UCP – Ubuntu Certified Professional Certification.

Aug 10, 2007 by Roger Wheatley

The Ubuntu certification track is available and there is sure to be a demand!

This reminds me of my earlier days when I studied to obtain various certifications, MCSE among others. While later I did check the RHCE and associated certifications, I found (at that time) the costing to be somewhat excessive. In truth I was also somewhat jaded by my experiences with the MCSE certification. To be blunt, demand was very low for MCSE’s after finally obtaining certification (at that time) and that lack left me leary (to invest time and money).

However, given the current marketing and business push by Mark Shuttleworth and Canonical to further entrench Ubuntu in the server and desktop industry, I can increasingly glimmer a more realistic demand for Ubuntu (and Linux in general), within the corporate (and consumer) arena. For many of us that is great news!

So with gusto, it was interesting to learn that Canonical and the Linux Professional Institute had teamed up to conduct the “Ubuntu Certified Professional” (UCP) certification track.

Currently, this is best leveraged by System Administrators (obviously the more experience the easier), who are looking not only to add a focus on Ubuntu, but also at the same time to obtain industry standard credentials. What does this mean? Well…

UCP requires that candidates successfully complete the following exams from the Linux Professional Institute (LPI):

LPI 101 – LPI Level 1, Common across all Linux distributions.
LPI 102 – LPI Level 1, Common across all Linux distributions.
LPI 199 – LPI Ubuntu

As you may see, this allows not only the Ubuntu certification, but automatically garners standard industry certifications.

More information about the certification specifics are found direct from Ubuntu at: www.ubuntu.com/partners/training/certificationcourses/professional

I phoned to obtain testing costs from Prometric and was told:

LPI 101 – $150 (USD)
LPI 102 – $150 (USD)
LPI 199 – $100 (USD)

If you’re seriously entertaining the thought of obtaining UCP credentials, you may ask “Where do I take the exams?”. As with any standard IT related technical certification, they are available at Prometric testing centres. In my opinion, the timing demonstrates a keen business savvy, the purpose of which is sure to further increase the adoption of Ubuntu server and desktop systems.

Personally, I’m VERY interested.