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. "

Comments

it's not a bug...

[unsinged int]

>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.
...

teenagers, certs, and jobs?

[ziggy_zero]

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?

Re:teenagers, certs, and jobs?

[jd142]

It depends on the job, but quite frankly, probably not. First of all, because of your age, you probably fall under the protection of child labor laws. Don't know for sure, but it is a guess. If that is the case, you are limited in the number of hours you can work.

If I were hiring, I wouldn't hire a sysadmin who could only work 20 hours a week and be restricted by law to only work til a certain time. Child Labor laws vary by state, so ymmv.

It would also depend on the job. I work supporting a college in a university. Half of my job is people skills and things you only pick up through experience. The preference here is for people who understand graduate school and have preferably attended one. No matter how good your tech skills are, there are some things that only come through the experience of having done some of the work.

I can't tell you how many times my co-worker and I have diagnosed a problem not because we know the os on the desktop but because we know the person behind the computer.

So for what we do, pure technical skills wouldn't be enough.

I'd say go ahead and get the certs now, then you'll get them out of the way. After a certain point up the ladder it isn't strictly speaking necessary to keep the certs updated, but it is enough to be able to say you did it once. I make a pretty decent wage for the area and for working as an employee at a state university, work 40 hours a week and the highest cert I got was an MCP in windows 95. Of course, I'm also working on a second masters while I work, this time in MIS, so that helps but it certainly isn't require. My boss, who makes about 10k a year more only has a ba in business, but he has the certs and knows his stuff.

Security certs

[lamj]

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.

Re:Job Market for Techs is tough, certs or not

[Robber Baron]

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.

No LPI???? This is the one to have

[i_want_you_to_throw_]

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

Actually, you bring up an interesting point...

[SlashChick]

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.

Re:Actually, you bring up an interesting point...

[pmc]

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.

Windows 2000 pro is limited to 10 incoming TCP/IP connections, so is hardly suitable for a public web server. This is a limitation (albeit artificial) of the operating system, and not of any web server that it may be running.

Re:Job Market for Techs is tough, certs or not

[SCHecklerX]

I don't have certifications in anything. And having the experience, I knew enough to get a job where I would NOT be an administrator of products I hate to use.

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.

No cSAGE??? C'mon!!!

[.@.]

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.

MCSE

[yamla]

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'.