Ubuntu Certified Engineer

What is this?

The Ubuntu engineer certification is a programme (currently in development) aimed at certifying professionals competent at administering an Ubuntu system. In a similar vein to the RHCE and MCSE, the Ubuntu certification will ascertain that individuals holding them possess a minimum level of skill required to perform key tasks.

Why are we doing it?

Some reasons (amongst others) are:

• To provide an unbiased, recognised benchmark to assist both employers and skilled Ubuntu individuals
• To demonstrate that Ubuntu is as viable a business operating system as it is in its community
• To enable Ubuntu enthusiasts to show their commitment and challenge them to test their competence
• To grow the base of Ubuntu system administrators

How are we doing it?

To avoid reinventing the wheel, we are building on existing achievements in Linux certification by basing the Ubuntu certification on the LPI (Linux Professional Institute) level 1 certification. The exam associated with the Ubuntu certification will include the two standard LPI level 1 tests and a third Ubuntu-specific test in addition to that. (This means that existing LPI certification holders can upgrade to an Ubuntu certification by successfully completing the third test, while a participant completely new to the process will need to pass all three tests.)

We would like to involve the community as far as possible in the creation of the Ubuntu engineer certification. We believe this is the only way to create a certification that is unbiased and reflects the real needs of the people it is intended to serve.

So what now?

The first step in creating the certification is creating the vision. This is where we define what sorts of tasks a certified Ubuntu engineer may be expected to do. These tasks can be based on

1. What existing Ubuntu engineers / system administrators do
2. What potential or current employers expect their engineers to be able to do
3. What we foresee Ubuntu engineers doing in the near future when Ubuntu is thriving in the business place

NB: The purpose of this exercise is to create a list of Ubuntu-specific tasks. In other words, tasks that are generic to all Linux systems should not be included in this list. To help you, the list of objectives of the LPI level 1 certification has been included [:/LPIC1Objectives:here]. Please see [http://www.lpi.org/] for more information on the LPI and the objectives of the LPI certification.

How does this work?

• A [http://www.ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=31904 recent poll] suggested the need to differentiate between a certified desktop and server engineer. So we have begun by separating out desktop-oriented tasks from server-oriented ones.

• Some preliminary categories and tasks have been created to start the ball rolling
• Feel free to add tasks and/or new categories
• Do not be concerned about adding tasks that you think are less important or not carried out frequently. These tasks will later be subjected to a survey that will prioritize them and allow us to determine their relative importance.

• Please do not add tasks that are included in the LPI level 1 certification. There is a [:/LPIC1Objectives:summarised list] of LPI level 1 objectives on this site, and a [http://www.lpi.org/en/lpic.html detailed explanation] of the objectives on the LPI site.

• A discussion forum will be created to discuss issues arising from this activity
• This list will be open to the public until Wednesday 13 July 2005 06:00 UTC, so please do not tarry.

Thanks in advance to all our participants. Be creative and have fun!

The Task Lists

Click on the links below to view or edit the task lists.

• [:/DesktopTasklist:Desktop-oriented Task List]: Task list for the Ubuntu certified desktop engineer

• [:/ServerTasklist: Server-oriented Task List]: Task list for the Ubuntu certified server engineer