Sysadmin Certifications
I’ve generally been a fan of certification programs for systems administrators as a means for providing at least a basic idea of the competency of a potential hire. After reading this article at Linux.com, I’m not particularly surprised to see the number of certifications expected to increase (especially for GNU/Linux programs), though I have to wonder about it: the best sysadmins I’ve known didn’t have a single certification and weren’t particularly interested in getting one.
I see the whole certification process as having two main flaws (as least on the part of companies certifying their own products): (1) little pressure on the part of the certifying company to make the tests difficult or otherwise accurately prove a taker’s skills, and (2) lots of pressure on the part of the company to test the applicant’s knowledge of vendor-specific aspects. It seems to me that it’s in the interest of the certifying company to have lots of certified engineers out there who know the ins-and-outs of that company’s products and little about any competing products.
So, as someone who needs to hire a competent sysadmin, how does this help me? A potential sysadmin who’s certified as an MCSE or RHCE or whatever shows they can take a test and know the basics of that particular company’s product, but what about the millions of other things that sysadmin would be responsible for? Really, it seems these certifications are good for large companies interested in a sysadmin to manage many exact-same boxes and little else. For the majority of employers, especially startups and growing companies, I’d think someone who is more well-rounded in things they’d need to manage is much more useful (for instance, can a sysadmin fill in for a network admin should the need arise? do they understand infrastructure needs to make recommendations for expansion? etc). The best skill a sysadmin can have is the ability to learn as they go and adapt to changes. Having a certification in a particular OS doesn’t particularly help if its a heterogeneous network.
I think certification is a useful process but I’d like to see programs that are more comprehensive, easier to afford, and focus on general skills regardless of environment. What do you think? Have you gone through a certification process and, if so, how has it helped you? In the past, I’ve thought about getting certified myself, but never went through with it primarily for these reasons (as well as the cost).
