Re: SAGE, certification, and you

[pomeranz@netcom.com (Hal Pomeranz)]

To the SAGE Board and my fellow SAGE members:

I must strongly oppose any effort by SAGE to establish certification
for System Administrators.  The SAGE Board has no mandate, no
authority, and no reason to take on this responsibility.

In the announcement from the Board, Pat mentions that "most
respondents preferred a 'single certification plus special topics'
structure".  But how many respondents and/or their employers
considered certification for System Administrators an
important/desirable objective?  Would the SAGE Board be willing to
publish the complete results of the survey?  Finally, and this cuts
both ways, do we believe that this survey in fact represents any
statistically valid sample?

Furthermore the argument based on the phrase "advancement of Systems
Administration as profession" in our mission statement is an absolute
canard.  I'd far rather modify our mission statement than be forced by
a semantic argument to implement a certification system for our
membership.

I'm also interested in Pat's assertion that "other agencies are
stepping in to fill the 'breach' and setting up certification efforts
of their own".  What are we talking about here outside of the efforts
of certain vendors (Microsoft, Sun, Cisco, etc.) to establish
certification efforts to churn out little technical marketing robots?

One might also ask, who is SAGE to set and enforce a standard for
certification?  We represent a small fraction of the total practicing
Systems Administrators in North America, much less globally.  Outside
of a fairly small and homogenous niche population, we have little or
no recognition.  Not exactly an auspicious certification body.

So why should SAGE even want to create a certification program?  So we
are taken more seriously?  Do you and especially those outside of the
technical arena take credentials like CCIE and ECNE seriously or even
know what they imply?  Will certification help employers make hiring
decisions?  Not hardly, since all they can do is select from
candidates who have demonstrated their ability to regurgitate pat
answers into a test booklet.  Will certification improve salaries in
our profession?  On the contrary, I predict salaries (particularly for
more junior folks) will actually decline significantly as "certified"
people flood the market.

There's another financial issue lurking just around the corner.
Typically, certification programs imply expensive training and
expensive examination fees (which are often recurring since your
technical certification becomes "out of date" every couple of years).
This seems like a mechanism to move money from the pockets of our
membership and their employers into the pocket of whichever training
organization (which, let's face it, probably won't be SAGE or USENIX)
happens to be handling the certification system.  It seems like the
SAGE Board is decidedly not acting in the best interests of its
constituency here.

If SAGE really wants to help advance System Administration as a
profession, let's not rob our membership.  Let's publish more great
informational material-- more short topics books, longer works.  Let's
fund development and projects which advance our knowledge of managing
different types of systems in different environments, and which makes
that job easier.  Let's offer more training opportunities and new
conferences (like a Networking LISA) all over the globe.

So, here's the bottom line.  Tell my why we should pursue certification.
Then prove to me that any significant number of people want it.  Then
demonstrate to me that SAGE is the right organization to establish
certification in our profession.

Hal Pomeranz, Founder/CEO
Deer Run Associates
LISA'97 Co-Chair and candidate for the USENIX Board