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1/16/2008 -- If you own a garage and want to hire someone who's certified in the field and can keep cars running, you'd likely look for someone known as a "mechanic." If you own a regional hospital and want to hire someone to diagnose that thing on a patient's leg, you'd likely look for someone known as a "doctor."
So, what do you look for if you want to hire someone who's certified and can keep your servers running? Well, it depends on which part of the semantic game you want to focus on.
This is a topic I first brought up last week. The gist was this: Some titles don't sound the same as others. A designation that used to mean "beginner" in one program may mean "specialist" in another. Consider the top-level administrator-type certification from these vendors:
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Vendor
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Top Certification
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| Apple |
Administrator |
| Cisco |
Expert |
| Microsoft |
Professional (with Architect in the works) |
| Novell |
Engineer |
| Oracle |
Expert |
| Red Hat |
Engineer |
| SAIR |
Engineer |
| Solaris |
Administrator |
This is by no means a complete list, but even in this list of eight, four different titles are used. Is it any wonder that people sometimes question the worth of certifications -- especially when you can't easily make comparisons between them?
Mac OS X 10.5 Certification Coming Soon
The current Mac OS X and Mac OS X Server certifications are in the process of being updated from 10.4 to 10.5, with the new exams expected in February. There are three levels of certification available in the tracks:
- Apple Certified Support Professional (ACSP): Aimed at help-desk professionals, this certification requires passing a single exam: Support Essentials. The certification was previously known as Apple Certified Help Desk Specialist (ACHDS), but the name changed with the release of Leopard.
- Apple Certified Technical Coordinator (ACTC): A midlevel certification, this designation requires first achieving the ACSP and then passing another exam on Server Essentials.
- Apple Certified System Administrator (ACSA): With the exception of the updates, there's really no difference between the 10.4 and 10.5 tracks for the previous two certifications. That's not the case here. Previously, you were required to pass a total of seven exams to earn this certification, but now it's only four. In addition to the Server Essentials exam you must take in order to become certified as a Technical Coordinator, you must also take an exam on Directory Services, Deployment and Advanced Administration.
In terms of what to expect, here are a few things to keep in mind: The current version of the Support Essentials exam consists of 74 questions (multiple choice) that must be answered within 120 minutes, with a required passing score of 62 percent. The topics, in order of (rounded) weighting, are:
- Accessing network services (18 percent)
- Command-line interface (11 percent)
- Network configuration and troubleshooting (11 percent)
- File systems (9 percent)
- Providing network services (9 percent)
- Users (9 percent)
- Installation (7 percent)
- Permissions (7 percent)
- Application environments (5 percent)
- Printing (5 percent)
- Troubleshooting (4 percent)
- Peripherals (3 percent)
- Startup sequence (1 percent)
Most exams are priced between $150 to $200 and are available through Prometric testing centers; Skills Assessment Guides, listing domains and objectives will be available when the exams are released. More information on the Mac certifications can be found here.
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