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Red Hat Announces Certified Architect Curriculum
Anonymous Coward writes "Red Hat announced a new advanced certification today, Red Hat Certified Architect. One training expert, however, cautions that Red Hat certifications can lock administrators in to Red Hat-specific skills."
but is it worth anything?
as long as were are locking people in to Linux, this will be a better place. Distro nuts need not apply.
redhat certs tend to train one to do everything the "redhat recommended way" using custom redhat scripts and utilities and following redhat specific conventions, and thus ones acquired skills are not portable to many other common and standard *nix platforms
Sounds almost as credible as "Subway Sandwich Artist".
Even though they aren't always terribly useful, at least MSCE sounds more official. Normally this should be a non-issue but management likes titles that sound "official" or like they should carry some weight.
You've installed Fedora and it erased your Windows partition. What do you do?
It would be nice if Red Hat offered a certification course for software developers.
For those of us that didn't RTFA, Anyone care to expand upon that? What are those specific skills?
Hmmm.
Well, DUH...it is Red Hat certification. I can't imagine Red Hat would focus too much on teaching people how to use OTHER distros.
well, yes. when you get certified for a particular distro, you're going to get informed about *that* distro and no other. fortunately, for most human beings, learning one thing does not outright prevent them from learning other things.
-ninjaneer
...into red-hat specific linux administration. Been using it for 2 years now...all the way from 7.2 to FC 2. Tried to install Debian Woody a few weeks ago, no success. Couldn't even figure out what's going on. So guys, forget RedHat. You won't be needing any certification to work with it.
And the MSCE and other qualifications don't?
By summer it was all gone...now shesmovedon. --
That's "bated" breath. Normally I wouldn't bother, but typos in cut'n'paste trolls are simply unacceptable.
oh my god that was hillarious!
you got me until 2/3ds the way through your post until i realized it was a joke. pheer that OMG LOL!!!11ONE
Is this any better than Microsoft Certification? I wonder if it will lock more into Redhat and paying for that. Linux may be "better" in some ways to windows but this is still locking in.
Evolution or ID?
If you take certification classes, and that locks you into a particular distro, then it's your own fault. There's really no excuse for not doing your homework, be it in RH certification classes or at home reading the Gentoo manuals.
The perfect sig is a lot like silence, only louder
Why is the word "Architect" used to describe someone with an advanced proficiency with RedHat?
Do you build structures out of RedHat?
Is your certification revoked if any of your projects crash ever?
Know what I like about atheists? I've yet to meet one that believes God is on their side.
No they can't. Knowing a Red Hat-specific technique does not prevent you from learning other ways of doing things.
Computers are useless. They can only give you answers.
-- Pablo Picasso
But is this going to turn into a mockable thing, like A+ is now?
Get real!
If someone is worth their salt then skills learnt with one distribution will be transferrable to another. The days of rote memorisation being sufficient for passing are pretty much gone - it'd even be a challenge to pass a MS exam with zero understanding of what you had memorised. The days of any employer (or even client) being impressed solely by a certificate are also (thankfully) passed. Any cert is just another fibre in a CV bow that indicates a minimum achievment, which should be strenthened by experience in the field
Besides - last I heard Redhat pretty much followed the few standards that exist such as the FHS.
It's not as if redhat is the only distribution to have tools that it developed for itself
As long as it is about LINUX then you can apply same skils on any distribution, GUI may be different. Most of the time it is CLI that is used and it is almost same on all distributions.
you may substitute a mirror instead.
KFG
Look at the course outline: NTP, BIND, Kerberos, OpenSSH, Sendmail, Postfix, FTP, Apache, CVS, LDAP, PAM, . How is knowing how to configure and secure those apps going to lock you into RedHat. Do you really think admins are too dumb to find the config files when they're in another directory (shudder). I mean, sure, there's going to be some vendor-specific lessons, but a server app is almost identicle across distros, especially since most admins will package up their own preconfigured packages.
Add this one to the long, long list of tired jokes that where lame to begain with:
And now...
"Who are in control, they are not in control of anything - they don't even control themselves!" - Glen Beck
I don't like Red Hat. I don't really like Fedora, either. I think SuSE, Mandrake, Gentoo, and Debian fill all the niches that pretty much any Linux user could ever need.
That said, distro "lock-in" is necessary to some extent. Having tried nearly every distro available, I know there is no Linux 'standard' especially when it comes to common administrative tasks like package management, updates, and system configuration. So I doubt that Red Hat is teaching specific skills any more than is necessary.
LOAD "SIG",8,1
Isn't that what certifications by software companies are made for? After all there is a reason why people like to make fun of MCSEs.
It's a common term. Check out the title in addition to Chairman.
Or check out one of the 3.25 million hits from this google search.
And Microsorft skills are more general???? Unless you are running scripts that you don't even understand I don't see how the skills a unix sysadmin on any platform and a linux sysadmin on any distro could learn would be unportable to others. There are things that surprise me on one system or another, but isn't that what man and apropos are for.
Am I right or wrong, people?
Red Rocket Certified Arse Cadet
That's how I'm going to read it on resumes.
I don't need no instructions to know how to rock!!!!
This is definitely flamebait (or offtopic, but enough of your are making this mistake, so....), I will be modded accordingly.....BUT:
For crissakes, there is no MSCE. It's the MCSE - Microsoft Certified Systems Engineer. Most of you zealots have no idea what it takes to make an MCSE, for that matter.
Yes, the NT4 track brought about a lot of 'paper MCSEs', systems administrators who didn't know their ass from the hole in their PCI slots. I was one of them.
The MCSE 2000 course was much more difficult, and although you can still 'bootcamp' it within 2 weeks, it's not a cakewalk. You will learn common sense administration. You will learn enough about TCP/IP to set up a network that should scale to 300 users. Basic stuff. All that can be reasonable expected from someone still trying to cut their teeth as a network administrator.
It's not an expert, end-all, be-all certification, but it's sufficient for people who need to administer Windows networks (though I certainly wouldn't have them designing them, necessarily). It also requires the commitment to sit through (at last check) 7 tests.
I am an MCSE. I spent a few months of studying and a couple years of real world experience getting there. I've considered Red Hat's offerings, as well as the more independent LPI offering, for Linux certification.
The fact that a product is unfavorable to yourself, whether Red Hat's distribution of Linux, or Microsoft's Windows, is not a valid reason to put down those who picked up the necessary skills to validate themselves with these certifications.
But for organizations which are already depending on RH, this can be a way of telling them that a person has some qualifications.
Frankly I don't like it. I'd rather have someone that can use any distro out there and understands the basic concepts of linux that basically stay true with all distros.
There's even more to it than that. I used to work for a computer magazine called New Architect, and we got more than one irate email from people outside the United States, in countries where the term "architect" was reserved specifically for ... well, architects. It would expressly illegal in some of these countries, for example, to advertise that you had an architect on your staff if you did not employ somebody who knew how to design buildings.
These people would write us demanding that we change the name of our magazine, sometimes even making vague threats of legal action. (In our defense, we offered free subscriptions to our magazine to people who filled out a questionnaire in the U.S. only -- maybe Canada, but I'm not even sure about that. Everybody else had to go out of their way to order it.)
Something tells me calling yourself a "certified architect" in those countries would be even a little worse. SUSE must be grinning right now.
Breakfast served all day!
Does anybody know if attempts have been made to create an abstract interface for the basic configuration files of distributions? What I'm talking about is a set of scripts or a C/Perl/Whatever API that allows for example the distribution independent manipulation of the network interface configuration files (Debian: /etc/network/interfaces, Red Hat: /etc/sysconfig/network-scripts/ifcfg-*) by saying let's say "superifcfg eth0 ip=192.168.0.1" and then let "superifcfg" figure out what to do for the respective distribution you are running the command on.
- S.S.
Watch out for these guys... they play nasty.
Their certs tend to be expensive and they have a history of deciding to end-of-life products at the drop of a hat... no pun intended. Remember Red Hat Linux and Red Hat Database??? Hundreds or thousands of people paid to get certs on those two products just a couple of years ago and today, they don't exist anymore.
Go with LPI if you want a Linux cert that won't be EOL'ed.
You forgot "But can it run linux?"
I'm only paranoid because everyone is against me...
I've passed both the RHCE and the LPI certifications, and I have to say the RHCE was by _far_ a much more robust and difficult test of my Linux knowledge than the LPI exam.
As has been stated, the RHCE is given by Red Hat for individuals to use Red Hat products, so it's not surprising that they teach the "Red Hat" way. But there's two things to consider there:
On the whole, I think that any certification is a good thing to have -- it gives you a test of your knowledge, it looks good on your resume, and who said that you can't do more than one? (and who said you have to stop learning?)
You attempt to install an rpm package only to discover that at least 8 other rpms have to be installed beforehand (only 3 of which are available at Red Hat's site) then you discover the 8th package requires you to install an obscure dev rpm of glibc which is only available from an unreliable ftp server in Poland and by now you have invested the last 3 hours of your life into installing this one application, at this moment which of the following phrases should you shout in order to help this process along:
A: "Un-fucking-believable!"
B: "This fucking rpm shit motherfucker!"
C: "apt-get works so much better than this bullshit!"
D: "Why the fuck are we using Red Hat?!"
Ummm. Like MSCE et al doesn't trap you into their skills?
And *BSD is dieing, right?
And don't forget to send your $699 to Darl McBride.
Drill baby drill - on Mars
I passed the RHCE with a 100% by passing a few Benjamins around. Since it's a "performance test" there's no paper trail so everybody's happy.
Red Hat Certified Architect = RHCA
Red Rocket Certified Arse Cadet = RRCAC
So, no.
In Soviet Russia they:
1. build a beowolf cluster of hotgrits w/natalie portman on top
2. i could have sworn that the hotgrits were on top of natalie portman.
3. ?
4. Ahhh hell it runs linux, PROFIT!!!
Every ape should be able to learn system administation with a home network and some good documentation on his own. The way I view the certifications, they are just one of several ways to prove that you have certain skills.
I just heard some sad news on talk radio -
Horror/Sci Fi writer Stephen King was found dead in his Maine home this morning. Apparently died in some bizarre accident while having a rendezvous with some kind of sheep. There weren't any more details. I'm sure everyone in the Slashdot community will miss him - even if you didn't enjoy his work, there's no denying his contributions to popular culture.
this will get ya a certification that is 100% worthless in the US job market. Maybe someone in India might get a job with this cert, but it would only be because it means they've actually seen some form of unix once in their lifetime. Beats the hell out of hiring someone that wasnt digging a hole for fibre cable with a spoon last week on MG road. (for all those offshoring companies)
Just to clarify (and beat the dead horse):
The RHCE isn't vendor specific at all, aside from having to use RedHat to do the hands-on portions of the test. I honestly don't remember any questions specific to RedHat.
The hands-on portion is excellent, by the way. The problems go along the lines of 'Set up a DNS server that will only respond to clients on the x.x.x.x/x subnet and make xxx.com resolve to 1.2.3.4'. You don't even have to use Bind! They test it by actually trying the problem (i.e. try to resolve xxx.com from IP x.x.x.x and see if it works).
I have my CCNA, MCSE, and RHCE. The RHCE was by far the best out of the three. It's also the most hands-on test, covers a lot of different topics, and was definitely the least vendor specific test I've taken.
Maybe slightly off-topic, but after I RTFA'd, I was astounded by the position Brunson has taken with the Novell CLE. Having studied the material and scheduled a test in about two weeks, I can honestly say that:
1) You don't need to have the LPIC 1 to sign up for the test. They recommend that you have the level of skills equivalent to the LPIC 1 because they might ask you to write a cron job that backs up critical files for eDirectory. You can go in cold with no LPI experience, but don't complain if something in there wasn't on a study sheet.
2) You don't have to go to any classes to sign up for the test. Sure, Novell offers 5-day boot camps, but then again, so do Microsoft, Cisco, and (gasp!) RedHat. You can purchase a self-study kit and take as long as you want to get comfortable with the CLE content. Novell just makes it easy to block out all the distractions and spend a week with a bunch of geeks. I'd take one if I had the time.
3) Cost isn't prohibive for the CLE. You can take the test for as little as $200. Sure, you can spend upwards of $2,000 if you want to buy every piece of literature that Novell has on the subject and go to every boot camp, but it is possible to pass the test on just the guidelines alone. Just don't think it'll be a pushover.
I get the feeling the Mr. Brunson is all for Linux training, just as long as the money is flowing his way. I like the idea of practical tests like the RHCE and the Novell CLE because people that really know the field understand what it took to get through them. The know that you didn't spend a month a technical store learning exactly what questions might be on the MCSA/MCSE. You should appreciate all Linux vendors for what they are trying to accomplish, not try and break everybody down to make you look good.
"Luck is what others call skill when they have none." --Phelan Kell
Of course! If you want education -- go to a real school...
In Soviet Washington the swamp drains you.
If Fedora actually did that. But it doesn't modify your Windows XP partition of lose any data at all.
If you tell it to, it writes out the partition table in a format that's valid, but not recognised by Windows XP. To fix it, reboot into Linux and change the format back with sfdisk. Problem solved.
I think the Red Hat certs are very useful, and even portable. The test is surprisingly hard; you can know your stuff and still fail, but you can't possibly pass if you're not very familiar with Linux. I took the RHCE exam this past Friday. And passed. Which was a relief, because I failed it the first time.
RHCE is definitely a test about doing things. You can't read the guides they give you and be done with it. Studying involves setting up every service and configuration they discuss in class, and remembering how to do it in the absence of your notes. Because there is no multiple choice. It's all "Fix your system," and "Configure your system to do the following."
There is some stuff in the RHCE curriculum that is RH-specific, but I think that would be true regardless of what sort of test you take. And it doesn't amount to much: most of the skills are VERY portable. OK, maybe RPM is not used by every distro, and maybe the installer is RH-specific. And I know, KDE is in the wrong directory. But where things differ, it's never too hard to figure it out. I've done plenty of things I learned in these classes on other distros. Of course there are also a lot of Red Hat utilities you can use to configure services, but they're not really taught in class, believe it or not. Red Hat recommends that students learn the command line way of doing things first. Most admins don't use the GUI config tools, so RH pretty much skips them.
I'd imagine the Architect curriculum must be pretty good, based upon my RHCE experience. Particularly the "Directory Services and Authentication" class, which would be useful if you wanted to do clever things with Samba/LDAP/Kerberos.
I got my RHCE last year [thanks to my employer, big .edu]. In my current job I manage almost 200 slackware machines. Guess what, I've learned some new things at the RHCE training, and during the exam I didn't use almost any redhat specific tools. In fact, RHCE training was one of the better courses I've had in a long time.
--- d'oh
> Red Hat announced a new advanced certification
> today, Red Hat Certified Architect...
Okay, well maybe I'm alone in this but I feel
the idea of certification (which is really little
different than licensing) is something that the
open-source / slashdot community (and others)
should d be pissed off about. The problem it
seems to me is that it creates an environment in
which people will only consider you for a job
if you are "certified", as opposed to whether you
are *qualified*. In other words if you don't have
the "certification" (license) you aren't even
going to get to the interview. Never mind that if
they gave you a chance you could show them in an
interview that you actually are better than any
of the other so called "certified" types.
Trick question. Real admins install from source.
Prevent email address forgery. Publish SPF records for y
Astroboy is correct, the point is that RedHat is one of the only distro's to be backed by their own 24x7 support. Corporate types want accountability and some sort of dedicated support. The classes are expensive, but if the employer sends you, it's definately worthwhile.
A: "Un-fucking-believable!"
I have been an RHCE since November 2003 (one of the very last Red Hat 9 exams given) and I passed my RHCT in September. On my employer's dime, I have taken the entire RHCE training curriculum - RH-033-133-253-300 - all of the but RH033 were taken in late 2003 (RH253 and 300 two weeks in a row - NEVER do that, folks.) I have very high compliments on the quality of their training. I am also very happy with the performance based training vs multiple-guess testing. The classes prepare you very well for the exams and the exams test you very well on what you know.
BUT....all these months later I have not found a different job as a Linux admin. I never see job listings asking for people who have an RHCE. What I see are job listings wanting people with 3-5 years Linux experience with [fill in the blank - Apache, sendmail, bind, etc.] These listings MIGHT say "RHCE preferred" if it even mentions a certification at all.
Bottom line - the certification alone will not get you there. You need experience to get the job and you need the job to get experience. Same old trap as always.
And now an RHCA certification to water down the RHCE even further. And FOUR more classes to prepare for it compared to the TWO you need for RHCE (RH033 is Linux 101 and RH300 is 133 and 253 crammed together in a review. The meat of it is RH 133 and 253.) And what is the payoff after all this additional training and a new certification? Job listings wanting people with 3-5 years Linux experience in [fill in the blank]. Just wonderful...
E: "Oh, no, not this again... it's RPM DEPENDANCY HELL!!!"
That's what I usually shout. Especially when you find a package that requires a different version of RPM itself... ugh!
I personally love the Ports collection in FreeBSD, and love the idea of apt (but haven't used it yet), but otherwise I "grew up" on RedHat... it's a love/hate thing, but in the end I'm still using RedHat for most server projects...
NGWave - Fast Sound Editor for Windows
There must not be any AIA (American Intitute of Architects) memebers reading slashdot right now, as I'm sure that they will land on this with a ton of bricks.
Architects are far more organized when it comes to lobby $$$ to protect the Architect designation, and most states already have laws on the books protecting the Architect designation. Microsoft who has, AFAIK, only lost over the MCSE "Engineer" title in Ontario took on the disorganized Professional Engineering industry. Archtects are far more flush with cash (Have you heard the AIA commercials on your local radio? That takes money, and they've got it).
I say they find themselves in court in less than a month, and I'll give 3:1 odds that RedHat loses.
Is it just my observation, or are there way too many stupid people in the world?
in my life God comes first.... but Linux is pretty high after that
Francis Smit
if i had mod points, i would mod you up as informative. :)
-ninjaneer
Actualy, reiserfs sucks, it destorys data, completely. Every single file on my computer ended up in lost+found because of problems with reiserfs.
I think it's much better for you that you are moving your data off of reiser before a similar catastrophy befalls you
While I wouldn't agrue that RHEL is great, you should thank them for removing reiserfs support and thus forcing you to move to a better fs, may I suggest ext3 or even ext2, proven, stable FSs that don't chew up your life's work and spit it out.
Less look fast, more go fast.
Seriously, I ALWAYS try to install from source first (given source code) instead of RPMs.
I can't bear with ridiculous things like RPM demanding Perl 5.6.1 while I have Perl 5.8 installed.