building a Linux certification program

by Dan York
<[email protected]>

Dan is a member of the board of directors for the Linux Professional Institute. He is also a member of the SAGE certification committee.

While great debate goes on within SAGE circles as to whether or not certification for system administrators should occur, the issue within the world of Linux is not if certification will occur, but by whom. At least four separate efforts to establish Linux certification are underway. I will describe one of those programs, which emerged out of a series of mailing-list discussions happening over much of the last year.

The program is called the Linux Professional Institute (LPI). Our mission statement, as stated on our Web site <http://www.lpi.org/>, is:

We believe in the need for a standardized, multi-national, and respected program to certify levels of individual expertise in Linux. This program must be able to satisfy the requirements of Linux professionals, as well as organizations which would employ or contract them.

 Our goal is to design and deliver such a program from within the Linux community, using both volunteer and hired resources as necessary. We resolve to undertake a well-considered, open, disciplined development process, leading directly to the establishment of a recognized and widely-endorsed Linux certification body.

I will explain our history, our current program, and where we are going — and invite you to assist us in getting there.

The Past
In early 1998, the Canadian Linux Users' Exchange (CLUE) found that a large number of their users were interested in the idea of Linux certification. Starting in April 1998, they established a mailing list, under the coordination of Evan Leibovitch, focused on certification. They progressed quite far in discussing how a certification program might be implemented. The list grew rapidly and came to include people from around the world. At one point, their list included representatives of three Linux distributions: Caldera, S.u.S.E., and Debian.

Unaware of the CLUE effort, I wrote an article for the October 1998 issue of the Linux Gazette (<http://www.linuxgazette.com/issue33/york.html>). In the article, I outlined the reasons I felt a certification program would help the growth of Linux, and I encouraged people to contact me either to point me to programs underway or to help start such an initiative. The response was tremendous, and we immediately began establishing a mailing list to help coordinate our discussions. Along the way, we discovered other individuals and groups who were also working on certification and tried, not always successfully, to find ways to work together on Linux certification.

Last November, Jon "maddog" Hall of Linux International introduced Evan and me to each other. We immediately saw the similarities between our two efforts and explored ways to combine the energies of our two groups to work together on a common program. As we merged our groups and continued to move forward, the initiative attracted a highly talented pool of volunteers, many of whom contributed (and continue to contribute) very long hours to bringing our collective program to reality.

The LPI Certification Program
After long discussions, our program committee, under the leadership of Tom Peters, developed the overall scope of our certification program. We have decided that the program will consist of three levels of certification, although at the time of this writing (April 1999), the names of the levels have not yet been finalized.

At the first level, the candidate will take one exam on basic Linux system administration and a second exam focusing on distribution-specific information. We will create separate exams for each of the major distributions, including Red Hat, Caldera, Debian, S.u.S.E., Slackware, and Pacific HiTech. These distribution-specific exams will address issues such as installation, package management, GUI administration tools, and file locations.

In the second level, the candidate will take two exams. One will focus on advanced system-administration commands, while the other will address Linux internals. All candidates will take the same two exams.

At the third level, we recognize that most system administrators tend to specialize as they gain more knowledge and experience. They tend to become administrators of databases, mail servers, Web servers, or firewalls. For this reason, the candidate will take two exams from among a pool of electives. The final list has not yet been determined, but will no doubt include the topics mentioned earlier.

A complete description of our program is available at <http://www.lpi.org/program.html>.

The Present
Throughout 1999, our committees have been extremely active developing our program and laying the foundation for our future efforts. Overall, our discussions have agreed on the following points:

The Linux certification program must be distribution-neutral and vendor-neutral. The program should not be biased toward any one Linux distribution, nor toward any vendor of education or other services.

The cost of attaining Linux certification should be as low as possible. Costs of exams should be targeted at only what's needed to cover delivery of the exam, with perhaps a slight portion helping to offset development of future exams.

Whatever mechanism we develop for delivering Linux certification must be global in scale. People in any nation must be able to take exams toward certification.

Candidates should be able to prepare for certification through multiple means. Candidates should be able to prepare by reading books, participating in instructor-led classes, using computer/Web-based training, or just working on their own Linux systems. Our certification program should not require any single education source.

The development of the overall certification program (although not necessarily the actual exam questions) should be pursued using open, democratic, and community-based methods.

Today we have a committee structure, based on mailing lists, that is continuing to design and implement our plans on several levels. We are working with computer-based testing vendors to be able to deploy our exams globally. We also have further defined our certification program.

A major part of our time in early 1999 involved a large job-analysis survey conducted across the Web. Scott Murray, the head of our exam-development committee, has experience and education in psychometrics and, working with others in our group, he designed a comprehensive system to conduct a survey of tasks that people do on a daily basis in Linux system administration. After Evan publicized our survey, we had well over 1,200 people participate in the survey process. The survey, which is just being finished as this article is being written, will guide us in constructing the objectives for the first exams.

Another major component of our recent work has been the construction of an advisory council to provide feedback on the direction of our development efforts. To ensure that our program does meet the needs of the Linux community as well as of organizations that would be hiring Linux-certified people, we asked appropriate individuals and organizations to join our advisory council. While a full list may be found on our Web site, at this time our council includes representatives of major distributions (Caldera, Red Hat, Slackware, and S.u.S.E.), Linux International, the Linux Journal, UniForum, the SAGE certification committee, and other information-technology-related organizations.

During this time, we also continued to build our communication with the SAGE certification committee. We have shared information between our efforts and have designated individuals to act as liaisons between the programs. We see similarities between our goals and are eager to cooperate to see if we can build on each other's successes. Unfortunately, with other organizations also working to create a Linux certification program, we cannot afford to wait until the SAGE program can be implemented. Still, it is our hope that as both programs evolve there can be a fit between them.

Finally, we have begun the process of establishing a formal nonprofit corporation and also of seeking financing through a corporate sponsorship program.

The Future
Over the next few months, we will be finishing the development and deployment of much of the first level of our exams. As we complete those efforts, there will be still more distribution-specific exams to implement. We also will begin the development of our second- and third-level exams. Through all this, we will be focusing on marketing the program and finding partners interested in promoting our program and message.

Our challenge is quite different from that faced by the SAGE certification committee in several ways. First, while there are differences among Linux distributions, they are relatively minor compared with the differences among versions of UNIX. Second, there has been very little resistance to the concept of Linux certification within the larger Linux community. Part of that may stem from the high number of Windows converts who have seen what certification has done for Microsoft. Finally, there are market pressures, in that several other entities are developing Linux certification programs.

How You Can Help
We want to make sure this certification program is different from and better than other IT industry certification programs. To that end, we ask for your assistance in helping us build the program. We have well over 200 people on our mailing lists, and there is always room for more assistance. Please visit our Web site (<http://www.lpi.org/>) and join in our discussions. Please also watch our Web site for other opportunities to participate. For instance, in May and June 1999 we will be seeking volunteers to participate in our alpha- and beta-testing of our first exams. Please join us!

Conclusion
Within the world of Linux, certification for individuals will definitely occur. The question is who will do the certifying. We created the Linux Professional Institute and developed our program because we believe that such certification should be given by a nonprofit entity with support from members of the Linux community. We believe that Linux certification should not be something handled by a single vendor or company. Still, there are other programs underway (see the Resources), and it may ultimately be the market who decides who has the strongest and best certification program.

It's been an exciting experience over the past months that has definitely shown the value and power of a community-based program. The number of talented volunteers who have stepped forward to assist has truly been inspiring. We invite SAGE members who are interested to join with us and help us create a certification program that truly represents the best that we in the Linux and UNIX community can offer.


RESOURCES RELATING TO LINUX CERTIFICATION

A more complete and updated list may be found on the "Links" section of the LPI Web site:
   <http://www.lpi.org/>

Articles relating to certification:
   <http://www.linuxgazette.com/issue33/york.html>
   <http://www.linuxgazette.com/issue34/york.html>
   <http://www.linuxgazette.com/issue35/york.html>
   <http://www.linuxgazette.com/issue37/york.html>

Linux Training Resources:
   <http://www.linuxtraining.org/>

Linux Journal Forum:
   <http://www.linuxjournal.com/HyperNews/get/certification.html>

Other Linux certification programs:
   SAIR, Inc.
     <http://www.linuxcertification.org/>
   DigitalMetrics
     <http://www.digitalmetrics.com/>
   Red Hat
     <http://www.redhat.com/>