certification and you don't your resume may take lower spot in the interview pile.
Worthless = stuff like, "describe the 7 levels of licenses". 50,100,250, 500, 1000, 3000, unlimited? That type of thing is just annoying, and would prefer not to spend 1 second trying to memorize that. aka, worthless.
