Now in the 2nd week of a Unix Systems Administration class, working toward my certification. This section is 10 full Saturdays in a row. Installing Solaris on x86 last week was a bust — hardware compatibility problems throughout the lab. But issues were worked out for today’s session, and we’re up and running. Installed gcc and started adding utilities, both from packages and from source, started customizing the environment. Not too different from working in OS X, BeOS, or Linux, but good to get hands-on Solaris experience, and there’s always so much more to learn. Half lecture and half lab. The sessions fly, packed with info, juicy bits and real-world sysadmin anecdotes.
Music: Vincent Gallo :: Cracks
I’m curious is the University picking up the classes for you or or these on your own?
I’m about to finish my MCSE (on my own) but am considering doing some classes for *nix type stuff/certs and the costs faze me a bit. Maybe I’ll seek out a LUG when the time comes.
A program called CDOP – Career Development Opportunity Program – lets us take a certain number of classes through UC Extension per year. Too good a deal not to take advantage of!
Is there any point in taking Apple’s Xserve certification program? Or does it make more sense to get certified in UNIX server administration or, god forbid, Windows Server administration?
And is there a decent living to be made is this field?
Vic – I’d say the answer to that (obviously) depends on whether you intend to be an XServe specialist. Clearly the market for that skill is smaller and more specialized than general Unix work, and Unix skills apply to XServe work of course. I’d love to have that certification, but it’s expensive to get. I think in terms of getting work, general Unix skills are definitely the way to go. But of course it’s a lot more fun to work with an Xserve :)
A decent living? Sure there is. Depends what your definition of decent is, but you should be able to do 50-100k once experienced — a broad range.