The long-awaited answer to the burning question is "yes." We can do certification and the need exists. In January the SAGE Executive Committee made the decision to continue forward with system-administrator certification.

In this article we'll first cover a strawman of the overall plan and then specifics of the short-term (this year) goals.

An overall certification program will need to have a core track with probably three levels of difficulties or progressions. Let's call each of these a "module," for lack of a better word. So there would be three core modules: beginner, intermediate, and advanced, for example. There may also be specialty modules: security, networks, databases, etc. The specialties may or may not have modules at different levels of difficulties.

Each module would have a set of required elements to achieve certification for that module. Each core module will likely have three elements:

The reason for multiple-choice test elements is their cost-effectiveness. The other elements will cover requirements not well suited to that type of testing. The third element could be another type of test, or it could be something like training credits, achieving N specialty modules, job experience, etc. As any set of modules progresses in difficulty, there would be a greater emphasis on analytical skills.

This overall plan is quite ambitious. However, the basic idea is required for the context of the first phase. The first phase will consist of:

A fact of life is that multiple-choice tests are fast, easy, and relatively inexpensive to both develop and deliver. The first one can and will be done in parallel with development of the overall program structure and further definition and development of other module test elements.

So by the end of this year SAGE will have a basic program laid out and the first element, if not the whole module, implemented. The fun has just begun.