Certification of UNIX System Administrators

In the world of iron there is the concept of certification, which says that this equipment is certified to perform specific tasks, work in specific conditions, etc. The same concept exists in the software world, for example: the operating system is certified to work on specific hardware, or the program is certified to perform certain calculations. This concept suggests that the client (buyer) can be sure that the product he buys will complete his tasks 100%.
Exactly this concept is now applicable to specialists. Certification of a specialist - checking it for the necessary knowledge, skills and experience to perform tasks related to the technology or product for which it is certified. In case of successful certification, a specialist receives a certificate (paper or electronic) and, in theory, is considered an expert in this technology within the scope and level of the certification exam.

In this article, I would like to highlight the process of preparing for the certification exam, based on my experience with IBM certification exams.

The first thing you need to clearly define for yourself: the goal. In most cases, this, of course, getting a job, the hope of an easier and faster interview, the decoration of a resume. The goal is the motivation to learn, it must be clear and important enough to make you leave the couch and prepare for the exam. In my case, the goal was just to draw attention to my resume with the cherished inscription "IBM Certified ...", because I have only 2 years of official work experience, although I have been administering UNIX systems for 5 years and have been conducting Linux administration training as a freelancer for 2 years.
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The second is technology and vendor. Here I can only tell my opinion about UNIX certifications, of which there are several now. One smart person told me once on the forum: “If you want to quickly and easily find a job, study Windows. If you are ready to invest a little bit of your time in studying the system and get a little more salary, learn Linux. If you are ready to invest not only time in your future and receive a normal salary, study Unix. If you want to be always in demand by a specialist in the market, study “rare” systems like i5 / OS or z / OS. It will be difficult to find a job, but when you become a highly qualified specialist, she will look for you and find you. ”From the Linux certification vendors I would highlight the following: RedHat, Novell, LPI. These are the most famous Linux certification administrators. RedHat and Novell are two giants that develop Enterprise-level distributions. They also carry out certification, i.e. Right software maker says: “Yes! I argue that this person can work with my system. ” It sounds convincing, and, as experience has shown, these words are not just a fluctuation of air, if a person has a RHCE or Novell CLE certificate - you can surely believe this. These exams are not tests, but practice, they are held in special certification centers, which are strictly checked and controlled by the vendors themselves. If you choose from these two - I would prefer RedHat, in the light of recent events, Novell has an incomprehensible position in the market. On the other hand, RedHat exams are more complicated and quite expensive. To get RHCE, which is the most popular and respected, you need to pass the RHCSA, and all these exams are $ 400.

LPI is a separate issue. This is an absolutely third-party office that develops tests and Linux training programs. Unlike RedHat and Novell, these tests are common to all distributions, i.e. In the test, you can get a question about the package manager yum, and then - on APT. Although in the official LPI FAQ there are bumps on the high price of the RHCE exam - they don’t want to look at the mirror themselves: they offer 3 levels, for each level you need to pass at least 2 exams, each exam costs $ 150. From all this I made a conclusion for myself: I will donate LPI only if my future employer demands it. There are two reasons for this: firstly, it’s trivially expensive, and secondly for me personally, the vendor's phrase “This person is able to work with my OS” sounds more convincing than the phrase of some left office: “This person can work with any Linux”. LPI, in fact, is in good standing only because it is supported by large companies like IBM and Novell.

Of the UNIX certifications, the most popular are the certifications for IBM AIX, Oracle Solaris, HP-UX. It is better to choose from them, with what is more familiar and you should not forget that they are all attached to the gland. AIX revolves only on IBM System P with its own virtualization technologies, Solaris basically works on both x86 and SPARC, and HP-UX on PA-RISC or Itanium. If there is no access to the equipment, then the obvious choice will be Solaris, which can be installed on a regular virtual machine and learn. I was lucky, I went to IBM for free and listened to the course “AIX 6 Jumpstart for UNIX Professionals”, where I learned the basics of AIX, rummaged through the HMC, and even saw how Live Partition Mobility works. Then they gave me a shell on AIX, where I subsequently prepared for the exam.

Third : practice. And so, on what to pass certification selected. Now you need to think about the practice, without practice for the exam is better not to meddle. Virtualization technologies will help a lot here: Linux and Solaris are better to install on some VirtualBox, make a backup of the screw image and quietly study the system without being afraid to mess up. With AIX and UP-UX, the situation is more complicated, here you have to either buy the shell, or somehow get out. The option that I took advantage of is IBM's academic initiative. As part of this program, university professors receive free LPAR access for themselves and their students, where they can practice. As a result, I ordered the LPAR - and I learned it myself, and I study students for them.

Fourth : Documentation. I recommend using the official system documentation provided by the manufacturer. For IBM, these are official manuals (available for academic programs) and redbooks, HP-UX and Solaris documentation are many at the office. sites. With Linux, it’s harder - you’ll have to take a list of topics for the exam and look for a book or books that contains all these topics. An express method like “climbed into Google, saw that the rm command deletes a file, and that will be enough” - it won't roll. Examiners come up with questions relying on the fact that a person has some experience, and may ask: “Why when you delete a file under your root - the system asks again whether to delete it or not, and if under the user, it does not ask?”. Here you need to know that under the root in the system there is a fool protection: they set an alias from “rm” to “rm -i”. Conclusion: you need to gain experience with the system, read the entire chapter in the book and cling to these kinds of trifles to find out why this is happening.

Fifth : dumps. I do NOT recommend passing the exam on dumps. Some companies offer current exam dumps for money, but this money will be wasted because, even with a certificate, there will be an interview, and there it will still pop up. I once worked as a freelancer, and the network administrator was taken to the office, well, I was asked to conduct an interview. A girl came, the summary states that CCNA was delivered, but how disgusting it came when she really didn’t distinguish the ip address from the subgrid.
But dumps have one not bad feature. Dumps of previous exams usually hang freely on the Internet. And it is very useful to pass this exam on them in order to assess your strength before passing, because in case of failure, the exam money will not be returned. As I did: I passed the IBM 000-104 exam, and found a dump on IBM 000-223. The questions are different, the versions of AIX are different, but after going through this dump, I realized my weak points and continued learning.

Sixth : registration with the certification center. And so, prepared for the exam, you can register for delivery. RedHat and Novell have their own rules, usually exams are scheduled, you will have to look for the nearest authorized center and agree on the dates. The rest of the exams can be passed to Prometric, for this you need to register on the site, order the exam, pay it with a payment card and wait for the exam. It is very important not to forget to take 2 documents with me to the testing center, I took a citizen's passport and a foreign passport.

Seventh : passing the exam. In the process of passing the test do not worry, time is usually given plenty, but still I recommend skipping questions that need to be thought about for a long time, and quickly note what is certain, and then return to difficult questions. When I passed the AIX exam - I spent an hour, although they gave 150 minutes, and when I passed the ASPLinux exam - there was little time and a lot of questions, half of which were “like which key is used for ...” and some situational, for example: “ Here is the situation: ... What parameters of the squid configuration file are needed to solve the problem? ”And 10 pieces of checkboxes.

After passing the exam, the testing center gives a document that shows the test results. This is the only confirmation that the test was passed until the results were included in the Prometric database and vendor certification, so losing it is not desirable.
Usually examinations are recorded in the database after a few working days, after which electronic certificates are issued. The trend went like this: electronic certificates are sent, can be checked through the vendor, and if you need a paper one, then you have to pay for it. For example, IBM takes about $ 6 + shipping, for a total of about $ 12 for Ukraine.

Mission accomplished. Now is the time to look for work, which I will do in the near future. And I wish the reader creative success and good luck in the exams!