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IT Certifications Summary
A reader writes: "Icrontic.com has a new article up called 'All You Need To know About IT Certifications.' It talks about several of the major Microsoft certifications, and of course, a few of the Linux certs, including Linux+ and RHCE. "
>Again, because it's Microsoft, you will be required
...
>to answer the questions the way Microsoft would
>answer then, which isn't always necessarily the
>best way.
Typical answer sheet:
1) It's not a bug, it's a feature.
2) It's not a bug, it's a feature.
3) It's not a bug, it's a feature.
Hey, I'm 16. Hypothetically speaking, would anybody give someone my age a job if they had some certs? I mean not like a bench-tech at CompUSA for your A+, but like a Novell admin (or even like an apprentice) with a Network+, CNA, CNE, and CISSP (and of course experience). If I could scrounge up the money, I could pass the A+, Network+, CNE, CNA, MCP, and (with a little studying) CISSP. I have experience to back it up, so don't whip the "no experience" card out on me. So all it boils down to is: should I get some certs and look for an IT job, or not waste my time (and money) and just get a normal teenager job?
I belong to the ______ generation.
This article missed all the certs in the security field.
CISSP
CISA
SANS GIAC
In general, CISSP and CISA are more heavy on theory and SANS GIAC are more on practical knowledge (hands-on). Notice that GIAC actually offers many different certs in different area.
They are all hard to get. For example, CISSP requires a 6 hours exams (which isn't easy at all). GIAC requires a practical assignment (to show hands-on knownledge - require real world experience) as well as one or two 2 hours exam.
You need both...the certification to get the job, and the experience to keep it.
When I started working in IT support, despite having MS' "defacto standard" MCSE certification, I didn't know shit. Took 6 months to a year before I was actually useful. Today, I'm pretty much platform neutral and choose to base my recommendations on what the client needs and not what MS says will work (they are often wrong). I still have all the MS books and have hardly touched 'em after passing the exams. I prefer to find answers on the 'net that have been posted by people that actually have real-world solutions, not just what the book says.
You're using her as bait, Master!
I have struggled with this certification issue and my employer didn't want to pay the money for RHCE. Then one day I seredipitously managed to stumble across LPI Linux Certification in a Nutshell by O'Reilly.
Suprisingly the LPI isn't covered in the article.
As Linux certs go it doesn't depend on the financial solvency of a company (get an RHCE and if RH goes out of business then what?). It's vendor neutral (rejoice Mandrake and Suse fans).
Plus there's an animal book on it! Instant credibility.
Plus if you want to own your own certs and not have an employer to hold it over your head you can't beat the price (only a few hundred bucks for the whole shooting match).
More info available at lpi.org
Eight years ago I started out as a UNIX administrator by reading "Essential System administration" and then getting an entry level job making not much money. From their I started reading "DNS & Bind", "sendmail", etc, etc. Now I am a Sr. Unix Administrator (with a book shelf full of Oreily books). A few years ago I wanted to get into databases, so I read Oracle beginners guide and then the DBA handbook. I started doing DBA tasks and my company sent me to a backup and recovery class to get up to speed on it quickly. I have no certifications, nor do I have the desire to pursue them.
I guess what I'm trying to say is that if one really wants to get into IT they have to enjoy it to the point that they feel motivated to learn new things on their own. Too many people just equate certification to salary.
-- Thou hast strayed far from the path of the Avatar.
I'm studying for my MCSE right now, and I whizzed through the practice questions on the Windows 2000 Professional (workstation) part last night. One of the questions in particular caught my eye. It said (paraphrased):
"Which of these two operating systems [Windows 2000 Professional | Windows 2000 Server] can you run a public web server on?"
Well, of course, I picked both. I'm running Apache on Windows 2000 Pro right now, and IIS also comes as an optional add-on. When I looked up my answer, I was surprised to find that I was wrong. Then I remembered that I wasn't wrong because of the technical capabilities of the OS, but because of the licensing agreement, which states that you can only connect 5 computers to a Pro OS at any one time for file sharing and "Internet Information Services".
It's a different mindset. Being used to Linux servers, I assumed that the only thing limiting me from running what I wanted was hardware. However, to pass the MCSE, you not only have to know the technical features of the OS, but also what Microsoft wants you to do with it.
BTW, if you think the MCSE is easy, try taking it yourself. I've been doing Linux and Windows system administration for years, and this stuff still isn't coming naturally to me. It's also good experience for anyone adminning Windows boxes, as you will definitely know how to set up disk images and domain controllers once you are done with it. If you think Windows Update is the best way to maintain your set of 5+ Windows PCs, definitely take it, or at least read the study guides. It might make your job a lot easier.
Simpli - Your source for San Jose dedicated servers and colocation!
SAIR is not good. Basically they want you to buy THEIR books which spell the answers out for you. The LPI certs are very good and do a great job of being vendor neutral. I wrote an LPI study guide so I may be biased, but not much because I took both certs before deciding on which one to write.
I now have a great job, doing the stuff I know and love, and was actually sent to school by the new company to learn the tools I'll be using 'proper' (I didn't bother getting certified, however)
Maybe some day I will get a CISSP, but certifications on products are a stupid thing IMNSHO. A certification should be more general, demonstrating you know something about a piece of the industry, not that you know how to do it with product X.
You don't go to college to get an advanced degree in 'using matlab' You go to become an engineer.
I took the CCNP exams last November after taking a two-week bootcamp course. I took over at my office and we were tired of paying $200/hour for consultants to do work we should be doing in house. The boot camp I took from Global Knowledge was excellent with very good instructors. The exams are tough but they ask real world questions.
If you want to study at home I suggest the Cisco Preparation Series books as well as a lot of equipment. Without being comfortable on the equipment it's hard to get used to all the commands and which one is appropriate in certain places.
I learned a lot in the class and getting the cert...things I use every day now and it has really cut down on our consulting expenses and makes me a lot more valuable.
The CCNA exam is a joke. Every desktop support guy I know has it or is getting it. So, don't expect to get a job working on routers with that. Without real time on a production router most people won't care at all.
This one's easily answered. This "article" really isn't an article -- unless I'm seriously missing something, it's an ad for their own cert programs. Since they don't offer Oracle certs, they put them way at the end in the "other" category. This is pure ad copy.
The correlation between ignorance of statistics and using "correlation is not causation" as an argument is close to 1.
I just took the LPI 101 exam (passed) and will probably take the 102 to get level 1 certification and go on to the 20* exams.
The exam is weighted (good) and is very vendor neutral (good) and does have areas for you to comment on questions you get (good). But some of the quesitons require memorization of various flags (bad) and ask about outdated information (real bad). I can't give examples of questions, since I signed a nice form saying I won't disclose any of the questions. Hopefully the weighting takes these facts into account.
The price for the exam ($100USD) was affordable, even when unemployed, and there are at least a dozen locations within 20 miles of here (Boston, MA) where I can take the exam.
The fact that the Novell CNA/CNE certifications weren't even listed says something about how little weight they carry these days. I completed mine about this time last year, and stupidly thought it was my ticket to fame and fortune. Turns out, even in Utah (Novell's stomping grounds and probably its most die-hard install base), there's not an overwhelming demand for it.
Now, the program I got my CNE from was an excellent program. By the time you took the test, you had a good deal of hands-on experience, and really understood the material. The course even included an internship with an IT department. It certainly beat the pants off those courses advertised on TV ("Get certified in four weeks, and make six figures a year for life! Call now!") But job hunting was just depressing. Send off a dozen resumes, and get maybe one call back. The closest I ever got was a, "Well, we would have hired you but we decided to eliminate the position."
Certifications don't mean a whole lot. Even within my own program, there was a wide variance in the competence of the students. I'd say that the entire concept of certifications was designed to make life easier on HR departments. And too many of the training schools have the "certify them quickly and let them get experience on someone else's dime" mentality. It cheapens the value of the certifications themselves, and hurts the entire industry.
In my case, I've decided that I can finally afford to go back and get a CS degree. It's not the ticket to fame and fortune either, but at least I get to learn some cool stuff. But if someone in the Salt Lake area is looking for a geek who knows a bit of everything and will work dirt cheap, I'm interested.
You want the truthiness? You can't handle the truthiness!
How can this article ignore two of the most important certifications on the market right now, LPI and cSAGE??
They're both platform-independent, they're both psychometrically valid, and they're both of paramount importance to anyone looking to run computer infrastructures that include *nix systems.
cSAGE is an entry-level exam designed to certify competence in the practice of systems administration, and it was developed by the community, just like LPI (in cSAGE's case, it was developed by the community of systems administrators and the folks at USENIX and SAGE - The Systems Administrators Guild.
Isn't everyone tired of taking exams designed to test your ability to memorize trivia about a vendor's products? Why would you want yet another certification just because vendor $FOO has cranked out a new version of their widget? Wouldn't you rather have certifications that are designed to qualify your ability to do your job, rather than your ability to memorize?
That's exactly what cSAGE is all about.
.@.
unless you prove to me that you are a professional in your field. MCSE, et all, means nothing to me when hiring you. I've simply seen too many newly minted "systems engineers" from third rate night schools that exist only to "teach the test".
These poor folks have no practical knowledge, no understanding of the way systems actually work, etc, etc.
I know this is harsh, but I have the HR screeners send any resumes highlighting certifications rather than work experience right to the folks who hire for the help desk.
I know this is far out, but I believe IT should be treated as a profession, and having vendors hand out certifications on thier products no more makes an engineer than learning how to operate X-ray equipent makes one a radiologist.
It is interesting to note that, at least in Canada, it is illegal to state that you are a 'Microsoft Certified Systems Engineer'. This is because you are then fraudulently representing yourself as an engineer. Microsoft even issued a memo about this a year or two back. That said, you certainly can state that you have passed the MCSE, so long as you do not spell out the 'E'.
Oceania has always been at war with Eastasia.
I just started teaching night classes for a local training company. On consecutive nights I teach a class in A+ (PC Hardware), Network+, Server+, 2000 Pro and 2000 Server. Nominally I work as an independent consultant, but that's not going so well right now.
Most of my students are out of work Steelworkers. Almost all of them cite their desire to find a stable career as their reason for seeking certification.
What's sad is, if I had a stable career, I would never be teaching these people - none of whom really have the requisite experience that should go along with any cert (3 - 6 months for A+, one to two years for the others). I can't tell them that. At $2000 per class, how could I?!?
One of the most surprising things about IT certs is the numbers. Since the A+ certiification started in the mid-80s, there have been 260,000 people certified (Comptia certs are for life). Microsoft, which decided that those who obtained NT4 MCSE are still MCSEs after originally stated they wouldn't be starting this year, says there are 470,000 people with the MCSE cert.
There is a lot more need in the world for competent techs than there is for folks who are marginally qualified to work on high-level business systems. There is a lot more need for competent people than there is for certifications.
I tell my students that certification does not mean they're ready for the high-paying jobs they all hear about. I tell them that certifications represent a minimal standard for competency, and that the best thing they can do - whether they get certified or not - is to learn the lessons I teach, not the answers to the questions on the tests.
As a trainer, a certified IT professional, and a genuinely clueful computer guy, it's a lesson I only hope they (and anyone who reads this) take to heart.
-- I wanna decide who lives and who dies - Crow T. Robot, MST3K
It is important to note that basically all of these exams are product certifications. Having an MCSD certifies that you are familiar with the Microsoft development environment but it does NOT certify that you know much about software engineering. Certainly, Microsoft tries to ensure that you actually know how to program but they don't do a very good job; that's not a dig at Microsoft, though, as they are primarily ensuring that you know their tools.
Now, some companies will hire you if you have sufficient product certifications. Others require a degree from a recognised institution. At the place where I work, we are of the latter mindset. Someone who applies to our company and just lists Microsoft certifications will have their resume instantly trashed. Someone who has a BSc in Computing Science will be seriously considered. Depending on what we want them for, a BSc and an MCSD _may_ carry more weight than a BSc alone. It certainly shows that someone is dedicated to their field. But the important thing to note is that an MCSD by itself adds NO VALUE WHATSOEVER to a potential employee unless they have a legitimate degree as well. Of course, this is just the current place I am employed.
Prior to my current employment, I worked at a company which was huge on Microsoft certifications. They most definitely would hire a developer who only had an MCSD and treated such certifications as more valuable than BSc's. That said, the company is now in dire straights and the average developer there was of far lower calibre.
Oceania has always been at war with Eastasia.
GIAC is certainly is a good deal of work. The practical requires a good week or more of effort to complete in terms of research and writing. GIAC has posted the practicals of those who have completed the cert to get some idea of what they require. I know of at least 3 other people who tried for the cert at the same time I did but didn't complete the work successfully. Partly because unlike other certs there is a timelimit of about 3 months to complete everything.
They've also stated that their goal is not to have a deluge of people with the cert(unlike Cisco, MS, Novell, etc. who advertise how many are certified). If they start seeing a lot of people passing the cert, they'll make the cert harder to obtain. Worth pursuing, definately.
sheldon - GCWN #168