Hello,
I guess I look at the certification as a little different. I want to
know the person understands Linux administration well enough that they
can install any package and not just a few here and there. That they can
administer the machines they are hired to administer. Who cares if it is
Nagios, BASE, Acid, or something entirely different, SQL is an important
chunk of knowledge for anyone to know who is an administrator of a
system. Just as knowing how to install dependencies, I can think of
other ways than emerge to do the same thing. As long as the basics of
dependency resolution is in the exam does it matter if it is using
emerge, RPM, YaST, dpkg, straight recompilation from source, etc?
We must agree to disagree I believe, from my perspective SQL is
important to know due to the tools I am asked to use as an Administrator
. To me SQL is like Perl, Shell, TCL, Python, etc.... Just another
language that should be in my toolbox for administering a system as I
will need to use it either daily, weekly, or eventually. Given my
current tasks it is extremely important. I do not think I would hire
(and yes this is in my job description) an administrator that did not
have the basics of at least the CREATE, SELECT, and DELETE SQL99 statements.
Best regards,
Edward Haletky
Alan McKinnon wrote:
On Wed, 2007-11-07 at 09:11 -0500, Edward L. Haletky wrote:
Hello,
The testing should say 'This person is qualified to administer systems.'
To me that includes understanding SQL as while the applications
mentioned are not to be tested, the underlying commands necessary to
install the applications requires issuing SQL statements.
This statement is just ridiculous. The ONLY thing we ever test is the
ability to install and configure something correctly. So what you have
said is that we don't test installing e.g. nagios but we will test this
one thing about installing nagios - a related SQL statement. So, what is
being tested? Nagios, or SQL? It's one or the other, it cannot be both,
as that violates testing methodology
Of course the
administrator can just parrot the commands, but I would rather they know
what they are doing just in case there are issues. As for what to test,
use the SQL99 Standard and only on CREATE, SELECT, ALTER, DROP, and
DELETE commands. Definitely limit it to the biggees that will be used. I
can not tell you how many times as an administrator I am asked to tie in
administrative tools into a database so someone can write a pretty
report for someone else or an application install requires me to issue
these commands. As an example, the local highschool system administrator
is now in need of learning SQL.
But how important is it for the *general* user, the mythical
minimally-qualified person? I cannot tell you how many times I have to
resolve dependency blockers to get something to install at all and I
have to use emerge for this - it's vital to my job. But, it's not in the
LPIC-1 exam as it does not represent the vital stuff that an LPIC-1
qualified person *must* know.
alan
Best regards,
Edward Haletky
Alan McKinnon wrote:
Hi,
I do agree with your observation, but not with your conclusion.
Yes, SQL knowledge is very handy. However, an LPI cert tests the
essential knowledge at a specific level and certifies that the person
holding the certificate at least has a clue.
By no stretch of the imagination can we consider SQL knowledge to be an
essential skill for a Linux admin, especially as not one of the examples
you mention are relevant or tested at LPIC-1 level. It seems very silly
to me to not test Nagios on the exam but somehow require a person to
know how Nagios talks to a database.
For that matter, which SQL dialect would the candidate be tested on?
alan
On Wed, 2007-11-07 at 07:47 -0500, Edward L. Haletky wrote:
Hello,
I would expect an Administrator to have basic SQL knowledge at the very
least. Almost all tools these days plugin to an SQL server for some
reason. Look at an Intrusion Detection System (Snort/Barnyard/BASE
(Acid)), System Monitoring Package (Nagios), Hardware Monitoring via
Vendor code, etc. The list is pretty long so SQL queries are becoming
more useful in daily Administrative jobs. Granted, they do not need to
be DB admins but knowledge of the syntax or where to get the syntax is
very important.
Best regards,
Edward Haletky
AstroArch Consulting, Inc.
[EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
Hi!
So, I was thinking a lot about what I heard at the TAC meeting about the update of the LPIC-1 objectives. And I am really not sure if 106.3 SQL Data Management is really fitting. I forgot the exact job title, but I wouldn't expect a "Professional" Linux User / power user / junior level administrator to have SQL knowledge. I don't see for which tasks in that level it would be needed. My opinion.
This is my first email here, so sorry if I didn't keep any specific format that
I was suppose to use, I couldn't find any information about that.
Amy
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