According to a post on the official VMware Education and Certification Blog, the virtualization giant is preparing to launch a new certification program, identified as VCP5-IaaS, to help IT professionals gain qualifications in installing, configuring and administering a vCloud environment.  It is expected to launch by late July, but of course, that is subject to change as this is currently speculation.

The VMware blog states:

We have begun beta testing our newest certification for virtualization and cloud professionals: VMware Certified Professional 5 – Infrastructure as a Service (VCP5-IaaS). This is an invitation-only beta exam while we prepare the program for you, but if you sign up here we’ll let you know as soon as it’s publicly available.

According to Eric Sloof from NTPRO.NL, the current beta exam consists of 115 questions and a short pre-exam survey consisting of 8 questions. The passing score for this exam is 300, using a scaled scoring method.

Eric said that the scoring scale ranges from 100 to 500. And stated:

"Scaled scores are calculated using a mathematical formula that considers a variety of factors, including the number and type of exam questions included in a specific version of the exam. Because this combination may vary in different versions of the same examination, scaled scores provide a fair score for each individual based on the version of the exam taken."

Candidates interested in this certification should be capable of installing and configuring vCloud Director and related components, utilizing vCD to create and manage vApps, Service Catalogs, Organization/provider VDCs, and administering cloud enabled networking and storage.

So far, the news is still pretty early.  But I expect VMware evangelists and enthusiasts will run, not walk, to participate in this exam.