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Red Hat Certification Program For Education
Frank Caviggia writes "The Inquirer has a story up about Red Hat providing educational institutions with the ability to certify students as Red Hat Certified Technicians (RHCT) and Red Hat Certified Engineers (RCHE) how this will relate to Microsoft's MSCE program. You can find the story here. Red Hat has more information on the program here."
So certification involves actually educating people now?
Toronto-area transit rider? Rate your ride.
OHavent we learned that people who get certs are just people who think they are computer geeks? I meean look at how well the MCSE has worked, Dont get me wrong, I think certs for some people can be good but over all they need to be better with more real world questions. And when they start giving out Certified C++ Expert I will be in line to get one But I think it is over rated to h8ave a Cert. Especially since 45% of the people with certs i know are Paper Certified.... Why start kids out like this? Let them choose for them selves!
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They want to create a certification comparable to the MSCE? Gee... then we'll have have all these people with just a RHCT or RCHE admining linux boxes, and we'll have as many problems (DDOS zombies, etc.) as with the MCSEs admining windows boxes.
Certifications will help, but then people will think that that certification is _all_ that is needed to admin a linux box.
Will this turn into the same repetetive cash cow that the MCSE is? Will certified engineers have to get a new certification on every new release of the kernel? what about major releases?
I hope they realize that one of the major flaws with microsoft's certification is the necessity to get re-certified when a poorly-done ripoff of the previous operating system is released.
--My other sig is a ferrari.
It's funny. Laugh.
Every cloud has a silver lining (except for the mushroom shaped ones, which have a lining of Iridium & Strontium 90)
Maybe Microsoft developed a new course, because last time I checked it was "MCSE". It stands for Microsoft Certified Systems Engineer in case you were wondering.
Now all the wagon jumping paper tigers that swamped the IT world can move to Linux.
A large part of the state of job opportunities in the tech sector are the 5000 absolutely unqualified applicants for every job.
Pointy haired bosses don't know a good coder from a hole in the ground, so they hire the janitor-cum-MCP with the $20,000 salary expectation.
There are a few places left that look for someone who can do the job, and do it well, and don't give a hoot about alphabet soup and buzzwords in the resume.. I'm fortunate enough to have found one of them.
I should probably get back to work, I've wasted too much time here today.
I don't need no instructions to know how to rock!!!!
5 -- Make a hat pattern out of the multiple choice fields
4 -- Copy off the smelly guy with the dandruff-coated black tee shirt
3 -- Bribe the proctor of the exam with a lunch that's "free as in beer"
2 -- emacs &... Edit... Query Replace... "MCSE, Red Hat Certified"
1 -- Insist on using the new open source Test Answer Development (TAD) model championed by Bruce Perens
Don't forget *nix.org either
Reply or e-mail; don't vaguely moderate. Ex-O'Reilly/MIT employee, now a full-time Google employee.
That universities learn from the free software movement that knowledge is something that they can generate. I dont see whatsoever any value in giving any kind of certification to a student that is not involved in important admin tasks in a real datacenter. Come on, she'll go into the cert, finish it. Oh cool its friday! Go to a rave and kill most the synaptic connections given by the cert in the first two hours. With some luck (and here is the upside), our very hypothetical geek will get laid and on and on and on until they finish their degree....
Certs provide no value to kids in school. Abstract math, the study of algorithms, the understanding of the engeneering process behinf organizations like IETF, W3C do provide it....quit loosing time colleges, educate ppl. Certs are for lame professionals that lost the next wave (which is most of us, at some point anyway).
NO SIG
You guys can bash certifications left and right, but to a new graduate desperately looking for a job, they can prove useful. The job market is so bad at the moment that recent college graduates applying for entry-level positions are competing with people that have decades of experience. If having "RHCT" or "RCHE" on your resume can help, it's worth investing a couple of hundred bucks into it.
Certification has pluses and minuses for employees and employers alike, the real winners turn out to be the Cerifying organization. So, why not? Let's start "Billy The Mountain's Certified Information Technology Professional" program. "What, you say you're not BTMCITP? Gedowwdahea!"
Step 1. We'll charge $400 a pop, with a $50 annual maint. fee
Step 2. ????
Step 3. Marvel at how it's just like were printing our own money.
BTM
That was the turning point of my life--I went from negative zero to positive zero.
I thought engineering was something you had to go to college for, not some 'school' in a strip mall that does computer 'certs'.
Theres an interesting comaprison between the benfefits that Red Hat perceives that can be gained through taking their course and Microsofts idea of the benefits you get for its MCSE.
Its an interesting contrast of philosophys, Red Hat stresses its IT benefits, whereas Microsoft seems to stress the special offers that come free with the course.
Apparently you get a free badge with the Microsoft cereal, I think I know which one I'm going to be buying.
What's interesting to me is that if somebody fails the RHCE exam but gets all the RHCT portions of the RHCE exam correct, they still don't earn an RHCT. Red Hat hasn't quite figured this one out yet. I asked this question during one of RH's webcast presentations, and they said they didn't have plans at that time for implementing a "partial credit" solution.
Although I can see how in a given real-world scenario, one would expect an RHCE to perform a longer list of tasks in a given time frame (be they troubleshooting, installation, service configuration, etc.) than an RHCT, it still doesn't make sense to me why one wouldn't be able to walk away with at least the RHCT if they had performed well enough to have passed the RHCT exam. Instead, they would have to pay more to take the RHCT exam separately.
I'm not sure why this issue is important to me, except that I think it would be neat to earn the RHCE. I can't think of any other IT certs that employ any kind of partial credit system.
"The cup... the drop... it's a YES!"
A quick google search on "engineer certification illegal microsoft" turns this up as the first hit:
A general rule, though, is that one must hold a PE to legally represent themselves as engaged in practice of "professional engineering". (Some states take it as far as making it illegal to use the word "Engineering" in the name of a company unless a PE is one of the principals. That sounds pretty strong, but it's not very well known, and can only be addressed after someone files a complaint about it with that state's Board of Registration for Professional Engineers.)
(1) a four-year engineering degree in a program approved by the state engineering licensure board, (2) four years of qualifying engineering experience, and who successfully completes (3) the eight-hour Fundamentals of Engineering (FE) Examination, and (4) the eight- hour Principles and Practice of Engineering (PE) Examination will be licensed as a professional engineer.
In Canada, you can't use the term "engineer" unless you have an engineering degree. The only exceptions are for train engineers, forestry engineers, and a few others. Software Enginner IS NOT a permitted term. I've met w. the local governing body to discuss this last year.
Having said that, anyone paying $$$ thinking that having an "engineering cert" from RH or MS is fucking brain-dead anyway, and deserves to lose their money and their time.
First, we can consider it to be a learning opportunity, which it isn't. It's an opportunity to be brainwashed and turned into a mindless employee. That is, of course, assuming it goes Microsoft's route.
But, we can see this as an opportunity to get a title that will help you get a job, where you can do some real learning. Way I see it, if you take the cert, get a job, and study a LOT, you can actually get somewhere. And by somewhere, I don't mean a trailer. I mean SOMEWHERE!
Of course, being the everything-hater I am, I have to say that the idea of an open-source cert is sort of weird. When I say weird, I mean extremely ugly. That's just a pet peeve of mine.
"I see Windows users..."
I beg to differ. A person with a BSCS should have a good enough understanding of the fundamentals of programming and debugging "in the large" to track down and fix a problem in any sized program. It's all about knowing how to go about it, and thats what you should learn in a BS program.
I also find it rather disturbing that you compare a BSCS to a certification program that takes somewhere between a couple weeks and a couple months to get. I'll hire a BSCS over a any day if thats the only fundamental difference.
They who would give up an essential liberty for temporary security, deserve neither liberty nor security
Back when brainbench was doing the free cert thing, I noticed they had a cert for AOL User. I couldn't resist taking it, even though I hadn't used AOL for nearly 6 years.
:)
I passed it, and got the cert in the mail. It's a great conversation piece. "Certified AOL User"
...or it will be DOA.
The MCSE is an almost useless cert to go and get if you plan to work in a modern IT department. Due to Microsoft concetrating generating revenue from it's MCSE progrsam and not really worrying about creating truly knowledgable sysadmins the MCSE will get you a 30K job (or less) on a Helpdesk as a mouth-breathing card reader. Unfortunately, the cert mills and Microsoft itself sell this useless stack of papers as keys to the server room, where you will know better than the guys who have been staying up all night for years in there putting on security patches, hotfixes, service packs and upgrades that are wildly different from one another. It ain't so, sorry, thanks for playing.
Red Hat, on the other hand, has a chance to create some truly educated people in their cert program, and if they do, they will definitely be able to get their foot in more doors. But if they just create a bunch of wild-eyed know-it-all evangalizers (read: sales people) who just know how to spin up an install and then run the graphical version of Up2Date, then it will be as big a waste of time as Micro$ofts.
Of course, all IT groups are managed by MCSE's (Magazine Certified Stupid Engineers) who read the rags and think that it would be oh so easy to go and migrate from Progress to Oracle, AND implement SAP in a single evening of downtime!
I'm a RHCE (2 years ago), MCSE (6 or 7 years ago), and a CCNP. The new MCSE exams are a good bit deeper than the earlier tests that were very easy. The RHCE is a good lab exam, but mainly focuses on supporting small Linux servers in a pretty rigid setup. It doesn't really cover managing a large Linux network, like some of the MCSE tests cover.
Is the RHCE worth it? It's a good cert and until it gets washed out, it has value. But don't worry, when it gets popular you'll see cheat sheets and answer books just like you do with the MCSE. The exam will always be based on the RedHat classes, which can be reduced down to only the facts needed.
I did not take any Red Hat classes when I took my exam...in fact, I was the only one out of 8 that didn't. I got a 98% on the exam while some of the people who took the training were taking it their 2nd time. I think those guys passed when I was there, but I wouldn't want them on my servers....
I think they should call them Certified Linux / Unix Engineers. Who could resist the acronym?
IMO the value of a comuter science degree is questionable. It is much better to have someone with specific knowledge who just happens to know how to program. Why do you think so many programmers have scientists, artists, doctors, lawyers, and accountants as their ultimate bosses? Because programming for programming's sake is a very limited business.
Galium Arsenide is the material of the future, and always will be.
I agree with on your points except for where you say"Pointy haired bosses don't know a good coder from a hole in the ground, so they hire the janitor-cum-MCP with the $20,000 salary expectation."
Last time I checked an MCP had nothing to do with punching code.
A systems engineer and a coder or two very different animals.
A coder might do a little admin and and an admin might code a little. But otherwise on two seperate ends of the spectrum. Not a very good comparison.
I have also had the pointy haired bosses who have hired utter embeciles as admins. But also cause they listened to the stringy haired coders who thought cause they could could they were admin gods as well.
I am a RHCE, MCSE,MCSA,CCNA, A+ and NET+
RHCE - A little difficlut but if you have the Unix experience and study hard you can pass it.
MCSE 2000 - Well the MCSE NT 4 was a joke. The 2000 track(if you dont use cheats) recquires a lot of study and experience to pass. Active Directory and Migration are two hard topics. Yeah, people used the cheats, but I tell you, I just took the AD 2000 examn, and it was no joke. Don't punish us MCSEs who actually know what they are doing.
A+ If you need to study for this, you need to choose another field. But their is a lotta cumaltive knowledge here.
Net+ A very good primer before you hit the CCNA if your only experience is your home network.(which 90% of the people in the world makes them gurus cause they got a speedstream router with a web based admin) but I would reccomend it to anyone who wanted to get into networking.
CCNA - Best beginners network course there is. Learn the theory and you will go far.
My problem with Linux admins is this. They consistently dog MS and their products when 90% of them do not know enough about them. Like any OS you have to live it and breath it to know it. And Windows 2000 is a damned fine product if you know how to admin it. Many don't. And people on the nix side dont tend to learn. I run headless 2000 servers, yep no gui, i turn it on when i need to do something. Always astound people when they see this.
MS Admins, are very inflexible, reboot and restore seems to be their main fixes for all. Instead of installing right the first time and doing the maintenance.
I use *nix and Windows for different things. Each has its good and bad. But a mentor of mine told me that the best way is to learn them all and take from each. That is what I have done. FUD is for children.
Puto
The Revolution Will Not Be Televised
Certs are beneficial in 2 ways. 1. To me. I am CCNA MCSE and CNE - with each cert I am percieved as more valuable to my company. They offered me a $2000 bonus to get my last cert - the CNE. (and immediatly after that they decided to scrap netware in exchange for Win2k) Whether or not I learn anything from the tests is up to me. Personally I got the most out of my MCSE courses. 2. My company can bill me at higher rates due to my "credentials". More money for them more money for me. And yes you do learn things in these courses. Go take one. Whether you understand this or not - percieved value is more worthwhile than intrinsic value when you are looking for a job or a raise. Personally I feel I could do just as good a job without these certs but I understand I live on planet earth and use them to my advantage. For those of you complaining about how certs are so worthless - go back to your job hunt. P.S. I am in the process of recertifying on MCSE before I set my sites on the Red Hat course.