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Announcements Operating Systems BSD

BSD Certification Group Releases Roadmap 87

Posted by CowboyNeal from the plotting-the-course dept.
Jeremy C. Reed writes "The BSD Certification Group announced on Thursday the release of their certification program roadmap. This publication introduces the Group's planned BSD system administrator certifications and the construction of the certification program. The press release is available, as well as the certification roadmap."
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BSD Certification Group Releases Roadmap More

BSD Certification Group Releases Roadmap

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  • I'm going to make my 9 year old take it (Score:3, Funny)

    by dezmund ( 903218 ) on Friday August 26, 2005 @05:54AM (#13405745)
    Just for fun

  • Looks like... (Score:5, Funny)

    by astellar ( 675749 ) on Friday August 26, 2005 @06:16AM (#13405826) Homepage Journal
    ...they want to rename "Donate" button to something more complicated...

  • Neutral Certification (Score:4, Interesting)

    by MadX ( 99132 ) on Friday August 26, 2005 @06:18AM (#13405836)
    I really do think that this will be a good thing.

    I have my LPI-2 certification, and I believe the neutral-vendor type certifications are really the best. It serves as a base from which to work. For the Employer there is a twofold bonus.

    1) The Person is willing to prove himself/herself that they are able to use the system (without testing by the employer) to a certain degree.

    2) The candidate was willing to study. This I see often where a person does not try to further themselves within their field of expertise, yet expect to walk into another job, and expect the employer to know that they are totally capable. There has to be a starting point - and this is it for the x-BSD's

    I would certainly see myself doing this certification.

    • Re:Neutral Certification (Score:1, Insightful)

      by Anonymous Coward
      I agree. I was happy when neutral Linux-certification became available and I'm happy the same is in the works for BSD-flavours.

      I also totally agree on these (and any) certifications being an entry-point rather than an end in itself. Actually I think there are more employers who realize this than there are Slashdotters who do, and if the employers don't they're likely to get smarter relatively fast.

    • I have my LPI-2 certification, and I believe the neutral-vendor type certifications are really the best.

      Agreed. When the certification authority is also the vendor of the system or environment you're being certified for, you have to wonder how much of their syllabus, weighting, etc. is focused on proving you have the skills for real world situations and how much is based on promoting their products.

      For example, accusations have been made against some Microsoft certifications (I haven't done any myse

      • What? You mean that someone thinks that the MC?E, MOUS, M\w{4} tests are just overpriced, overhyped Microsoft Sales training where YOU pay them for the "privilege" of selling thier products, instead of vice versa?

        Yeah, Right. What kind of company would do a thing like that?

  • my thoughts on certification (Score:4, Insightful)

    by frovingslosh ( 582462 ) on Friday August 26, 2005 @06:25AM (#13405856)
    I just want to say that as someone who has hired my share of programmers, I'm not impressed with people who have certifications. I find that many times they really have less understanding in the area that they are certified in than I'm looking for, and they have tended to make passing a test rather than working with and understanding the subject their priority. On top of that, they seem to expect better pay than the good programmers because they have a certification.

    I understand that this is not the universal trend in the industry, but I want people who can write good code, have the ability to understand things on a system level, and can adapt to new situations rather than certified people who slowly produce poorer quality work and give me blank stares. Give me someone who can write code to make different systems on a network interact, and who will get out network tools and track down complex network problems over someone with multiple network certifications any day of the week. I don't work in a BSD shop and I don't see that happening any time soon, so this doesn't directly concern me, but if I did I would not take this certification as a good thing.

    • Re:my thoughts on certification (Score:5, Insightful)

      by $RANDOMLUSER ( 804576 ) on Friday August 26, 2005 @07:12AM (#13406014)
      This is a certification for a sysadmin, which is a different kettle of fish. Many employers are reluctant to allow sysadmins to learn as they go, they're expected to know what to do when The Bad Thing (TM) happens - fast.
    • I find that many times they really have less understanding in the area that they are certified in than I'm looking for, and they have tended to make passing a test rather than working with and understanding the subject their priority.

      Isn't that true of our education system in general? Testing is done more to rate the teachers that the students. This is a BIG problem with education as I (and others) see it.

      My friend David is working on methods of adaptive teaching which adresses these problems to

    • The Chicken and the Certification Egg (Score:5, Insightful)

      by Anonymous Coward on Friday August 26, 2005 @08:51AM (#13406507)
      Background: 38yo geek who got his first programming job 22 years ago and has been full time IT for over 15 years. Self-employeed rent-a-geek... er I mean "IT Consultant" (who does quite well thank you)

      So what do I do? I've got more experience and talents than 95% of the punk kids eager to take my customers.. So I go into see Joe business owner and I tell them "Yeah, forget paying MS or other companies for software, I can get you all the software you want free. BTW, You've never heard of me, you don't know penguin from a daemon and I don't have a piece of paper to my name that says I know anything. ... But give me some money and all your IT problems will be solved."

      (Like it or not) The vast majority of the people hiring IT consultants have never heard of a BSD. They've only heard of Linux because of the dotcom era. I have for many years mocked people who got MCSE's etc. But a business reality is that some people want that piece of paper...

      But if I get any BSD certifications -and I probably will- it will be a dual edged sword. The goobers out there want a piece of paper so they sleep well at night knowing they hired an "expert." BUT I won't mention it to people who know what they are talking about because frankly, I mostly agree with you that if I see someone with too many certifications I run like hell figuring they're an idiot.

      However there is one thing that definitely makes me fall to one side of the fence...

      [Not baiting people but] (Even the most diehard fans of other platforms can probably bring themselves to admit that) the BSD's are the best pure server platform going. But how do I explain that to a lawyer or a CPA or an investment banker?

      Like it or not, things like this boost the whole platform. It gives it an air of legitimacy to the unknowing.

      So- I'll hold my nose and sign on the dotted line.

    • Re:my thoughts on certification (Score:4, Insightful)

      by n54 ( 807502 ) on Friday August 26, 2005 @09:40AM (#13406942) Homepage Journal

      I just want to say that as someone who has had my share of bosses, I'm not impressed with people who mix up OS certifications with programming certifications. I find that many times they really have less understanding in the area that they are managing in than I'm comfortable with, and they have tended to make passing out directives rather than working with and understanding their employees their priority. On top of that, they seem to expect better pay than the good employees because they are bosses.

      I understand that this is the universal trend in the industry.

      ;)

      Seriously though, you are completely correct that certifications on their own isn't much good and that some of the people taking them somehow delude themselves as to how smart and experienced they are. However if you were to hire an unknown sysadmin/netadmin with knowledge of a particular OS or network equipment you wouldn't mind seeing that they've actually at least taken some relevant certifications because unlike in programming it isn't that easy for them to really show you their knowledge in a reasonable amount of time. The certifications are simply a way to have a third party back up any applicants claims to a certain level.

    • It's interesting because in the hayday of it (gees sound like an old fart..) "geeks" and "hackers" got these jobs and no-one asked a question because, well frankly they didn't know what to ask... By establishing certification programs it was supposed to be easier for employers to be able to guage what kind of meat they had in the kitchen, alas most certification programs are lacking in their implementation. What these guys have lined up for BSD however, looks pretty good. But then again, the current instal
    • ... I have been recruited much more often since I got a cert. I am all for self-improvement and always relied on self-learning, but I couldn't get my foot on the door properly until I got that bloody piece of paper.

    • Re:my thoughts on certification (Score:4, Insightful)

      by gregmark ( 750089 ) on Friday August 26, 2005 @10:48AM (#13407623)
      I took several of the basic SUN SysAdmin and NetAdmin exams a couple of years ago. They may have helped my foot find a door or three, but they definately helped me focus my learning and become a better sysadmin.

      At the time, I was self-unemployed (a victim of my own hubris during the bubble when you could get hired for knowing how to spell UNIX) and needed a way to maintain my skills while broadening my base of OS know-how. I used the exams as a way to gauge my weak spots and fill them in with both book knowledge and test environment experience (ie, goofing around on my Ultra 5). When I finally got back on the horse 2 years ago, my learning substrate, if not my OTJ experience, had been greatly expanded. Over the course of the next year, I learned more about good sysadmin practice than I had during the all the bubble years.

      Recently, I took the free Solaris 10 exams and passed them. Again, it focused my efforts to learn about many of the new features like zones and SMF.

      The value of a certification is determined more by what the certifiee intends to accomplish by earning it than what an employer thinks it reveals about the certifiee.
    • A certification is like a high school diploma. Anybody can get one, but it doesn't mean they are worthless. Would you hire someone who didn't have a high school diploma? For the same reason, it's not unreasonable to expect your sysadmins to be certified.

      If the certification is so damned easy to get, then why hasn't this applicant with ten years experience as a sysadmin got one?

      p.s. Notice I keep saying "syadmin" and not "programmer." These certificates are meant for systems administration. It is unreasonabl

  • Yet another silly certification (Score:3, Funny)

    by jimmydevice ( 699057 ) on Friday August 26, 2005 @06:36AM (#13405894)
    MSCD,MCSA,MCP,MCSA,MCSE,CCNA,CCNP,MCDBA,CISCO,BLA, BLABLA...
    To bad intelligence isn't delivered in a TLA/FLA.

    I'm glad I don't live in your space.

    • Dear applicant,

      Your resume says you have ten years experience administering Sun enterprise servers and workstations, and that in your last job you were directly responsible for maintaining two hundred Solaris workstations including installation, backups, and patches. Yet not once in those ten years did you ever bother getting an SCSA. Why?

      Sincerely,
      Curious

  • the point is..... (Score:2, Interesting)

    by amodm ( 876842 )
    does it help them gain more popularity or market share?

    I believe if someone is installing BSD on a company infrastructure, he/she would already be knowing enough about it to run it.

    The reason why I say this is that BSD is a good OS, but to believe that its a good OS (in the flood of linux), one has to know BSD well enough.

    IMHO, hiring ceritified professionals help when someone installs something about which they don't know enough.
    • I completely agree with this. While I joined the BSD-Cert mailing list, I've always thought this, if someone can install/run FreeBSD for any amount of time, they know what they're doing. I've run Linux based servers for about 6 years, but BSD just for the past year, and I've learned a ton in that little time. I'm not saying Linux is not as good, far from it, but BSD just has a different way of dealing with things that, to me, just feels more logical. I won't be replacing Ubuntu on the desktop, or Gentoo

  • DragonFlyy BSD? (Score:1, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward


    Not flaming here, but asking a simple question. I can see OpenBSD, FreeBSD, and NetBSD being on the cert, but DragonFly? Is the user base that big that it has to be on the test as well?

  • Could be useful (Score:2, Insightful)

    by kellererik ( 307956 )
    There seems to be a real test on real computers for the advanced exams, from what I found in the roadmap. If this is really the case, then the exam could be worth something.
    Most of the other exams simply prove that the person to be tested was able to click on the right spot while taking said exam. The multiple choice exams tell nothing about the problem-solving skills of the tested person, IMHO.
    I got into a discussion with the trainer while taking a training for a certain test, that very trainer told us all

  • Cisco certified BSD bigot (Score:3, Insightful)

    by puzzled ( 12525 ) on Friday August 26, 2005 @09:54AM (#13407077) Journal

      I've been doing that Cisco thing since 1998. CCNA, CCDA, CCNP, CCDP, wireless specialization, one exam away from CCIP, one exam away from Call Manager Express specialization - before you make a farting noise with your mouth understand that I'm sitting at home in my underwear at 9:00 AM and I may not get dressed until lunch :-) I like the dress code at my job.

      My customers have a mix of FBSD 4.11/5.4 and some OpenBSD 3.4 on wireless bridges. My customers are uniformly mid sized shops with need for a serious network engineer but not enough work to justify a full time person. Its very easy to slip BSD into these environments - "Hey, you have an old PC we can use for (X)?" Resistance *is* futile once this process starts.

      BSD certification would mean that the big shops in town currently seeking people with Red Hat certifications, because their management can't poor piss out of a Knoppix CD, let alone assess an admin's skill level, will start seeking BSD certified people. This is a good thing for me personally, for BSD as a whole, and the competitive pressure from the BSD source/ports based aerobics instructors is something the Linux distro binary package fatladies desperately need.

      Yes, I said fatladies. I've got SuSe 9.2 on the machine I'm using to type this and 9.3 on my lappie. I'm looking into it because I think it might be marketable ... but I'd sure rather have BSD for almost everything I do. Don't you shoot your mouth off, you little fanboy you, until you've typed a mile at the console of a FreeBSD box.

    • i like this guy
  • ...would this be like getting a death certificate?

    (forgive me, but someone had to make the joke)

  • First, many certs are not easy to get if you don't have an incredible photographic memory. You can study until you are crazed and psychotic and thinking nothing but the subject matter till the moment of the test and blank. Then there's idiots who can memorize rote knowledge but can't use it.

    Second, many certs are not germane to the job. No sense in having a BSD cert unless you're in a BSD/System V style shop. Better to have an RHCE even for SuSE than a BSD cert. Closer to the actual matter.

    I expect we'l
  • Great idea to put it all in order. Cant wait ot get certified myself.

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