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Red Hat Announces Certified Architect Curriculum 203
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."
Who cares... (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Who cares... (Score:2, Insightful)
You are perceiving the issue through a mirrot. The primary complaint is not from distro nuts, but choice nuts.
Yes, that would include the choice not to use Linux.
KFG
Re:Who cares... (Score:2)
http://www.lineox.com/lel3.php - 20 Euro for WS, ES, AS on a DVD
or free ones:
http://freshmeat.net/projects/centos/
and
http://www.whiteboxlinux.org/
Certified Architect... (Score:2, Interesting)
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.
Re:Certified Architect... (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Certified Architect... (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Certified Architect... (Score:2)
It still doesn't solve the problem that the naming isn't all that great and we are already fighting a FUD war again MSFT w/management about the usefulness, cost, and stablity of Linux over Windows.
This may not help at all.
Re:Certified Architect... (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Certified Architect... (Score:2, Insightful)
I've never been a big fan of certifications, but...
Engineering is an awfully big camp. What kind engineer are you? Railroad? Civil? Computer? I wouldn't get so worked up over it. It's only a title, after all, and it does contain Red Hat in it, so it's narrowed down for you already.
Re:Certified Architect... (Score:2)
Besides, when I see that new Red Hat title, I can't help but think of George Castanza saying that...
Re:Certified Architect... (Score:2)
Big sticks carry some weight, and are an essential LART
Re:Certified Architect... (Score:3, Interesting)
You see, in Canada the term Engineer means something. I don't recall hearing of any resolution to the situation, but some time back Microsoft was officially made to stop using the term Engineer in regards to their Mouseclickeers.
Re:Certified Architect... (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Certified Architect... (Score:3, Insightful)
We require a professional license for these other occupations because of how easy it is to be conned, and because of how much damage they can do. I consider some computer-re
Re:Certified Architect... (Score:2)
Setting up a computer system or network can cause monetary dammage, but (except in specific circumstances) is not going to cause injury or death.
Where you can teach yourself C and learn your networking at home in your basement, you cannot become a doctor through self-education.
A doctor is a
Re:Certified Architect... (Score:2)
But you can get a Ph.D. in some of the must mundane academic pursuits possible and, once people have that Ph.D., they get the enormous ego boost of being allowed to speak authoritatively on ANY subject they can lay their hands on.
So essentially the damage being done by the proprietary system is just as bad as the damage being done by the self-taught peop
Re:Certified Architect... (Score:3, Informative)
--
Re:Certified Architect... (Score:2)
Re:Certified Architect... (Score:2)
Re:Certified Architect... (Score:2)
Well, if they paid Microsoft money to be able to call themselves software experts, they certainly are certifiable :-)
Seriously, the reason Microsoft doesn't want to change the MCSE designation is because of the exposure to law suits from people who bought into the whole mess.
I design and implement software systems. Been doing
Re:Certified Architect... (Score:3, Informative)
That said, searching microsoft.com for MSCE reveals a disturbing number of hits. Looks like someone's not doing their job of protecting the brand images properly!
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Re:Certified Architect... (Score:4, Informative)
The company uses MS as an abbreviation for itself all the time. MSN, MS-DOS, and MSDN are the first three examples that spring to mind.
Re:Certified Architect... (Score:2)
MS-DOS, MSIE (not sure if that one is officially used), MSNBC... just the next few that springs to my mind. In reality MS is a fine abreviation for Microsoft, regardless of whether it's a compound word or not.
But, the grandparent is correct that it's MCSE, if only because it would otherwise be MSCSE, even more difficult to remember
That said, I used to screw it up all
Re:Certified Architect... (Score:2)
Or maybe that you aren't looking at MS code at all? And if by 'Linux' you mean programs that run on Linux, then you should really include every crappy share/free-ware program for Windows as well.
Question 1 (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Question 1 (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Question 1 (Score:2, Funny)
Do I win a cookie?
Re:Question 2 (Score:2, Funny)
A
Re:Question 2 (Score:2)
Re:Question 2 (Score:2)
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...
That would be funny (Score:2)
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.
Re:Question 1 (Score:2)
Rad Hat training... (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Rad Hat training... (Score:2)
Are you saying that software is/should be certified by redhat before it goes in?? Wouldn't that be like M$ driver signing. We see how well everyone liked that.
Re:Rad Hat training... (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Rad Hat training... (Score:2)
I don't know, maybe we really do need more security certs; it's just beginning to seem a little ridiculous.
Red Hat-specific skills? (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Red Hat-specific skills? (Score:3, Funny)
1. Never do another headless install.
2. Never use the command line to change settings again, use X!
3. Don't pick specific software you want installed, pick broad categories so that lots of crap you don't want gets installed too.
4. up2date -u
Re:Red Hat-specific skills? (Score:2, Interesting)
Umm, what are you talking about specifically? Heard of kickstart? Red Hat still has a graphical and a text based install. The graphical can even be done over VNC. Remote kickstarts are also possible by passing some install parameters (kickstart filename, network location, etc) via DHCP.
> Never use the command line to change settings again, use X!
Again what specifically are you talking about? Most tools still have text-gui interfaces, in addition to the X-gui
Er.... (Score:4, Interesting)
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.
Re:Er.... (Score:3)
Re:Er.... (Score:2, Insightful)
So who would you rather employ, someone who knows how to use redhat-config-* (or system-config-* as they are now known), or someone who knows how to edit each of the corresponding config files
As a matter of fact, RHCE track GLS instructors teach vi, scripting, and configuration by editing directive files directly. Having actually taken the RHCE, I can attest to the fact that not only was there no time to install the GUI tools (it's optional), one may be hard pressed to find the time to even use them (the
red-hat lock-in (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:red-hat lock-in (Score:2, Informative)
Yeah but that is what I like about SuSE's [suse.com] Certification [suse.com]. They basically took the LPI [lpi.org] Certification and added one SuSE specific test to each level.
Re:red-hat lock-in (Score:2, Informative)
This morning I have been teaching system V services. I have taught how to initialize these services on Red Hat, Debian, SuSE, Mandrake and Solaris.
This afternoon I am working my way through Squid. For Apache, Samba, NFS and all other services we recommend not using the GUI tools but vi (or emacs). All of these work the same way on all Linux as we deal with the application not the Distro. Where there are differences such as 'service
I'm already locked... (Score:5, Funny)
Re:I'm already locked... (Score:2)
That's funny... I've been running Debian for about 4 years and I've been quite happy with it the whole time, but when I try out Fedora I can't even find a tool similar to debfoster for keeping the system clean from unnecessary packages.
Point is, the thing you're familiar with is always going to be easier for you to use than the thing you're unfamiliar with. No surprise there. You can choose to stay in your shell and bash other distros that you know little about, or you can choose to broaden your horizo
Re:I'm already locked... (Score:2, Informative)
Stay in my shell and bash? I prefer ksh. :-)
Pot, kettle (Score:5, Insightful)
And the MSCE and other qualifications don't?
Re:Pot, kettle (Score:2)
Re:Pot, kettle (Score:2)
Re:Pot, kettle (Score:2)
>> Hat certifications can lock administrators in to
>> Red Hat-specific skills.
> And the MSCE and other qualifications don't?
Silly person. Why on Earth would Microsoft support certifications that can lock administrators in to Red Hat-specific skills?
[*ducks*]
locking in (Score:4, Interesting)
Certification lock-in (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Certification lock-in (Score:2)
The implication of the "Training Professional's" words are that if you get this certification you will be forever incapable of learning how to use other distributions.
Re:Certification lock-in (Score:2)
Why "Architect"? (Score:5, Funny)
Do you build structures out of RedHat?
Is your certification revoked if any of your projects crash ever?
Why "Architect". (Score:2)
It's a common term. Check out the title in addition to Chairman [microsoft.com].
Or check out one of the 3.25 million hits from this google search [google.com].
Re:Why "Architect"? (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Why "Architect"? (Score:2)
No, because Microsoft doesn't have the legal right to certify engineers in Canada.
Re:Why "Architect"? (Score:2, Funny)
Which means I'm a consultant who has to have a cool-sounding title to command a higher hourly rate.
Term " certified architect" not too kosher (Score:2)
These people would write us demanding that we change the name
Re:Term " certified architect" not too kosher (Score:2)
I recently finished five years of architecture school, got my degree, and now I'd need three years as an architectural intern, t
Re:Term " certified architect" not too kosher (Score:2)
Re:Term " certified architect" not too kosher (Score:2)
Re:Term " certified architect" not too kosher (Score:2)
I tend to agree, though I personally think that the bastardisation of "Engineer" is even worse. We now have Software Engineers, Network Engineers, and even Sanitation Engineers. It seems to me that an Engineer usually does something innovative, solves a problem, or something requiring a lot of skill and intelligence.
Architect is also something that requires quite a bit of skill (and, like a true En
Re:Why "Architect"? (Score:2)
Why is the word "Engineer" used to describe someone with a proficiency with Microsoft?
Do you build structures out of Microsoft?
NO, you administrate networks and Windows systems, not design them.
Is your certification revoked if any of your projects crash--or your corporation basicly shuts down due to virus infection site-wide-- ever?
Re:Why "Architect"? (Score:2)
Architects don't build. They design. And yes, the course is about designing structures - directory structures, clustering systems, logical security domains, etc.
And Red Hat is two words. So There
Um... (Score:3, Insightful)
No they can't. Knowing a Red Hat-specific technique does not prevent you from learning other ways of doing things.
Hmmmm (Score:2)
Re:Hmmmm (Score:2, Insightful)
locked into Red-hat specific tools (Score:5, Funny)
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 [redhat.com] the few standards that exist such as the FHS [pathname.com].
It's not as if redhat is the only distribution to have tools that it developed for itself
Re:locked into Red-hat specific tools (Score:2)
I call bullshit, learning more specifics does not somehow negate your general purpose knowledge. The fact is that a lot of places use Redhat, and getting the cert will look good on a resume. Whether the cert makes you more knowledgeable is a heavily-debated, but largely moot point. Some great techs and some not-so-great techs will get the cert, but it won't tip their skills one way or the other.
Of cour
Re:locked into Red-hat specific tools (Score:2)
Did you even read the post you were replying to? I've included the full paragraph for your enlightenment:
If you study to the level of RHCE (or whatever) you can't ever transfer your skills to anything else. In fact, you sign in blood not to ever touch a Gentoo system and working with Suse is likely to land you a jail term (not much of a risk if you take the optional lobotomy provided at the exam center)
Did
Re:locked into Red-hat specific tools (Score:2, Funny)
I call dumbass.
Redhat lock ??? (Score:2, Insightful)
Lock-in isn't such an issue (Score:5, Interesting)
Red Hat-specific skills (Score:3, Interesting)
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.
Red Hat Specific Skills (Score:2, Insightful)
It's not the MSCE.... (Score:4, Interesting)
For crissakes, there is no MSCE. It's the MCSE - Microsoft Certified Systems Engineer [microsoft.com]. 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.
Re:It's not the MSCE.... (Score:3, Insightful)
about $5500.00 plus 4 weeks of your time.
I know, we sent 5 people here from IT to that course. they all came back MCSE certified after they tested, one had to retest and the school/company we sent them to said that if he did not pass a third time they would refund all testing fees.
are they better? nope. you can't certify troubleshooting skills. and you CAN crank out people to pass certifications quite easily by teaching th
Re:It's not the MSCE.... (Score:2)
Busineses see that and avoid MCSE's like the plague and assume it makes you know less.
Cisco on the other hand is the best. No questions. Just a lab of a fucked up network and they tell you to fix it and what they want out of it.
You have to fix it yourself and apply all your skills.
I think shell scripting should be required since the world does not use mouse clicks to do everything.
Perhaps write a script
It's just marketing (Score:3)
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.
RHCE vs non-specific Distro IQ (Score:2, Informative)
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:
Lock-in shouldn't be an issue (Score:2)
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 yo
The Novell Side (Score:2, Informative)
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 some
That's the point!.. (Score:2)
Of course! If you want education -- go to a real school...
A good, very portable training program (Score:3, Insightful)
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.
bs (Score:2)
Architect? (Score:2)
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 w
Re:yeah its true (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:yeah its true (Score:2)
Re:yeah its true (Score:5, Informative)
This nonsense about being locked in to "Red Hat's way of doing things" is silly.
The RHCE is a GREAT certification test. I've done others (in particular Oracle). There is no comparison. In the RHCE test I took only 2 of 10 people passed. Five failed before the end of the first section. One guy left 10 minutes into the test. He was certified on all the other major Unix flavors. He thought he could pass the test by studying the course guide for the RH300 course. Two guys, who both failed, worked for IBM in their Linux development for Notes.
The LPI tests you on memorizing a bunch of command-line switches. RHCE tests you on doing real work. I'll take the hands-on test any day.
Re:yeah its true (Score:3, Funny)
Re:yeah its true (Score:5, Insightful)
One training expert, however, cautions that Red Hat certifications can lock administrators in to Red Hat-specific skills.
Oh, because once you learn how to do something the "Red Hat" way you wont be capable of learning how to manage other operating systems.
Med Student 1: Have you done your Cardiology internship yet?
Med Student 2: No, I was afraid it would prevent me from learning Orthopaedics.
Re:yeah its true (Score:2)
Of course this is only true if that is your only source of knowledge. On the other hand, if you want to know how to best work with Red Hat Linux, I imagine this would be the place to teach you. You'd probably learn some tricks you wouldn't know just knowing the generics.
Re:yeah its true (Score:2, Informative)
Re:yeah its true (Score:2)
Kind of like Microsoft trainning teaches you how to use their products in the reccommended Microsoft way. Kind of like Novell trainning teaches you how to use their products in the approved Novell way. Kind of like Cisco training teaches you how to use hteir products in the approved Cisco way.
This is normal for all trainning. Any good sysadmin should be well rounded enough to take all of the specifice conventions that are t
Re:For a minute there... (Score:3, Funny)
Add this one to the long, long list of tired jokes that where lame to begain with:
And now...
Re:For a minute there... (Score:2)