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CompTIA Adds Linux+ Certification
11 platter hard driv writes: "CompTIA (the Computing Technology Industry Association), the people who made the A+ and I-NET+ certifications, have made a Linux certification. I just received an e-mail a day or two ago that the test is out of beta. This seems pretty important seeing how CompTIA is non-vendor specific." Legions of PHBs and Kinko's nationwide look forward to the resulting resume changes.
LPI has been around longer, is also vendor non-specific, and has multiple levels of tests for various degrees of skill.
Life sucks, but death doesn't put out at all. -- Thomas J. Kopp
The test was a lot easier than the SAIR cert tests of the same level(Install and Config and Sys. Admin) but there were a lot more hardware specific questions (SCSi, LVD, RAID, Fibre Channel, Hard Disks, Video Cards, etc). I guess that is from there A+ people, maybe. I have not yuet recieved my results from the Beta exam but I am 99% sure I passed it. It is nice to see that a major certification company like CompTia has a linux certification for people to get. I have the SAIR cert but I thik this one will help a little more when I leave the military and go looking for a Linux (or Unix) sysadmin job.
"If ignorance is bliss, why aren't there more happy people in the world?"
At first glance this seems to be a fairly basic-ish certification as the course is aimed at the Linux Professional with 6 months of experience with the Linux Operating System, but after looking at it further it covers a lot of different area's. These seem to include installation, xwindows, planning systems and all the basic linux services. One very surprising thing is that so little of the marking schedule is based on Planning the Implmentation (only 4%), I would have thought a lot more should be based on this, as this would be a valuable skill.
Overall its good seeing a course which is aimed at linux as a whole, instead of one distribution, and is also something that I would have the skills to complete myself.
The RHCE by Red Hat and the CCIE by Cisco are both lab based exams where you have to do actual hands on work to earn the certification.
"If ignorance is bliss, why aren't there more happy people in the world?"
Having done some entry-level IT hiring in the past.. let me tell you about certifications.
They ARE useful... in a way. When I'm looking at a resume for an entry-level IT person who can come in and start taking some load off me for more 'simple' tasks... fixing PC's, helping clients, doing some network cabling.. etc....
Obviously, someone with experience is what I want. But... few people with experience fit the bill.. they are too senior, don't want that junior job.
Now.. if someone says they have A+.. I know I can tell them to open up a computer and add some ram and they won't go 'Hunh? What's that?'. Oh.. they may still have questions about what kind of ram... but at least they understand what's going on.
Ever heard how, In karate, the black-belt, aside from simply holding your pants up, symbolizes 'the beginning'. The same could be said of most certifications such as A+, N+, this new linux one, etc. They are a beginning, not an end.
If you had that linux certification, and no other experience, I would consider you for an entry-level linux job.. if I interviewed you and thought you had the brains for the particular job.
That's ALL they are... there are two things I really hate.
1) The classes tend to prepare people into thinking they now know everything, and are ready to take top-level jbos. This is especially true of MCSE, not so much of A+/N+/etc.
2) Employers and shops like to brag about their certified employees... 'All our technicians are A+ certified'.
Really.. I guess I'm saying that.. these certifications are a good entry into the business, but no more.
CCIE... the reason you respect that is because it's not a certification you can just go out, do a bit of studying, and get in a weekend if you know nothing. IT was designed to certify experts in internetworking. I looked at it a couple years ago.. the routing & Switching one. I know a LOT about TCP/IP... I've been doing fairly detailed stuff for about 9 years... and I knew about 80% of the IP section, which was only about 40% of the whole test. (if memory serves). It's hard.. so if someone actually passes CCIE, then that proves they DO know something. It's like a PH.D in networking.
How seriously do folks take the brainbench.com cert's? Just wondering because I'm about to start taking their tests.
That site has ~5 linux cert's. They can be passed via a ~50min, $25 online exam. The tests are open book with 2min to complete each question. The employer can verify it was really you that took an exam by giving you another version of the test downloadable by employers for free.
"Be thankful you are not my student. You would not get a high grade for such a design
Mmmm, maybe they won't say that about an A+ cert, but I've heard it about the CPD (Certified PowerBuilder Developer) a few years back. My placement firm set me up with an interview at a potential client. During the interview, I talked to two team leads, then the PM. The PM said that "well, we don't normally hire folks that don't have a CPD". At that point, I had approximately 4.5 solid years experience doing PowerBuilder.
If you don't know what PowerBuilder is, it has many similarities to VB. The major differences are it's edge on doing client/server apps (better db stuff) and it implements OO slightly better. But it's very, very simple compared to something like C or C++...almost any old poseur can at least look productive with it. So I was quite amazed at this arrogance and stupidity on the client's part. Other than that, I know the client was a reasonably good place to work. So you can never tell when someone might be looking for those things.