I respectfully disagree. Just as a point of reference, being a RedHat Certified Instructor with some 7 years of experience.... if you went through RedHat certification, then you'd know about real problems with studying for exam (from students' perspective). I love RedHat training for what it is, and teaching, but the fact that students don't have a way of preparing systems to practice for exam later on is almost intolerable. OpenLDAP and NIS servers, DNS, dozens of scripts to check progress - all of them rely on a specific way the system is being set up. Which you can't do all by yourself as a student and you just can't replicate that. And as an Instructor, I can't give them the setup because it's forbidden.
With VCP... you can do pretty much all of that with one computer with a quad-core CPU and 8GB of memory, without a problem. Underlying SSD would be a welcome addition, though. You can install ESXi's inside VMware Workstation, import vCenter Appliance and do everything you need. There aren't any specific services or requirements, it's all a matter of having a computer and nothing else. And I find that to be the better way.