Some basics on Solaris certification

by Loretta W. Prencipe

March 26, 2001 —

For Solaris administrator certifications, IT professionals must learn basic user and system administration using the tools and features specific to this version of Unix.

The basics

Who offers training

Sun, various developers, and independent technical training providers

Latest offerings

Certification for Solaris 8 became available through Prometric, as of February 2001.

Operating environment upgrade exam also offered

Course load and duration

Number: 2 courses (varies by vendor and depends on the IT professional's work experience; CPE credits also vary by trainer)

Length: 12-16 hours per course (varies by trainer)

Costs

Usually under $500 per course (varies by trainer)

Certification objectives

Identify installation commands pkgadd, pkginfo, pkgchk, and pkgrm

Differentiate the effect of selected unmask values on the permissions assigned to newly created files and directories

Differentiate between /etc/mnttab and /etc/vfstab

Solaris 8 Certification exam specifics

Questions: 57

Question types: multiple choice, free response, drop and drag

Passing score: 66%

Duration: 90 minutes

What people are saying

"Even in the economic downturn, we're seeing an increasing need for Unix -- particularly Sun/Solaris -- certified system administrators and engineers. The market is turning toward wide-area and Internet-based solutions which for the most part are Unix-platform dependent."

-- Craig Twiste, principal, HR Staffing Solutions, Atlanta

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