[BBLISA] Training recomendations sought.

[Dean Anderson]

I think it depends on what your level of background is already.

Most certs don't mean much, and are sometimes counter-productive as far as 
non-product-specific training goes.  MS is especially good/bad at this. 

The flip side is that having a certification usually entitles the holder
to better access or discounts, and those can be worthwhile. Cisco and
Microsoft are both good this way. CCIE is entitled to a 20% discount off
list. Of course, just about any VAR will give that much or more, but some
people might still wind up paying list.  But it creates a nice sales bonus
for the CCIE doing consulting to small companies: The CCIE sells them
equipment at list.  Certs are always part of the sales and marketing
strategy of the company that creates them.

Cisco is especially good training for general networking skills. Oracle is
especially good training for Oracle databases--this is obscure and arcane.
I've never bothered with certifications because there were no
certifications when I learned.  And the incremental learning never
justifies the time or tedium of certification.  Back then, there weren't
hardly any manuals: I and others had to read source, which wasn't easy
before linux and BSD 4.4, and before that, I had for figure out how to get
access to source code. Decent manuals were hard to come by. Vendors didn't
want to say too much about how things worked.  

Anyway, RH & Sun certs don't seem to offer much unless you are a total
newbie to unix.  Then I suppose they are good training.  But Usenix is
probably a better place for learning about unix and unix-like operating
systems, and systems administration.  Plus, Usenix is good time and better
place to meet other people. Usually 1000 or so attend the Usenix meetings
(though its been a while since I was at a Usenix) vs. 20 or 30 in a
certification class.

But if you have the capacity to be a good systems administrator, you'll be
good at problem solving, at collecting information about how things work,
and using that information. Education is your first problem. Good luck on 
your quest.

		--Dean


On Thu, 16 Sep 2004, Michael C Tiernan wrote:

> Does anyone have any suggestions for good UNIX SysAdmin/Engineer
> training classes?
> 
> I don't know that I'm interested but my company is looking for a list of
> possible things we may be interested in pursuing and I was thinking that
> getting a certification of some form (Solaris/RedHat/etc.) might be a
> good idea.
> 
> Opinions?
> 
> Thanks for everyone's time.
> 
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