Peer Note (not speaking on behalf of any entity, just as a peer): - It's important to put forth what you want out of LPI Certification/Exam options, so LPI can focus best. -
On Sat, Apr 17, 2021 at 10:04 PM Rilindo Foster <[email protected]> wrote: > ... > - Having recently taken the Red Hat remote exam, I don’t recommend that > approach, since 1) The support and development effort is likely to be > expensive, cost of which will have to be reflected in the exam price 2) the > work for the test taker to get the environment ready is going to be a pain > (you only need to look at the RH forums to see people running into issues > just trying to boot the USB). > So, since another entity came up, understand I have massive insider knowledge here. I will only share the bits I can, and are well-known. I only do this for 'perspective.' Having represented another organization for a good decade, 7 years as direct FTE (full time employee, actual salary and stock grants, etc... not just a contractor with their address, which is common too), several of those years supporting both their 'Training' and 'Partner' divisions, the hands-on/remote-testing is a very costly dedication and has it's own issues. 1) Expensive - It's extremely expensive, about $2K/day ($1K/half-day) in testing costs -- although the entity to subsidize much of that with Training, that's now not quite the same case 2) Kiosk-issues - The Kiosk approach saves some, but it has its system requirements and connection issues -- things that aren't as good in-person, let alone one still cannot just go to any Prometric or Pearson-Vue location 3) Partner-alternative - The entity's wouldn't accept the in-person and, later, Kiosk approach for 80-90%+ of their associates (definitely sales engineers, but even technical implementation personnel too), so even -- for much of partners, and even some of the entity's internal, associate training -- we developed another program because the traditional, hands-on and remote-systems don't scale as well (and there were 'ownership' issues I cannot go into) For those of us who paid out-of-pocket for #1 (I even did as a direct, FTE -- weird 'costing,' long story), when #2 fails, it's not just the exam costs, but the travel costs too. I've had 1 out of 3 of my appointments fail entirely, and have to be rescheduled, which ultimately led to my losing my Architect (RHCA) certification (while still a direct FTE). As far as #3, I even named the specific partner program, and was directly responsible (with a handful of other people) for its first 6 months (long story, most I cannot share). This finally led to their Training (and Certification) doing the same (I was also involved with them) later2014, eventually leading to the learning subscriptions too. It also has had its issues. Even when I worked at one of their strategic, on-line partners 4 years later, our dedicated systems/networks (yes, dedicated optical lambdas) we augmented their existing AWS infrastructure at times. It's getting much better again for them. Lots of good people, resourceful involved. But it's far from rosey, and when you pay US$7,000/year out-of-pocket ($3,500/year if you're an RHCA, 50% off, like I did), you don't like to have issues. Everyone's experiences will vary, but keep this in mind ... If this entity has issues, and has several hundreds of times the revenue of LPI (let alone makes money on Training, unlike LPI) ... it means everyone does. ;) -- Bryan J Smith - http://www.linkedin.com/in/bjsmith E-mail: b.j.smith at ieee.org or me at bjsmith.me
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