Solaris or MCSA?

[2576]

Hello guys, I know most of you have years of experience doing unix work but this is my question. I got 2 years experience doing admin work, got ccnp, mcse (nt4), ccna, net + and a+, I wanna go to school to get certified in solaris cause i've always wanted to learn unix, on the other hand i haven't upgrade my mcse, should i stick to windows even though i wanna learn unix?

 

[setnaffa]

get a redhat cd and a $200 used pc and teach yourself linux... that will give you a better handle on the next step; although lots of free solaris training resources are available, linux may be more useful long-term...

unless you know of a job opening? Setnaffa is an MCP-W2K (working on W2K) with a few other certs, too...

 

[waaw]

Better go for "certified unix security administrator". Will get more inf from

http://www.sans.org

 

[kcongdon]

2576,

I'm A+, MCSE-NT4 too. I'm also a junior Solaris admin. I'm not bothering with upgrading my MCSE - the program keeps changing too much and I never got my money's worth out of my MCSE.

From what I've seen, UNIX admins make more $$$. Compare the salary surveys at

http://www.sage.org

and MCP magazine. Also, everybody and his/her brother offers Microsoft training. This does not seem to be true of UNIX training. The UNIX field does not appear to be as glutted with junior people from training programs as the Microsoft world.

If I had the time, I'd focus on learning how to make UNIX and Windows work together. This would be a unique skillset and would be a use for the Windows skills.

To learn Solaris, you can also run Solaris for X86 on a Windows/Intel type PC. This is closer to the "real" SPARC Solaris UNIX than Linux. Check

http://www.sun.com

or an E-bay auction for the software.

 

[abctips]

So, I hear lotsa free solaris training/self-study
material can be found online or something?
Well, I can spend the time looking for such info
but thought I should ask for links as it shouldn't
be much of a problem if you've had them
saved somewhere 'eh

Any useful self-study Solaris 8 or 9 material/links
would be of great help.

Thanks much.

p.s I have a feeling I'm not the first person asking
for such material and I almost made posting to FAQ..hmmm??

 

[iolair]

Being a Novell CNE for many years, I took a Microsoft exam on Windows 2000 Server, and earned an MCP. I am currently working on Solaris certification. If you master the general concepts of any of these systems, you can get a good handle on the others. Of course, specific commands and how you do things are different, but the concepts are the same. I'm going with Unix because it's been around for a long time, and it's stable. Also, if you learn Unix, you can figure out lots of other things - like Cisco, Linux, AIX, etc.

One tip that I'd like to pass along is this - The Novell exams and the Solaris exams really test your knowledge and experience. I felt the Microsoft exam tries to "trick" people into selecting the wrong answer. If I were hiring, (and I'm about to) I'd much rather have someone who learned how to use the product, instead of learned how not to be tricked on an exam. So, if I were you, yes, I'd get Unix certification, especially if, like me, you really prefer Unix.

Iolair MacWalter