Re: IBM System administration certification.

[Jim Oberholtzer <midrangel@xxxxxxxxxx>]

Rob,

The certification authors (mostly industry people with some IBMrs in the 
mix) write the tests so experience will be important when taking the 
tests.  Also the test is set up so that while you may be weak in one 
area, such as topics like VIOS, if you are strong in other areas, you 
will still successfully navigate the test.  As you have done already 
check out the web site for the objectives.  On that tab you'll see the 
object area (Journaling and Database Administration is the second one) 
and the percentage of questions of the overall test on those 8 topics.  
11% of 87 questions is about one question per topic in that objective.  
Since there is no assesement test for the System Admin test you can use 
the objectives and the topics in each objective to gauge your skill level.

While I did not work on this specific version of the test I have worked 
on the previous version to this one and many of the others and I know 
the SME authors spend a great deal of effort to be sure the questions 
are relevant, technically correct, and can be answered by the qualified 
candidate without too much trouble.

As of now, I am not aware of any activity to update the administration 
test, so I'd go ahead and take it now if your ready.

Jim Oberholtzer
Chief Technical Architect
Agile Technology Architects


On 8/30/2011 4:05 PM, rob@xxxxxxxxx wrote:
> I am not interested in the debate of whether or not certifications are
> worth a bean.  What I want to know is that, for someone who is NOT going
> to be selling systems and who wants to be certified more on the
> administration end than the developer end, what are the steps I should
> pursue?
>
> About all I could see here
> http://www-03.ibm.com/certify/certs/ps_index.shtml
> is "IBM Certified System Administrator - IBM i 6.1".  Ok, I don't have
> systems as old as 6.1, but I'll go with that perhaps it's not that big of
> a jump to 7.1.
>
> Are the next steps:
> - find out if there is an assessment test to prepare you
> - take it
> - based on it then find out what additional education I need and take it
> - take "real" test?
>
> Let's say it is decided that I need it all (I suspect I'd be real weak in
> VIOS).  What should I budget for?
>
> Any heads up that I should wait two months for new certification stuff
> would be appreciated.  Domino is nice enough to post that.
>
>
> Rob Berendt
> -- Group Dekko Dept 1600 Mail to: 2505 Dekko Drive Garrett, IN 46738 
> Ship to: Dock 108 6928N 400E Kendallville, IN 46755 http://www.dekko.com
> --