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Red Hat Takes Heat Over Certification
EdA wrote in to tell us about this piece, where Red Hat takes heat for its certification process. From the article - "I'm no more of a fan of Microsoft than the next person, but I can say that the support we get from Microsoft is superior, and less expensive," Daher said. "Microsoft always comes to our door, they bring demo units, keep us in touch with their engineers, and certification for our people costs only $2000 each, on-site. Red Hat wants $5,000 a person and we have to fly our people to Durham, [N.C.]."
San Francisco -CA, Santa Clara -CA, Portland -OR and Stockley Park Uxbridge- England
"God fights on the side with the best artillery." - Napoleon, Marshal of France - speaking truth to power
Note that I slao added that there are at least five other cities where you can get RedHat training. even better though, they should send one person (the best RedHat guy they currently have) to get certified and Examiner certified and then hold inhouse training and certification.
"God fights on the side with the best artillery." - Napoleon, Marshal of France - speaking truth to power
This whole rant seems like people who complain mom and pop shops can't compete with Walmart in price or availability.
:-)), it's not particulary useful to say the equivalent of "hey, we're small -- we're supposed to suck!".
That's mostly true. But notice what: mom-and-pop shops around Walmarts have very low life expectancy, and the reasons for that have a lot to do with price and availability.
So given that we all like this particular mom-and-pop shop (hey, who's mom there?
seems like a misplaced complaint to say that Red Hat cannot compete with MS in certain ways. They can't. Get over it.
Well, if they can't, they'd better get off their ass pronto and do something about it. *I* will get over it, and *you* will get over it, but some middle manager at United Diapers will not see why *he* has to get over something -- so he'll go to Microsoft again.
To reiterate, if you think mom-and-pop vs Walmart comparison is valid, Red Hat better make sure it does not end up in exactly the same place where all these mom-and-pop shops have ended up.
Kaa
Kaa
Kaa's Law: In any sufficiently large group of people most are idiots.
It seems to me that part of the problem is trying to fit the Linux/Open Source world into the corporate IT world of vendor certification (MSCE, CNE, etc.) Is Linus a "Certified Linux Engineer?" Is Alan Cox? Couldn't I deem myself a "Certified Linux Engineer" with as much legitimacy as Red Hat? (Anybody is welcome to join my Linux certification program. The prerequisite is that you must be able to use a Linux system to print yourself a pretty certificate. And send me $100.)
I moderated this one up because everyone should read what this guy has to say. I have my CNE. I am working on my CCIE.
When I would go for an interview people would look at my resume and ask why I have my CNE, and not my MCSE. I snap right back at them, "Knowing what is needed to know to have a CNE gives me an unparallel understanding of Engineering Network Systems. Being an MCSE would give me an unparallel understanding of the Ctrl-Alt-Del combination." They understood.
I work with 3 MCSE's. They are tools. They might as well have been the models for the MCP dolls. I'll reviece a call about a server going down, or a workstation being kicked off the network, and their first reaction is to just reboot the system. Nevermind the fact that it is a production server. A server that people are accessing important E-Mail, or data from.
I don't blame them. Thats just what they were taught.
Yup, the MSCE cert is pretty easy, if you
A) Pay mucho dinero for classes and a cert, or
B) Realize that the general tests (Basic Net, Wkstn, Srvr, etc) that aren't app specific are _really easy_ and a quick d/l of the free practice test will do for prep. The only rub is that the tests cost more than AP/SATs from ETS (yikes!), but in the long run, this doesn't make much difference...
I was able to do most of them without even ociking up any study materials. It isn't that hard if you can think a little bit and pay attention when you are navving around your box.
I haven't looked into the linux cert details, but it seems to be much more worthwhile than a piece of paper that says "Hi, I can install NT as a PDC, and run Back Office!" (replace NT with W2K as needed)...
The difference between the MSCE and RHCE certs seems like the difference between an IT major and an engineering major - "here's what you can do" to "here's what you can do, how you can do it, why you want to do it, and how it works"
my $.05 (darn oil prices)
"It's tough to be bilingual when you get hit in the head."
The Linux industry and community have whole-heartadly put their support behind the LPI certification. (http://www.lpi.org) This is an industry standard certification board, supported by Caldera, SuSE, TurboLinux, LinuxCare, IBM, SGI, VA Linux, and others that will prepare the certification candidate to be prepared on Linux... not just Red Hat. Individuals wishing to be prepared for Linux would be well served by visiting the above link.
:( ) and has been reported as true for the RHCE certification, of which I've had numerous friends attend.
Noteably absent from the above list of companies is Red Hat. As a member of the Linux community, Red Hat should be working with others to help define standards for the entire industry, and not just itself. Adopting a mindset of "We're the standard, so you play by our rules." is not what the community wants to see and is not the way to accomplish this goal. Whether you're a Debian, SuSE, TurboLinux, or Caldera user... standards are critical to us all. They help make each of our lives significantly easier. Staying cohesive as a group also gives us additional strength. It seems difficult to expect that one rogue straggler could ever succeed. As with Linux itself, our success will be based on the efforts of the larger Community more than just the efforts of one company.
Also, as anyone who has worked with a vendor's own certification program will know, most of those non-standard programs are used more for marketing than independant analysis of knowledge. ("You barked the right marketing bullets, here's a bone. Good boy!") This is certainly true for the MCSE certification process (of which I am certified and have seen firsthand
Anyway, the whole argument of whether RHCE is better than MCSE seems more religious and inflammatory than what can possibly be answered in this setting. Both certainly will have their positive and negative points. However, if we choose to support something vendor-neutral such as the LPI we can, as a community, address the weaknesses.
(My comments are my own and don't necessarily reflect the opinions of TurboLinux.)
Aaron McKee
Clustering Products Manager
TurboLinux, Inc.
Aaron McKee
Clustering Products Manager
TurboLinux, Inc.
"It's hard enough to find and keep talented IT people, and Red Hat is asking us not only to spend $5,000 a person, which eats heavily into our cost, but we also have to lose a $60,000 employee for two weeks, who after being certified, can move almost anywhere he wants, maybe even over to Red Hat. There aren't that many Linux-certified people out there."
This is the way my company feels about training. They would rather let me sit for 6 months toiling with a new concept, figure it out and start to use it than to send me on a 1 week course which would give me enough information to figure it out in a matter of weeks.
Their excuse is that if I get training I will leave, but what ends up happening is people get fed up with never being sent to learn new things but still expected to get the information so they leave and go somewhere that is interested in training people.
Now 6 months is a little extreme but I know some of our programmers toil for at least 6 months with some of this SAP crap before they become even remotely useful. Send them on a course or two over that 6 months and yo'd be getting a lot more work out of them.
I have no sympathy for someone who runs their company with that mentality. forgey
How many server licenses does Microsoft have to ram down corporate throats to make up the "loss" leader on the certification. Plus which, certified techs just further entrench Microsoft so their just an arm of Microsoft's marketing evangelism team...
That's just servers, and not to mention all the desktop copies that were sold on a per CPU basis whether you wanted one or not. I'm sorry I've gotten lost... what was that twerp bitching about? Was she complaining about getting ripped off? :)
I'm surprised no one has commented on the SCO certification. I'm SCO Open Server Certified. I took a 50-question multiple-choice test on their web site, for FREE, and they sent me a bunch of marketing stuff and one free copy of everything they sell. Do I KNOW anything about Open Server? Yeah, some. But I know Linux a LOT better. I can't get Linux certified though because I just can't justify the cost until I have some paying customers using it.
I'm sure the airfare adds to the cost buy this is directly from Red Hat Training info
Price:
The special introductory bundle price for this five-day course is $2,498 ($2099 for the training + $399 for the Certification Lab Exam, £1,599 in the UK).
Duration:
5 days
Training Start Time: 9:00 a.m.
Training End Time: 4:30-5:00PM (depending on class progress)
Training is also available through Global Knowledge.
"God fights on the side with the best artillery." - Napoleon, Marshal of France - speaking truth to power
OK, I usually allow posts like these to roll off the monitor, but not this time. Seems like every time there's a story on certification, the anti-cert contingent rolls out of the woodwork. Fine. Now let's hear from the other side of the aisle.
I'm not employed by any vendor, nor am I employed to teach any vendor's curriculum, although I once was: I still hold CNI certification in addition to the other alphabet soup that I could staple at the end of my .signature file. I say that so that those who want to dismiss my viewpoint simply because I have a certification can do so immediately.
I do contribute occasionally to the LPI project.
Let me put this as delicately as I can: you have no idea what you're talking about, if you believe that a person can learn just as much about a system they've not worked with from a book and some play time, as they can from an instructor-led class. Now, I'm not saying that all instructors ran their classes as well as I did (and I have the trust of several companies in this town who continue to ask for me, even though I haven't worked the classroom for over a year), but I can say that if an instructor is worth a damn, and most of us are, then the only way you can use a self-study book to outstrip participation in my class is to ignore me and the curriculum, and sleep in the back row. If you do that, it's your own fault. The concept of certification isn't to blame here. It's shitty implementation on the part of some, not all.
Oh, yeah, right. That's why vendor certification programs are so popular among the best and brightest companies and people. They certify because they want to know that all those who are certified have taken exams demonstrating that they all have a certain minimum level of knowledge. Not "competence". The best test in the world won't prevent a well-trained bozo from screwing up your server. Competence isn't just knowledge, it's also judgement, and quite honestly: character. The best people I've worked with knew when to say "I don't know" from behind their multiple certifications. They were the smart ones. But the truth is, companies want to have the ability to say, "OK, our people will know at least as much as a CNE", and be able to learn that about their employees (and potential new-hires) by looking at a certificate. Does that guarantee competence? Of course not! But given all else equal... training, opportunity, experience... I'm more likely to give the nod to a certified engineer, because I know she's proven herself in testing. That isn't the only factor I'd apply, of course, but it carries weight. And I'm knowledgable, thank you.
Stop knocking certification. You want to knock the programs, go ahead. The instructors? Go ahead, but be ready to back yourself up with hard evidence. The companies who use certification as their only criterion? Please, feel free, and I'll join you! But to slam on the idea of certification itself shows lack of understanding, not only in the realm of corporate hiring practices, but in human pshycology as well.
Believe nothing, not even if I say it, if it violates your sense of reason -- Buddha
I'm a MCSE myself and I've taught MCSE and Networking courses for over a year now. I've looked into taking the RHCE... though it looks great, I don't want to limit myself to a label anymore. But that is not what I wanted to say...
If you look at what the average MCSE learns and knows...
1) Learns what a kernel IS
2) Learns how to work with special GUI's to get done what they need.
3) Learns how to deal with a few special problems which require getting deep into the NOS's settings (the registry)... like I can count them on my finger.
4) You learn about the hardware you can use... and how to INSTALL the drivers.
Linux, is still (at least for now), inherently more difficult and to successfully understand and administer. You have to understand things on a much more detailed level.
1) You learn how to understand the messages that the Kernel spits at you... how to change on the kernel operates
2) You learn the cmd prompt utils needed to get your hands dirty. I don't have a argument for this one... just that everyone I have seen that has a understanding of (and especially those with a fetish for) can comprehend the hidden problems (when it comes to protocols or hardware) a whole lot quicker (less explaining needed).
3) You learn how to RTFM, something a MCSE may never learn...
4) You get into the details of every service and have to understand it at a technical level (because this is how all the documentation is written... I mean, its not just... do x y z, more like... do x because, y because, z because).
my 2c
- cyphunk
You should only have to pay $5K if you take all of RedHat's training classes (4 total). And then the price would be pretty much inline with MSCE and CNE training costs.
The actual RedHat certification test (RH302) is $750. If your people are already knowledgeable about UNIX, but not necessarily Linux or RedHat, then the best option is to send them to RH300 which is a week long "rapid track" training class that includes the test. RH300 is $2700.
As far as locations, now that RedHat has partnered with GlobalKnowledge, you should be able to find a training center fairly close to you. See http://am.globalknowledge.com/redhat/index.html for more info.. A quick check at the GK site shows that RH302 is being offered in TX, DC, MN, CA, MA, NJ and CO in the coming months.
BTW, I don't work for RedHat or GlobalKnowledge. It just so happens that I recently went through (and passed) RH300.
Ya, I went through it. Mostly because:
a) I could
b) My boss paid for it
c) I was at Red Hat the day they had their IPO
d) Nice ego boost, having used Linux for 8 years.
Anyway, the certification isn't easy unless you know Linux like the back of your hand. I can't really go into the details of the RHCE exam (hellooo NDA), but I'm pretty sure I can tell you that you *really* need to know what you're doing. It's more than just studying the manual the day before the exam and passing. Most of it isn't RH-specific, so if you knew Debian really well, you could take the week-long course and do just fine.
To be fair, I never took any of the CNE or MCSE exams, so I can't do a good comparison of the two.
-- Ever notice that fast-burning fuse looks exactly the same as slow-burning fuse? I didn't... (Edgar Montrose)
Sorry, but Red Hat is just a wee bit smaller than MS. They cannot yet afford to fly people all over the place. They cannot yet afford to have very low prices that come from immense volumes.
This whole rant seems like people who complain mom and pop shops can't compete with Walmart in price or availability. It takes little brainpower to realize why this is the case. But mom and pop shops have other benefits, such as more personalized service, and oftimes better product. So it just seems like a misplaced complaint to say that Red Hat cannot compete with MS in certain ways. They can't. Get over it.