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Re: [PLUG] [LBF] What *NIX certs looks good to upper level corp folks?
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VAR cert programs often are the same or at lease close to the consumer equivalent. ie, the Sun Enterprise Computing Certification (aka Competency 2000) is equivalent to the consumer Sun Certified Network Admin, while the Sun Workstation Computing Cert (aka Competency 1000 I think) is equivalent to the Sun Certified System Admin.
As far as others go, say HP or IBM, I really don't know much about their VAR level certs, having never worked for an HP or IBM var. But, on a related note, there are no Veritas, EMC, Oracle, Cisco, or Microsoft "VAR-only" certs that I'm aware of. There are other courses that VARs must take from these companies -- marketing/sales/product oriented courses, but there are generally no formal tests for these.
Anyway, as far as which certifications businesses give credence to, I would say go for the Sun Certified System/Network Admin. But if you're better with AIX or HPUX, then go with one of those certs. All three of those flavors are pretty widespread. The Sun cert is 3 tests, HP-UX Certified IT Pro is only 1 test.. IBM Certified Specialist (pSeries AIX Admin) is 1 test, IBM Cert Advanced Technical Expert (RS/6000 AIX) is 4 tests plus Specialist.
I think, though, one of the keys is getting certs that complement each other. ie, get a Sun cert and also get a Veritas certifcation, since all (damn near all anyway) Sun shops are going to be running at least Veritas volume manager, and most likely VxFS, Vx Netbackup, and maybe even Vx Cluster, VVR, or VxGCM. If you're going into big unix systems in general, any kind of database cert would be good (Oracle being the most in demand). Cisco is always a plus for any kind of systems guy, but I wouldn't go further than CCNA unless you're really planning on getting deep into network administration and move away from systems (as bigger companies almost always separate these groups).
Storage (SAN/NAS) is also very big right now. EMC is the market leader, and they have a decent multi-tiered certification program, but its really hard to study for it independently -- there are no study guides or exam crams you can go out and buy.. You have to either take the courses, or know someone who has taken the courses and borrow their courseware (I currently work for an EMC partner). Hitachi (high end Sun StorEdge arrays are rebranded HDS boxes) is very closely related to Sun right now, so if you want to go down the Sun route, this would be worth pursuing -- they don't have a cert program, but I think they're working on one. IBM also has a complementary "IBM High End Disk Solutions Specialist", if you're going to go the way of AIX. Complementing storage even more, there are Brocade and McData fibre channel certifications as well, but I wouldn't bother with those too much unless you're *really* going to specialize.
I wouldn't waste too much time with SAGE certs at the moment.. I've never even heard them mentioned in a business environment, and I've never seen them on a job posting. Most non-technical (or even technical people who aren't Sysadmins) aren't aware of SAGE at all -- but everyone knows about (or at least has heard of) Sun, IBM, HP, Oracle, etc. And I think its name recognition that you're going for..
All IMHO, YMMV of course, but this strategy has worked well for me.. :)
- Sean
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