J_K9 @ Linux

A New Linux Certification: Ubuntu Certified Professional

December 21, 2006 on 5:25 am | In Linux |

LPI recently announced that it was changing its recertification policy for the LPIC certification. This announcement was badly received by some, as it suggested that the LPI’s motives had changed and instead of seeking to maintain a persistently high quality of certifications they were now trying to make a return on their original investment by forcing the holders of the LPIC certification to recertify at least once every five years, or else they would lose their certificate.

In the wake of such news, there is even more important news: Ubuntu is joining the vendor-specific Linux certification scene alongside Red Hat’s RHCT/RHCE/RHCA/RHCSS and Novell’s CLP and CLE, and they are doing so by building upon the “vendor-neutral” LPI certifications (we’ll have to see how long that lasts - hopefully their generic certifications will remain as vendor-neutral and as highly valued as they have always been). According to the press release on PRWEB, Canonical Ltd (Ubuntu’s commercial sponsor and father company) “today announced it has partnered with LynuxTraining Sàrl to develop the first dedicated Ubuntu training courses for the ‘Ubuntu Certified Professional’ status.” From the article:

From Q1 2007 delegates will be able to prepare for, and achieve, the qualification by attending two five day courses available via a global network of partners. They are the first in a series of classroom-based and e-learning courses designed to enable System Administrators to pass the required LPI 101, LPI 102 and the Ubuntu (LPI 199) exams.

[..]

LynuxTraining will deliver a comprehensive set of materials designed to introduce the user to Ubuntu and the Ubuntu project, as well as test the candidate’s ability to perform easy maintenance tasks, install and configure a workstation and work with the Linux command line.

Is this “just another certification?” Well, it was bound to happen - Canonical is slowly making a move into the commercial arena with Ubuntu, and this certainly is not a secret. Ubuntu is, according to Distrowatch, one of if not the most popular Linux distribution. This certification will allow enterprises to determine how acquainted a particular administrator is with Ubuntu (although, unfortunately, many do not take *experience* into account and this certification may end up being abused like the infamous MCSE), and so Canonical is merely laying the groundwork for future commercial ventures.

There is too little information at the moment to make a qualitative decision on the value of the cert (heck, it’s not even available yet), so I’ll just say one thing: best of luck to Canonical, and I hope they create a *good* certification which is not merely for show and to add a few more letters after one’s name but for which there are enjoyable and informative training courses which will provide the administrator with some real-world experience and allow them to specialise in administering Ubuntu.

A list of the topics the Ubuntu Certified Professional certification might include is available on Ubuntu’s wiki.