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A Novell Linux Specialist?
richardeholder asks: "Our Novell partners differentiate themselves in the marketplace by promoting their areas of expertise or specializations; this allows their
customers to know what their skill sets are and what they can reasonably expect these partners to provide for them.
As we embrace Linux, we would like to extend the title of 'Linux specialist' to partners who merit it. Before we move forward on this initiative, we would like to ask the Linux community for guidance on what should constitute a Linux specialist. Should we require certifications such as LPI and the RHCE/RHCT, or are there other more valuable ways of demonstrating Linux competency?"
An individual or company can be considered a linux specialist if they demonstrate the ability to:
-Properly secure a firewall
-Compile and install a kernel
-Configure the third button on thier mouse
-Print to a Panasonic KXP-8410 printer in color
-Make coffee that is restricted under OSHA guidelines
-Recognize a minimum 8 of 10 random network cards by thier chipset number only
-Understand the usefullness of the SysRq button
-Install linux on any appliance that does not come with a keyboard or mouse
-Setup a cron job to order pizza online
-Pay a license fee to SCO
-Assemble a beowolf cluster which includes more than one type of gaming console
-Install a really cool kde/gnome/enlightenment theme
-Run desktops at no less than 1600x1200 resolution, native
-Name all boxen after sci-fi characters/objects
-Any cats owned must be named after cabling specifications
-Adequate space must be reserved in all hardware racks for pizza boxes
-Every system must glow at night. Server rooms should be scary
That should just about cover it. Congratulations! You may now call yourself a linux specialist!
Karma: SELECT `karma` FROM `users` WHERE `userid`=138474;
It makes me want to re-embrace Novell just knowing that they are doing things *right* (like talking to the community on Slashdot).
I think I left off at 3.12. Hey did anyone ever keep a copy of that NCSnipes game?
Go for the Novell Certified Linux Engineer certification.
// TODO: Insert Cool Sig
Ask them to spell Microsoft.
If they use a dollar symbol somwhere in the spelling - then the're a Linux expert.
If they spell it Micro-Soft - then ther're really old school DOS expert.
If they spell it MICROS~1 -then there a Windows expert.
Moneyed corporations, non-working 'poor' and criminal prisoners are turning productive citizens into tax-slaves.
there's the obvious one -- how many anti-microsoft comments you can get onto slashdot during one day.
but, all kidding aside, what's the scope of the specialty?
o firewalls
o security
o script writing
or are we talking end-user support?
o kde
o gnome
o X configuration
there would also be the need for familiarization with common opensource apps, such as openoffice, gnumeric, kword, etc.
what exactly are we talking about?
Our Novell partners differentiate themselves in the marketplace by promoting their areas of expertise or specializations; this allows their customers to know what their skill sets are and what they can reasonably expect these partners to provide for them. As we embrace Linux, we would like to extend the title of 'Linux specialist' to partners who merit it. Before we move forward on this initiative, we would like to ask the Linux community for guidance on what should constitute a Linux specialist. Should we require certifications such as LPI and the RHCE/RHCT, or are there other more valuable ways of demonstrating Linux competency?
These words are the words of a suit! But that's all right, all are welcome on slashdot. Well except the RIAA and microsoft, but that's besides the point.
Basically, you need to come up with your own certification. All certifications are pretty meaningless to the non-suits, but I think your partners would have a better understanding of "skill sets" if you defined your own set of Novell Linux Specialist credentials, and then either came up with your own tests and so forth or use these credentials to certify other certifications.
Fat? Check.
GNU/Linux? Check.
Steals music online? Check.
Smells? Check.
Patents are evil? Check.
Fat? Check.
Lack of social skills? Check.
Smells? Check.
Congratulations, you are a Linux expert.
Only one small part of it.
In the business climate, you should only be considered a "Linux specialist" if you have designed, deployed, maintained, or extended production Linux platforms in real life.
Additionally, there should be some track record, say over two years, of professional or technical services delivery either in Linux or another Operating Platform, UNIX, not Windows or Novell.
Finally and most importantly, should be able to provide at least two business references resulting from completed or ongoing projects.
All this would be Real [TM] as opposed to say, the Microsoft "Partner" thing where you need 2 MCPs on staff, a fee, and, uh, that's all.
To my mind, the successful business reference is the best certification anyone can have.
Network security - ALL protocols (esp. TCP/IP)
Network Architecture
Platform Integration - including (yuk!) Windows
I don't want to be a TROLL, but it's working out that way. I need people who can put together a NETWORK - NOT be a vendor specific cooky cutter LAN. The more you know about everything (networking) the more it helps to justify hiring you.
I know, it's a CATCH 22 deal these days -(I used to be a coder - and I got sick of it.) There's a lot of us ex-techies who are now PHBs because we couldn't take ( or didn't want to deal with) the current climate in the IT industry and we know TRUE skills when we see them.
I don't even know if this is even on topic based on the article...
WTF?There is no spoon or sig.
Do this ten times and then ask yourself the same question...
http://www.linuxfromscratch.org/
If you really did this all by hand and got a nice working bare system you really know what drives a GNU/Linux machine.
one, it is nice to see novell embrace linux, provide a groupwise interface, and make linux desktop, through ximian, an option. great job. but funny thing is that at my school district, which uses netware, i've been playing nicely with novell for some time.
i had got my linux box at school (couldn't stand those damn win98 POS they give us) up and running, and used ncpmount to mount my novell share, and got our attendance and grade programs (SASI) to run through wine. now, one day our district technidiot comes into my classroom, going through his usual hardware inventory, etc., and he notices the district computer collecting dust in the corner (hell, it was a P200 i think). so, he takes a peek, and notices that i am running SASI on this weird desktop. he can't figure out how i can get linux to work with the network, how i could run sasi, how i could connect to the internet. poor fella.
My problem? I was perfectly gruntled, until some numbnuts came by and dissed me.
Ohmygod! For a second there, I thought you were going to say The GNU Free Software Song! YIKES! ;)
If I were grilling someone for a "senior Linux expert" position, my interview would probably include the following:
- Describe the scheduling algorithm the Linux kernel presently uses.
- Describe the differences between NFS, CIFS, AFS, Coda, Intermezzo -- and how you'd pick the appropriate one for a given environment.
- Answer a pop quiz about the kernel itself (How is the input core designed? Which filesystems have no limit on the number of inodes? How does the preemptive scheduling algorithm work? Under what circumstances is it undesirable? What's the first thing you do if you get an OOPS?)
- Be familiar with the system's boot process and how to resolve problems relating to it. (What search order does the kernel use when searching for an "init" process?)
- Be able to build an initrd to preload I/O drivers (ie. for booting off a firewire drive)
- Have a solid understanding of the linker, the environment variables and search paths it uses, etc.
- Be able to track down simple bugs in kernel drivers (implications: the candidate must be fluent in C, have some familiarity with the kernel's source base, and know how to use tools such as ksymoops and possibly one of the available kernel debuggers)
Of course I'd also be looking for fluency in at least a few scripting languages (and LDAP queries), an understanding of the tools and libraries underlying GNOME (which we use here) [so I'd want someone understanding GConf, Bonobo, and the like], and so forth. Personally, I'd probably include a series of questions about revision control tools as well, and I'd look for at least a passing fluency with SQL (as a great many popular services backend into SQL databases, it's become rather necessary as a sysadmin skill as well as something important to developers and DB specialists).
Now, are all these skills going to be needed on a regular basis in someone who's just (say) in a sysadmin role? Of course not. On the other hand, the advantage of having someone who understands how things work under the hood is that when they *do* get something really weird jumping out at them, they'll be able to understand what the problem is and *get it fixed*.
Personally, though, I'm not sure what value I see in the whole certification thing. Someone with the kind of skill range I mentioned above typically won't *need* a piece of paper to demonstrate what they know -- it'll be visible in the code they release, in their posts to public mailing lists (Google is your friend!), and in their survival of an actual, proper, face-to-face grilling.
Evaluate the existing certification programs: LPI and RHCE, any others out there. Look at their methodologies and tests, interview certified engineers, see what you think.
If in your opinion they're certifying wankers instead of quality engineers, you'll need to do your own certification program. The CNE was a pretty decent program IIRC.
IMHO you'll find that LPI and RHCE are pretty good programs and are probably good enough to run with or to build your own program around.
On a side note, I certainly hope Novell can make a comeback.
"Nothing was broken, and it's been fixed." -- Jon Carroll
There are two kinds of non-certified techs: those who are too incompetent to pass a certification, and those who are too busy actually getting things accomplished to bother with piffle like that. The certified ones tend to be the rest: the mediocre.
"A great democracy must be progressive or it will soon cease to be a great democracy." --Theodore Roosevelt
That no supplier company will do anything about it.... CERTIFICATIONS MEAN NOTHING MORE THAN THOSE WITH THEM CAN PASS TESTS WELL! That being said, the most meaningful exam sets ever given in the *NIX community were the Sun Interactive exams, where you were told to do things, then had to do them in a simulated environment (a virtual OS really). How you got there didn't matter, just that it worked. Dunno where that code ended up, it was from SunSoft when that was a division that had their own training seperate from the "Zander" organized training centers. The other meaningful test set was.. errr.. uhhh... The ORIGINAL SCO test suites (before Caldera, before Canopy, the orignal SCO). they were designed to be open material, open book, tested your ability to find answers you didn't know. It was actually a pretty accurate indicator of someone who could get the job done. But then again, noone ever listened to me about this stuff....
Its sad that novell dumped their Unix division just when I joined them, and then :)
they are embracing Linux few years after I dumped them
That apart, I think if Novell is really serious about Linux and Linux specialists, please
do not follow RHCE or any other certification. You should identify what aspects
of linux concerns you most. Then identify the contributions made by the concerned
parties to this field. Also, IMHO, it is much more sensible to identify specialists with
their contributions to the open source community. Redhat certification is very
commercialised, and is for people entering Linux to prove their worth to the world.
What you are looking at is to identify real specialists, many of who may not even bother
to prove themselves to anybody, and their works speak for them.
Identify broad areas such as:
Linux Kernel (Accomplished in kernel development)
Linux Device (Someone who is a wizard in getting any device working on Linux)
Linux Installation (Someone who can troubleshoot all kinds of installation problems,
who knows, redhat, debian, gentoo and what not on the back of their palm)
Linux Application (Someone who specialises in applications, KDE/Gnome, etc.)
Linux Ultimate (Accomplished in all the areas)
Now come up with different titles such as Specialist, Master, Guru etc. These titles identify the
extent of their skills. A Linux Kernel Guru might indicate kernel developer whereas Linux Kernel Specialist
might refer to someone who is good at managing patches, troubleshooting the kernel, installing modules etc.
Of course, people who have not contributed to open source should be able to prove themself by either
working with Novell on some projects, or by taking some certification exams. I think it is necessary to differentiate the two categories.
Infact if Novell starts a centralised Linux forum to attract newbies and experts to discuss (like linuxquestions.org) it will be easy to identify the gurus by their contributions and newbie testimonials.
Hope this helps.
DO NOT PANIC
I got one, back in the day. Must be sort of dodgy.
I don't know a single technical person who is a) reasonably good at what he does, while b) being certified as such. Said another way, all of the people I know who have a clue about any specific technology are almost certainly not the people who hold any formal certifications in that area. By and large, I don't see much evidence that the technical community in general thinks too highly of certifications. Sure, some certifications can be difficult to achieve, and can be crafted in such a way as to filter out everyone but the experts. But creating such a test would be difficult to do, and it would take a lot of time to evolve (especially something so diverse and varied as 'Linux'). And even once you get there, you still have the problem that the technical folks don't value the certification anyway.
/. is a good step towards getting useful feedback, but I think the right step would be to source a few tech heads (full-time, contract, whatever) and task them with the problem.
From what I hear in the questions posed in the original post, it sounds like there is a group of non-technical people who are searching for a way to bless some small subset of the technical crowd. I think it would be far wiser to hire some technical people to do this job for you. If you're still committed to building a certification process, get your technical people to do it for you. Posting on
screen
Send bugreports, fixes, enhancements, t-shirts, money, beer & pizza to screen@uni-erlangen.de
Yeah.
Really, I know what I'm doing...Ohhhh, look at the shiny buttons!
Very interesting question. Five years ago I would have said that certifications were about as useful a predictor of knowledge as swirling tea leaves in a cup. I've seen some really good MCSEs with a thorough knowledge of networking and their specialties and just as many who can't properly subnet a network. Five years ago, anyone who was seriously into Linux was *usually* a competent sysadmin in their own right and didn't need a piece of paper to prove it.
I think this has changed. There are a lot more people getting into Linux for the money than there has ever been before. This has upsides and downsides. Upside -- Linux is growing. Downside, it's no longer an arcane science. I can live with the downside though.
Alas, we peddle our skills to non-technical types who don't understand that a cram session and the ability to prepare for a test does not predict the knowledge of a consultant or future employee. They, for good or bad, use keyword filters or head hunter resume databases to choose candidates. Those who have magical letters on their resume get noticed. The rest, regardless of knowledge, get filtered out before ever being seen by a human.
So are Linux certifications a good thing? Maybe. If done right and don't end up as a certification mill as happened with the MCSE, then sure. They can help show a certain level of competency and could ensure that the certificate holder has the broad level of knowledge required to pass the test. In the next five years I'd expect that more executives will start asking for some certification anyway.
This will only work if the certification process in itself does not become an industry. The cost of taking the test should be low (under $150) but it must be difficult. Ideally it would include a practical, hands-on section instead of a bunch of multiple choice questions. The course work should be openly available and reflect not only real-world knowledge but some theoretical and philosophical aspects of using Linux.
While that's great and such.. What on earth does that have to do with their ability to properly run a server? We're not talking about giving someone a college degree here.. Random knowledge really just says to me that the person got bored and looked it up.. I mean I'm good at a lot of things I don't know the history of. It's not that I don't care about history, it's just that since when do you have to be fanatical about something to get a job? I'm glad all of my job interviews left out the trivia questions, or else I'd never have gotten any of the jobs I had fun and did very well at..
How about requiring them to be a Debian maintainer? ;-)
Check on their resume if they put "GNU/Linux" instead of Linux.
I am Monkey, the Great Sage, equal of heaven!
If you want to measure competencies, then you need to break this down into categories.
Design Competency
This should cover the elements of gathering the requirements from a customer, and designing appropriate hardware and software solutions for the client. It should include an assessment of their knowledge of
Implementation & Support
This should capture if they understand the nuances of rolling out linux in an organisation
Now the harder part is "how to you test this". As a perpetual student I would suggest that you need to do this in a multi-phase test. This will be expensive, but it will ensure that you get some level of objectivity:
1: You write a scenario based around a real world example to assess their ability to come up with an appropriate hardware and software solution for the design components.
2: Give them a multi-processor + Raid + Redundant PSU server and get them to install, configre and lockdown the system. Then get them to install a heap of services that you think are important.
3: Give them 10 PC's. Get them to build an image on 1 and then roll the image across all 10 workstations. Make some of the workstations different, give them different size drives, and different network adapters. See how they adjust to the variations
4: Bring a secretary in and get them to run a "how to use" session for the secretary. See how good they are
Also: Note this does not necessarily need to be the one person for all skills. So be flexible and allow them to have up to 3 different people to deliver the outcome. The only limit is that only 1 person can spend time with the end-user. If you want any more ideas or thoughts, feel free to mail me: starsky AT bluecouch DOT COM DOT AU
lounge around on the blue couch
1) Explains why Windows processes worse than Linux processes. Check.
2) "I can understand both Perl 4 and Perl 5". Check.
3) Runs own SMTP server at home. Check.
4) Chooses banks whose online service works only with Mozilla over IE. Check.
5) Scavenges business discards for old computers because they would make good Linux Servers. Check.
6) Does weird things to Furrbies wired into serial port. Check.
This is my sig.
For those of you who don't know, Novell qualifications still count for a great deal in the real world of IT contracting. There is still a perception that 'real' IT professionals have a CNE (Certified Novell Engineer). The rest have an MCSE.
Novell recently aquired Ximian. This gives them access to the XD2 desktop, Mono, Gnome development, red carpet and more.
I think that this puts them in a very good position to integrate their current networking products (E-Directory, ZenWorks etc) with Linux.
This does however potentially create a compex environment for a corporate to adjust to. In order for them to adjust, there has to be a set of qualifications that distinguish between someone who can impliment an enterprise environment, from a home user still at school.
I liked what I read in a reply about LFS install and the some from the Slackware camp. I think that a Linux expert should be able to recompile a kernel and configure the system using native GNU tools on all systems. The main problem I have with the RHCE is the fact that a lot of it seems very Redhat centered. I know that there is no way that a person could be concidered competent if a "Distro" stumps them if you can use the standard GNU tools that works on Redhat and on all other systems. All unix type skills should be there too. If a person cannon even crack open vi and edit files he is not your man.
Got hosting
The ONLY exams worth ANYTHING are real-world exams like RHCE, which I think is an excellent exam unlike MC$E which everyone cheats at as their is no real world knowledge.
I tend to disagree with previous posters who say that the technology is moving too fast to make a qualification worthwhile. Well thought out exams like RHCE test how well you think on your feet and not how well you know a particular product. However, I would suggest that most releases are similar enough that if you know version x well you will fly through version y.
Firmly agree with posters who say experience is key, but having that and a solid qualification or 2 puts your CV to the top of the file.
As for professionals in the computer industry: there is one skill that all system admins must have. That is the ability to search. In your example, the higher abstractions "break". If they broke for them, it would have broke for others too. As a sysad, you must either "reinvent the wheel" by taking waay too much time coding, or searching for 30 minutes to find and implement others solutions on the problem. Fixing and submitting is a last resort.
Yes, if I were looking for a sysadmin, I'd take off the kernel requirements and most of the C. This is a "senior Linux expert", though: "Linux expert", not "Linux sysadmin" or even "expert Linux sysadmin".
A linux sysadmin can get away with knowing how to... well... administrate systems. A linux expert, OTOH, should be a generalist -- and that means, among other things, development and debugging skills.
Such people aren't impossible to find: The current senior sysadmin where I work has roughly the skillset I described, plus almost all of what you mentioned, plus a bunch of additional skills on the side (his personal projects have ranged from building some rather fancy revision control system tools to semi-maintainership of a microkernel OS targeting embedded work; his previous job experience includes everything from Java development to database administration to building and writing software for compute clusters).
Perhaps I've gotten spoiled by working with such people (MontaVista Software, my previous employer, had a number of them) -- but I'm now hesitant to call anyone with a substantially lesser range of skills a true "Linux expert". (I suspect part of their ability to attrack such people may have been related to being a shop whose core business was improving Linux and related Free Software -- at least a few of my coworkers said outright their primary motivation in choosing MontaVista as an employer was not at all the pay).
And finally... well, sometimes there just aren't others' solutions to implement. Having someone who can do the fix-and-submit routine in those cases is part of what one hires experts for.
(As for the scheduler, btw, I'd gladly accept an approximation: Someone who says "no, I'm not familiar with that, *but*..." and can go on to describe a sane scheduling algorithm and what kinds of problems it's prone to passes that question with flying colors, even if they don't happen to know what Linux is doing this week).
.... the most important thing that you could do is an in house test. In my opinion, the best certification that has been available in years was the CCIE, Mainly baecause it was a hands on test. If you really want to be able to say someone is a Linux Expert design a test around the things that are most important and have each canidate pass the exam.
I would say the following are areas to focus on:
Security, Security, Security!!! A good security minded person will naturally have all of the administration skills; user accounts, passwords, ftp security, etc.
configuration to various hardware platforms, Raids, NICs, etc.(note this should require recompilation)
Connectivity, SMB, NFS, etc...
Automation, setting up maintenance, logs, and alerts
Live diagnostics, can you find out what is wrong without taking down the server
Clustering (if you need someone with that much knowledge)
Problem solving! Not everything you do will be in a how-to, or man, or even in a book. The best "experts" know how to make their own solutions when there is not a suitable one available. That is also a real core value in the Linux Community.
A very important thing to keep in mind is that there is a big difference between clients and servers, and just because a person is good at one, does not mean that he or she will be good at the other.
----- "It's all fun and games 'til somebody puts an eye out, then it's just funny."