Re: Training and certification

I recall an extended discussion of certifications and
training some time back. You may recall it, too.

The outcome (if it may be so called) was the view
that, given the nature of the PostgreSQL project,
there exists no entity that can bless a certification
and thereby make it "official", any more than there
can be (for example) an "official" linux
certification. Any certifications would have to be
offered by those with an interest in doing so (Red Hat
is an often cited example).

Another outcome I recall was that one or more people
(apparently) stated their intention to develop
training materials that could be available for use by
people wishing to learn about PostgreSQL. But I
haven't heard another thing about that.

AFAICS nothing has changed. I am a little frustrated
by that, because a generally-acknowledged PostgreSQL
curriculum, with training materials available, would
be a very good thing. But I can't talk too loudly,
because I don't have time to contribute to that.

--- Bret Busby <bret(at)busby(dot)net> wrote:
>
> I realise that these have been discuuseed before,
> but a couple of things
> have happened that caused me to bring this up again,
> and to raise some
> questions.
>
> A couple of nights ago, a seminar was presented in
> Perth, Western
> Australia, by an institution offering IT masters
> degrees. One of the
> masters degrees, was a Master of Systems Development
> (MSD). Their
> masters degrees incorporated industry certification.
> The MSD
> incorporated the Microsoft MCAD and MCSD, and
> related to .NET systems
> development. The institution is also investigating
> possibly offering a
> similar masters degree, relating specifically to, or
> emphasising,
> databases. After the presentation, I asked the
> presenter about the
> possibility of incorporating open source, rather
> than proprietary system
> development, with open source industry
> certification. Unfortunately, the
> only open source industry certification that was
> relevant, that I could
> cite, was the MySQL certification set, along with
> LPI and RHCE
> certification, with no apparent industry
> certification for PostgreSQL.
> The presenter said that the institution was
> considering Oracle as a
> possibility in the future, Oracle having industry
> certification.
>
> Thus, recognised, international, industry
> certification of
> open source application systems development, either
> involving PostgreSQL
> as a database backend by itself, or, involving
> PostgreSQL as a factor
> (eg, open source database applications development
> involving either
> PostgreSQL or MySQL as separate options, or,
> competency with both),
> could be useful, apart from having the
> internationally recognised
> industry certification in its own right, encouraging
> acceptance of open
> source software development in such qualifications
> as these masters
> degrees with their incorporated recognised
> international industry
> certification.
>
> In trying to find the organisation that I had
> understood to be the main
> one for providing PostgreSQL certification (I had
> understood that it was
> PostgreSQL.com, or something like that, or, possibly
> pgsql.com) and,
> being unable to find any details of any
> competency-based certification
> at these sites, I did a bit of searching, and I
> found a postgresql.org
> web page at
>
http://www.postgresql.org/survey.php?View=1&SurveyID=22
> ,
> which gave the results of a survey, with the
> question "Should we create
> a standard worldwide PostgreSQL training course?",
> with 79.691% of the
> votes, being votes for the yes side - and of that
> percentage, 50.386
> "strongly yes". The survey is not dated, so I do not
> know how long ago
> it was held. However, it appears to have indicated
> support for "a
> standard worldwide PostgreSQL training course".
>
> On the web page, whils other survey questions are
> listed, no further
> reference is made to the result of the survey, for
> example, "The
> PostgreSQL guru's are <investigating the possibility
> of> developing a
> standard worldwide PostgreSQL traing course, in
> response to the survey
> results".
>
> So, I ask, given the result of the poll, however old
> it is, is any
> action being taken, to develop "a standard worldwide
> PostgreSQL training
> course", or set of such courses (eg, core, DBA,
> developer,
> PHP|Perl/PostgreSQL web developer, etc)?
>
> I also found a web page at
> http://advocacy.postgresql.org/advantages/?lang=en ,
> in which the text
> was included;
> "our training programs are generally regarded as
> being more
> cost-effective, manageable, and practical in the
> real world than that
> of the leading proprietary database vendors.".
>
> To what training programs, does this refer? Are they
> standardised, or,
> does this refer to separate, independent,
> autonomous, individual
> training programs that are not standardised?
>
> Also, in my searching, I did manage to find a
> certification at
> http://www.postgresql.at/certification.html , which
> also has a link to
> training provided by that company. From the web
> site, it appears that
> the training/certtification provided by that
> company, is of ten days
> duration, assumedly of 8 hours per day, thence 80
> hours, the equivalent
> of about 6 hours per week over a 13 week period,
> plus two hours, thence,
> the equivalent of a single semester, university
> unit.
>
> That appeared to be the only detailed
> training/certification course that
> I could find in PostgreSQL.
>
> From the web page at
> http://techdocs.postgresql.org/companies.php , that
> company appears to be a small company in Austria,
> and the company and
> certification appear to be recognised by
> PostgreSQL.org .
>
> Is that the only PostgreSQL certification that is
> recognised? Is it
> recognised internationally?
>
> Thank you in anticipation, for answers to all of
> these questions.
>
> --
> Bret Busby
> Armadale
> West Australia
> ..............
>
> "So once you do know what the question actually is,
> you'll know what the answer means."
> - Deep Thought,
> Chapter 28 of
> "The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy:
> A Trilogy In Four Parts",
> written by Douglas Adams,
> published by Pan Books, 1992
> ....................................................
>
>
> ---------------------------(end of
> broadcast)---------------------------
> TIP 5: Have you checked our extensive FAQ?
>
>
> http://www.postgresql.org/docs/faqs/FAQ.html
>

__________________________________
Do you Yahoo!?
New and Improved Yahoo! Mail - Send 10MB messages!
http://promotions.yahoo.com/new_mail