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@busby.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
....................................................

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Am Freitag, 9. Juli 2004 08:30 schrieb Bret Busby:

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
could be useful, apart from having the internationally recognised

I don't even think the often-raised question about who would be entitled to
authorize such a certification program is the hard part. Because, just as
PostgreSQL itself, such a program could come to be recognized more or less by
itself if a lot of people use it. The hard part are the economics of the
whole thing. There is no one who has the capacity to organize such a thing
worldwide. And the whole thing doesn't pay off for the organizer unless you
can scale hugely. If you can solve those questions, I'm all ears. I and the
company I work for does PostgreSQL and other training, so I know what the
economics look like.

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?

It's the only certification that managed to get a link on
www.postgresql.org. :-)

I think the first step is a book called "The Official PostgreSQL Certification Study Guide - Everything You Need to Know to Pass the PostgreSQL Adminsitrator Certification Test (PG-081)" which would be based on the "Official PostgreSQL Certification Syllabus."

All the M$ certifications I have I got by buying a $70 book, reading it, then logging on to a testing center website, paying $115, and driving across town to take the test. I think this is a great model that does not require a big infrastructure of instructors and classrooms, just a book and a contract with Sylvan (or whoever) to administer tests.

Once that is up and running with the book-learning crowd, training companies would get interested in becoming "Authorized" to provide "Official" training, for the classroom learning crowd.

My opinion is, as usual, worth exactly what you paid for it.;^)

Ian

<<< Peter Eisentraut <peter_e@gmx.net> 7/ 9 9:50a >>>
Am Freitag, 9. Juli 2004 08:30 schrieb Bret Busby:

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
could be useful, apart from having the internationally recognised

I don't even think the often-raised question about who would be entitled to
authorize such a certification program is the hard part. Because, just as
PostgreSQL itself, such a program could come to be recognized more or less by
itself if a lot of people use it. The hard part are the economics of the
whole thing. There is no one who has the capacity to organize such a thing
worldwide. And the whole thing doesn't pay off for the organizer unless you
can scale hugely. If you can solve those questions, I'm all ears. I and the
company I work for does PostgreSQL and other training, so I know what the
economics look like.

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?

It's the only certification that managed to get a link on
www.postgresql.org. :-)

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On Fri, 9 Jul 2004, Ian Harding wrote:

I think the first step is a book called "The Official PostgreSQL Certification Study Guide - Everything You Need to Know to Pass the PostgreSQL Adminsitrator Certification Test (PG-081)" which would be based on the "Official PostgreSQL Certification Syllabus."

The problem with that, is that your suggestion refers only to PostgreSQL
Database Administration, and not to PostgreSQL database development,
which is why I referred previously to a set of certifications; eg, Core,
DBA, Database Development, and, Web-based Database Development.

Streams could then be Core -> DBA, for DBA's, and, Core -> Database
Development for Database Developers, then possibly -> Web-based
Database Development (eg <Perl|PHP>/PostgreSQL), for Web Application
Developers.

--
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
....................................................