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Which Linux Certification?
dirvish asks: "I am trying to break into the Linux Server Administration field so I have been doing quite a bit of studying lately. I figured while I am studying the subject I might as well work towards a related certification. I am leaning towards the Linux Professional Institute Certification. Other certifications I am considering are CompTIAs Linux+ and Red Hats RHCE. So which Linux certification is the best? I would say Red Hat is the most reputable of these three but I am concerned that their certification might be too Red-Hat-centric, and I don't want to be locked into one distro. Which one is the easiest/cheapest to obtain? Which is the mostly highly regarded in the industry? Are there others that I missed?"
But don't know how "highly regarded" Karma=Excellent is in the industry ...
Hulk SMASH Celiac Disease
..no one in management is really going to care. Just rack up as many as possible. The bobble-heads will probably never look into it.
Ok, I will freely admit to working for a University, and not the private sector. Are certifications really held in such high regard out there? I know here they mean squat (and rightfully so imho, all they show is that you could afford to take the certification test). Heck, some departments around here will automatically disregard your resume if you put MCSE on it :)
Finkployd
RHCE...Does IBM or Novell offer anything yet?
It's always best to certify for the job you have, or want to get.
UserActive is an O'Reilly partner, and their cert was pretty darn easy. Also fairly cheap (but I got a good discount on their regular price). However, it hasn't so much as gotten me an interview yet, so I'm not sure as it has any value whatsoever (even though the cert is actually issued by University of Illinois Urbana-Champagne).
Nothing to see here. Move along.
"The fact that you are asking this indicates that you don't understand the question. The question isn't what piece of paper you have. The questions are can you do the job your potential employer needs done, the way he wants it done, and at a profit?"
What does that have to do with getting a job? You must be an employer.
I've been working IT in the private sector for over 15 years now. In most cases, proper and current certification is more important than a college degree. Much of my college experience was done in FORTRAN 77 and does me little good now. Certification helps keep you current on new industry technology. A degree is a piece of paper that might help get you in the door.
Back when the show was still reasonably cool (12-18 months ago maybe), somebody called in with a question on how to do something or other in Linux, so Leo segued to "our own CompTIA certified Kevin Rose", who responded with "That is the lamest cert ever" and quickly went on to answer the question.
I am not your blowing wind, I am the lightning.
If you want to get a job you want your RHCE since that is what companies list.
If you want to get a job with IBM/Novell then an LPIC will do just fine. These are the only companies I have ever seen an LPIC listed as preferred or required for.
If you want to know which is a harder and more relevant cert it is the LPIC hands down. The LPIC actually certifies you know vendor neutral linux and how to do things the hard way. The RHCE can be passed without every touching linux, it is similar to the MCSE.
While not perfect, the LPI cert is the best imho. It's vendor neutral, inexpensive, and doesn't arbitrarily expire for the purpose of making money on re-certs.
I actually have the LPIC-1 certification. The test itself was surprisingly hard for an entry level linux certification, but fair. I read somewhere that the failure rate is near 60%, so don't expect to just walk in and ace it.
I wouldn't bother with the Linux+ exam. While it might bamboozle some HR departments, I wonder if it's hard enough to demonstrate any real competence with linux. The only CompTIA certification I have is the A+ (paid for by a former employer) and it was a *total* joke. A monkey could pass it.
Ohfercryinoutloud -- he's asking a perfectly reasonable question. Just because you think certs are meaningless doesn't mean all (most, some, any...) employers agree with you.
It works like this, I'm looking for a linux system admin, and I have a stack of way more people than I want to even call back.
A is fresh out of school with no particular qualifications, but he claims to know Linux. He goes in the "no" pile.
B has ten years of Windows and Novell sys admin experience, but no professional Linux experience, although he claims to know SUSE. OK, he goes in the "maybe" pile.
C has ten years of Unix system administration experience, including NIS, LDAP, and five years of professional experience with several Linux distros. He goes in the "call back" pile.
D is fresh out of school with no with a certification in Linux administration. He goes in the "no" pile, after the briefest moment of delay.
E has ten years of Windows and Novell sys admin experience, no professional Linux experience, but he has a certification from Red Hat. OK, so he goes in the "call back" pile.
.200. A certification might raise a .200 to a .210 or a .215. Which is enough to be worth considering.
.800 or .900. Doesn't mean you'll get to home, but you'll almost certainly get to first base.
You see how this works? The certification doesn't make up for your lack of professional experience. If I want an experienced system administrator, I'm going to hire one. I'm going to prefer ones with knowledge of the platform, the best way is if its on their resume, but I'm more open to a guy who has the real world admin skills that could be transferred than I am to somebody whose certification only establishes a theoretical knowledge of Linux administration.
In the end it doesn't matter much which one you get. None of these certifications are like getting a CPA, which carries weight because it implies a number of years of hands on experience plus a strong theoretical grounding in accounting. My advice would be to get the certification that you think has the greatest "brand name" recognition.
Think of it like batting in baseball. The goal is to get to home, but even a tremendously talented hitter only gets to first base on his own skills less than one third of the time. Getting the job is coming to home; getting the interview is first base. At this stage, you're very lucky if you bat
But also work your network. You don't have one? Well, maybe. Don't you have friends working in the field? Suppose you have a friend working as an app developer. If he happens to drop your name to a supervisor looking for a sys admin, and follows up by hand delivering your resume, your batting average is going to go way up -- more like
Also consider non-standard ways of finding that job. So, that fortune 100 company that has the full page ad for linux admins in the Sunday paper? Unless you have a resume that's going to stand out, forget it. But that small non-profit that needs a "computer guy" that has a card up in the job placement at the university? Go for it. That's how I got started.
Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
Wow you did a perfect job of not answering the question at hand, giving broadstroke opinions and then your proceeded to say that experience can't vouche for future performance? Well what the heck do you think does? anything? Drink some coffee and brighten up you downer.
I just got my RHCE last week. I've been using Debian for years, but since my office uses Red Hat I got certified so that I'd know better how to support the boxes in my office. Without violating the NDA, I would say that it is a mix of Red Hat specific material and general linux knowledge. My previous experience with Debian still put me ahead of my other co-workers who didn't have as much experience in general with Linux. However, they do go through all the RH specific tools for doing things, but in the end a lot of the time I still come back to using a text editor and hacking the config file by hand.
Linux+ is not hard. LPI-1 is rather hard. Dont know about RH*, because they are just to exspensive right now and it is all hands on now, so it should be hard. Dont forget the network+, security+ which is the ones I am after now. If you actually study and pass, well the cert will not guarantee a job, but they will guaranttee that you learn something. I look at them more as goals, because face Computer Science books are more or less boring as hell. I got Bachleor in Math and CS, let me tell you there is nothing more boring than CS, but I love this shit....so I find it interesting. It is not that the material is boring...it is the authors. Start with Linux+ and work your way up.
Deserving got nothing to do with it.....shuffle
While the RHCE is distro-centric, it is certainly one of the more highly regarded. Unlike some certs (MCSE), the RHCE exam is not a (and now no longer even includes) multiple choice test - a test for which one can easily obtain brain-dumps and/or cram for. Instead, the RHCE is lab based. In a lab based exam, you must demonstrate actual knowledge and/or experience with the topics at hand - or at least the intuition and ability to use the tools w/ the provided docs.
I've got an RHCE from Red Hat 7.3 which is now "non-current". I do plan to re-certify under Red Hat Enterprise Linux 4 even though my present company doesn't use Red Hat (erm, sorry, PNAEL), but its CentOS clone. I find most of the information garnered from the courses and/or exam can still apply to other distros with some modification, though some topics are still somewhat Red Hat technology centric (Kickstart/Anaconda, various GUI tools).
Overall, I think if you can pass the RHCE, you've indirectly demonstrated a general working knowledge of Linux administration as well. Some of the topics I've learned in the RHCE process have helped me settle into other distros as well (i.e. Gentoo, SuSE)
If you're ambitious, and have lots of money to spend, by all means go for the LPI and other certs as well.
$ man woman *
-bash:
In response to "Which one is the easiest/cheapest to obtain?", I would say Linux+. I have it and obtained it with minimal study, but much hands-on experience. Is it too easy, no, I am just saying that if you are a regular power user, you should be able to peruse the objectives and take the test. A note of caution: Linux+ is not and end, it is a beginning. After obtaining it, I went to RHCT (Red Hat Certified Technician) then RHCE (both significantly more challenging, but not impossible with a lot of hands-on experience).
In response to "Which is the mostly highly regarded in the industry?", it depends on your industry. Red Hat and LPI are both highly "recognized" along with Novell's Certified Linux Professional and Certified Linux Engineer (http://www.novell.com/training/certinfo/#cert/).
To sum, it depends is lame, agreed, but when I began down this path, I earned Linux+, obtained an entry level Linux SA position, then went to training (paid for by employer) and now sit in a mid to senior level SA position.
I believe the path I took was worth it, but the important thing is to take the plunge, do somethinhg and then move around.
The fact that you are asking this indicates that you don't understand the question. blah, blah, blah Certs answer none of those. Remember, past "experience" is no guarantee of future performance. At all. Ever.
/. community.
The fact that you answered the question in this way indicates _you_ do not understand the question. The question is: "What will get me more money and be most relevant to my job for the least amount of effort on my part?" It's a damn good question, It shows he's willing to work, but doesn't want to do unnecessary work, and his goals are most certainly something employers highly value.
Part of the answer is easy to find. More money means more respect, at least within the context of this subject, so salary surveys (which he has already attempted to look at) will point at the truth. The other parts about relevance and ease, do not appear to be answered by salary surveys, hence the question put to the
So, my recommendation: Make an attempt to answer his highly relevant and well worded question which he appears to understand very well. Denegrating him for asking it only helps to drive another eager, fresh mind from IT.
TW
In the IT field there aren't many certifications if any that are equivalent to the PE but that's just a matter of time. Consider security-related certs like the CISSP and GIAC that demonstrate knowledge and in the case of the CISSP that the holder has documented past experience (4 years) working in security-related IT jobs. Someday IT certifications will carry as much weight as any of the current professional certifications and will allow the holder to sign and attest to the validity of the design or security or implementation of some aspect of IT
To the original questioner, reading down below it sounds like the LPIC is the harder. Frankly, I'd be inclined to get the LPIC and try and add to it a security certification like the CISSP or GIAC. If you don't have the applicable 4-year-time experience for the CISSP then you'll have to get the GIAC. Both are hard and well respected in their areas. The CISSP is a bit more director/consultant/CSO oriented while the GIAC is more engineering oriented so it may be more useful to you for now. Either way, get a security cert as well. Just knowing how to administer makes you a candidate. Knowing secure administration makes you a stand-out candidate.
The parent (and aunts and uncles) are entirely correct; the grandparent seems to be confusing his wishful thinking with everyone else's reality.
What I'm listening to now on Pandora...
Certs may get you nothing in step two, three, etc of the hiring process, but (in many companies) they help you in step ONE.
Here at my company, I get resumes and check them out and say, this person, yes, that person, no, and the others in my group do the same, and whoever someone REALLY wants to meet, or who most in the group kinda want to bring in get brought in.
We're smart, know the field, know what certs show and don't, etc.
But we're not stage one. We're stage TWO. Where did those resumes come from in the first place? Who went out on Monster and other places and pulled resumes to show us? Who screened the resumes he/she got sent due to a posting?
Screening/First Selection is stage one. Certs are searchable as key terms. They get you placed above another person with equivilent qualifications in the mind of HR.
That's where you want them. If you have experience, and have a lot of buzzwords on your resume which can be searched for, you don't need certs for stage one. But they won't hurt.
And that gets you to stage two. Now, you might not make it past stage two. But your chance of making it past stage two are ZERO if you don't get grabbed in stage one.
Hence certs.
That said, I believe that certs can HURT you in stage two. Some of us think some certs are crap, and will actually diminsh you in our estimation. So for THAT reason, get good certs, if you go that route.
Read _Sweaty Palms_ by H. Anthony Medley. It's a great book on interviewing and the job application process.
... when you send money to CompTIA, you're sending money to further software patents
Sigh, every time someone asks a valid question about how to improve their work prospects someone else argues that the certification is only valid with experience.
This is obviously not true, as most people that work in IT will tell you - those with certifications will inevitably get the job before those without certs.
Remember, past "experience" is no guarantee of future performance. At all. Ever.
On the contrary, past behavior is the BEST predictor of future performance. A person who has a history of taking intitiative and solving problems will be the person who continues to do so. I bet you're one of those people that asks questions like, "why are manhole covers round" at interviews.
It's simple: I demand prosecution for torture.
I achieved mine (legitimately), only to find them go bankrupt as a pyramid scheme a few weeks later.
To I am a Linux Certified Administrator (LCA) - Level 1.
Don't think that a small group of dedicated individuals can't change the world. It's the only thing that ever has.
MCSE. Get with the fucking program, and get off Torvald's DICK.
I been steering my head toward's Novell's certificates... they do know their *nix...
I took the RHCE course back in the 7.0 days, several years ago. My knowledge isn't current, obviously, but I doubt that a one-week course could have changed amount of content all that substantially.
:) )
The way I summed it up at the time is this: An RHCE has a pretty good knowledge of how to run one (Redhat) Linux box. Without other experience, he or she would probably be a perfectly adequate junior admin... not someone you want to give the keys to the server room, but definitely worth having around.
Note that the actual certification test, while reasonably difficult, is fundamentally 'fair'. It's not like real life, where boxes mysteriously fail and don't tell you why. You always have all the information you need to solve a given problem, and the test environment is set up so that some of the more boneheaded things you might do aren't possible. It still takes knowledge and skill to pass the test, but unlike real life, it's not cruel and evil. (at least, it wasn't back in the 7.0 days; they may have gotten eviler since.
Most people who've passed that test have a real clue, and have the potential to be good admins. I would definitely give an RHCE an edge if I were choosing interview candidates.
Unix is an extremely complex environment, one which you can literally spend your entire adult life learning. No cert could possibly substitute for years of battle testing. An RHCE is a great start, but it's only a start.
"why are manhole covers round"
They're not. They're square.
I just took the RCHE two weeks ago (and passed with a high score). The current RCHE exam is on RHEL3. Basicially the test goes as follows:
First part is 2.5 hours. You have that much time in front of a box to fix 10 problems. 5 of them are mandatory to fix. They cover many things, and when I took this part, I had no need to really ever use RedHat specific tools.
Second part is 3 hours, and is a network install and configuration of RHEL3. Here you need to know about the installer (duh), and package managment, but that pretty much ends the Red Hat specific part once again. If you admin Linux, and sit down for a few hours with RHEL 3 and the checklist. and you can pass it.
Honestly, it is one of the better certificaiton exams I have taken, due to it being practical. If they throw you a mail server setup situation, you can use your choice of server if it is in RedHat. You have to be aware of security, but they don't demand a specific method. The end result is you pass if you get the job done, it doesn't matter how.
Now, RCHE is a good first step, however as someone said, it isn't specificially a certificate to prove someone can hand full data center control to you. And let me explain:
RCHT: This is their lowest certification. It means "Hi, I can install Linux and configure some things, but not really do much on the network side". The test for this is embedded in the RCHE test now. Basicially if you don't pass the RCHE, you may still walk away with an RCHT
RCHE: This is the median certification. It means "Hi, I can install Linux, and get basic networking services up and secure. I can also integrate the box into the directory if it is simple".
RCHA: This is the highest level one Red Hat takes, and I would advise to get RCHE first. It is "Hi, I can install Linux, configure network services, design the directory services, secure and tune the box, and expand the box when the time comes. I can layout plans for an entire data center."
Or in Red Hat's words:
RHCEs provide the technical leadership for managing Linux servers and network services, as well as escalation of issues from the larger group of RHCTs. A smaller number of RHCAs provide leadership for technical planning, design and integration of an organization's worldwide open source architecture.
Linux+ Beta was having a online seminar where the recipients would receive a free voucher to take the test a couple months ago (November I believe). I signed up for the seminar, scheduled an hour off of work to watch it, and was scheduling off time to redeem it. 3 days before the seminar happened, another letter was sent saying they had chosen a webcast provider who would be capable with most modern browsers. Being a Linux+ webcast, I assume I am ok running 3-4 browsers on my GUI.
The day of, they send a systems check link and tell you to log in 15 minutes early. I get home, and it is an executable URL which says they require 2000 or xp. I call Prometric and CompTIA, and they reply how sorry they are for not being able to demo to Linux users. They say a broadcast of the seminar will be available in the next few hours and vouchers will still be available to those who reply.
The next day I log in and see that it is another embedded viewer from the webcasting company that will only run on windows. I wrote them an email asking if anyone in their company knew what Linux was and I would never consider taking one of their tests.
Outside of pure Linux is there any certification for just Apache or good training? We are switching from IIS and our server admin barely knows Apache or Linux. We will be using Apache on a Netware box.
I looked into RHCE recently and even signed up for one of their online classes to fill in my gaps and see what the material was. I am still fairly new to linux. I have played with RedHat and Suse at home and worked on a RH ES3 web server for a few months in my last job but there were a lot of basic things I had never had to learn before.
The online material for the beginnner bundle was $900 and I asked for a refund after going through about half of it in a week and realizing there was not even a full book's worth of information in 4 beginner level flash based classes.
This basically has turned me off the RHCE because the material in their online courses is supposed to be identical to their live classes and this was just terrible.
I think I will go for a vendor neutral cert now. I still think the RHCE is a tough and solid cert but their training material is definitely not worth it IMHO.
I recently passed my CCNP and am working on a CCSP of which I have passed the Secur exam which is the keystone test.
I have been taking Cisco academy courses now for a year either in the evenings or Saturday and the instructor there is probably one of the top network engineers in the country. Among other things he designed the National Guard's network. His advice is when choosing certs is don't waste time and money on the easy ones because they are worthless or soon will be. So the answer to which cert to go for in a particular subject area is "take the hardest one"
man, you must really be hungry.
Starving!
Be interested to know how many of the 'MCSE is easy' crowd actually have one. NT4 doesn't count BTW. Too expensive? Work'll pay for it - it's one of the few certs PHBs recognise and/or understand. Hey, you'll ace them all first time anyway, right?
Strong, Light, Cheap - pick two.
Then please let have your certification number. That way, we can verify it at http://www.redhat.com/training/certification/verif y
For many certifications, there's a week or multi-week training process. This training can be incredibly valuable, or useless. The reputation for quality of the training should be a critical consideration in your decision.
WARNING: there is a trojan on your
On the contrary, past behavior is the BEST predictor of future performance.
I have to nitpick this. The original poster said that "experience is no guarantee of future performance."
In this, he is right. Past behaviour is indeed the best predictor, but it is by no means a guarantee.
You sound like my kinda man! Probably kin to John Wayne too :-).
Why do you only want to be glorified computer janitor? I can't think of a more trivial job, at least manual labour has a bit of dignity associated with it and women will dig your physique after a year or so of woring in the freezer, on the site etc. Systems administration is low status work and only other systems admins will ever admire your efforts (even then given their preponderance of personality flaws in the industry its unlikey). I suggest you acquire a bit of ambition and then rethink where you are going with all this. Administration is a job, barely a trade and certainly not a professional career to aspire to. You're going to hit a pay ceiling pretty damn quick for example (and thats not because you are starting very high either). I don't have a great job, but I guy to yell at the admin guys when they fuck up and demand they come in on the weekend (note: while I'm at home). I still get paid more. Am I brighter than them? No way, I just made smarter moves. If it really makes you happy then do it I guess, but you are being a fool to yourself in the long run.
But seriously, put yourself in an employer's shoes. Would you rather have someone with professional experience in a position similar to your need, or some greenbean who has installed a few gentoo boxes?
FYI, when I look at a resume, I do not fault someone too much for only having experience at nonprofits. If you find you can only get a job at a nonprofit, take it. By the way, there is no meaningful "working your way up" in a nonprofit. Get some experience and then go for-profit. Unless you want to work at a nonprofit for ideological reasons. BTW, nonprofits generally do pay. Just not very well. But your quality of life will generally be better. Very 9-5.
I don't even look at certifications.
"Avoid employing unlucky people - throw half of the pile of CVs in the bin without reading them." -- David Brent
What I have seen in SE Michigan, most of the companies looking for IT personnel are going through staffing agencies, headhunters, etc. I got my A+ a couple of months ago, just so my resume looks a little more appealing to the headhunters out there doing searches for local companies. It does matter, and I'm no way embarassed (sp?) I got it, and I put it on my resume. I haven't quite finished off my degree yet, and I got a fair amount of professional experience (4 years or so), and the A+ certification doesn't hurt me in any way, it only helps get noticed by some of the staffers out there.
YOU'RE WINNER !
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