[Leaplist] LPIC is it relative and needed?

[Bryan J. Smith]

I have been directly involved with CompTIA, LPI and Red Hat
training and certification in various roles since 2002.  Despite
any associations, clients or even employers, I do not feel the
need to disregard what either LPI or Red Hat do.  LPI and Red
Hat have two completely different approaches, and excel at
what they both do.

Red Hat has an unmatched training and testing approach, which
they stake their name on.  I.e., Red Hat _only_ makes money on
subscriptions/SLAs, training (not hands-on examination -- the training
subsidizes the examination) and consulting, in that order.  There is
no over-priced ink or masses of proprietary products to sell (still
laughing from a HP consultant that complained Red Hat should offer
its training for free).

Furthermore, even if you don't think anything of certification, if you ever
have extra training budget, I highly recommend you sit or have a Red
Hat Instructor (who will always be a top-level guru for the 400 classes)
to teach RH442*1* on-site.  I don't know how many times my clients
would never need someone like me if that had only sat RH442 -- major,
major clients with thousands of 24x7 infrastructure systems.  ;)

LPI is not merely vendor-agnostic, but unlike most vendor-agnostic
training, they do _not_ make money on training -- which is a cash-cow
for so many.  They are volunteer, peer-based exam development
which I have contributed both informally (as anyone can) as well as
officially (for the 2004 finalization of LPIC-1 exams 101 and 102).  If
you really want to see LPI in action, get involved with LPI.  I also don't
hide the fact that a good and professional colleague of mine is Matt
Rice, the head of LPI Exam Development who has put a lot of time and
effort into moving the program forward over just the last four (4) years.

I will never cut LPI short.  They are just different than Red Hat.  I cannot
stress that enough.  Having _both_ is good, and yes, people have asked
for not only LPIC-1, but noted I have the LPIC-2 as well.  I have also
taught courses that have covered topics in LPI objectives (although I
have had to avoid some content and partner with someone for reasons
of NDA in some areas in the past).

With that said ...

My most recent, public commentary I've made on LPI is this late
2006 posting:  
http://thebs413.blogspot.com/2006/12/lpi-reiterates-and-updates.html

I also made this "review" of CompTIA v. LPIC-1/2 v. RHCE in mid-2003:  
http://thebs413.blogspot.com/2003/05/linux-certification-comptia-lpi-and.html  

LPI exams are $100-150 or so, sometimes only $25 at conferences when
they are manually graded.  You can sit all LPI exams through LPIC-2 for less
than just the RHCE exam which is $749.  If you think the RHCE exam is over-
priced, understand that cost is actually less than actual and subsidized by the
"training" that is done Monday through Thursday (RH301 or RH253), with the
exam on Friday.  It's 100% hands-on, performance-exams, and _not_ like
select Novell-Microsoft*2* exams where they use virtual/remote connections
(and no, I'm not talking about the "simulation" portions, these are actual, real,
but remote, physical machines -- "performance-based" testing they call it).

Red Hat uses _real_, _physical_ systems to test.  ;)

CompTIA?  Sorry, have to laugh.  Linux+ is a joke, and both LPIC-1 and
RHCT/RHCE individuals number a full order of magnitude greater for a reason.
Linux+ is largely the "default assumption" for Windows shops, but it garners no
consideration whatsoever.

-- Bryan

*1* RH442:  System Monitoring and Performance Tuning (Class)
  http://www.redhat.com/courses/rh442_red_hat_enterprise_system_monitoring_and_performance_tuning/  

RH442 goes beyond anything I've ever seen in over 50 IT exams and
hits on Computer Engineering/Science-level OS design concepts** because
they are necessary to modern I/O, memory, scheduling, etc... right down to
tuning "in the real world" on the late kernel 2.6 releases and related system
components.  It covers well beyond and broad what you'll see in experience.
Trust me, with a Computer Engineering degree and a good 20 years of UNIX,
BSD and GNU/Linux, I was shocked how little I knew about kernel 2.6 and
modern distros when it comes to such.  Although it's based on Red Hat Enterprise
Linux, virtually all of it applies to all distros (although you'll quickly appreciate the
mindshare at Red Hat and in the products/services -- why Red Hat pushes for
developments in the ways it does in GNU/Linux).

*2* Comparison to Microsoft 083-640 "performance-based" half-way down in
this article:  (start at "Welcome to 083-640 and the "Lost Connection") 
  http://bjs-redhat.livejournal.com/2970.html  

________________________________
From: Russ Sanderlin <rsanderlin at tearstone.com>

RHCE is definitely more valuable. When I got my RHCT here at work they practically
threw me a celebration. They have no clue with LPI is. 

On Tue, Jan 5, 2010 at 3:12 PM, Joe 'Zonker' Brockmeier <jzb at zonker.net> wrote:

On Tue, Jan 5, 2010 at 3:01 PM, Kevin Inscoe <kevin at inscoe.org> wrote:
>>
>>
>>> What are professionals thoughts ob obtaining LPI certification?
>
>I have LPIC level 1. It's not as in-demand as other more specific
>>certs, but I think it's seen as valuable by employers.
>
>
>>> Working on RHCE I would think that's more valuable.
>
>More recruiters and employers are likely to specifically target RHCE
>>or vendor-specific certs when they're looking for skills related to
>>RHEL or SLES (not so much RHCE for SLES, but Novell certs...) but they
>>also tend to be much more expensive than LPI certs.
>
>>If someone is just starting out, I might suggest LPI first to get a
>>foot in the door with a junior role and let the employer help get the
>>vendor-specific training & certs related to the specific environment.
>>If you have some experience under your belt already, then I'd suggest
>>getting more specific.
>
>>Best,
>
>>Zonker

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