... and while I agree with you in principle, in reality, there are lots of
occasions where you will find unskilled people making the decisions based
on what the 'techno-geek' (myself included) are spouting to them.
Oft-times they don't understand much if any at all, so in addition to
references (which they better check), the cert is yet another benchmark
they can apply.

If the certs were done properly, then they wouldn't be so laughable.  But
to some extent, they're better than nothing, as you had to at least have
had the data pass >through> the brain and back <out< again to pass the
cert exam.

If you have the time, money, and people, I agree.  Frequently that isn't
all available to the purchasers, let alone people on their side who can
evaluate the resulting plan.

Many thanks!

Bruce T.

>>>
Bruce T. Harvey
AIX Network Engineer
PNC Bank @ Rivertech
office         301-699-4013
facsimile  301-887-4070
mobile      443-465-1204




"Allen S. Rout" <asr AT UFL DOT EDU>
Sent by: "ADSM: Dist Stor Manager" <ADSM-L AT vm.marist DOT edu>
07/29/10 12:52 PM
Please respond to
"ADSM: Dist Stor Manager" <ADSM-L AT vm.marist DOT edu>


To
ADSM-L AT vm.marist DOT edu
cc

Subject
Re: [ADSM-L] Not technical more managerial question






>> On Thu, 29 Jul 2010 10:39:05 -0400, "Bruce T. Harvey"
<bruce.harvey.nonemployee AT PNC DOT COM> said:


> My two cents: If they person doesn't hold a IBM Certified Advanced
> Deployment Professional - IBM Service Management Tivoli Storage
> Management Solutions V2 certification, then I'd want them to be at
> least a Deployment Professional in TSM and have performed the
> archtecting of at least one or two successful TSM-based
> implementations.  Or have implemented many successful TSM-based
> solutions of varying complexity.


I'm going to come down hard on the other side of the 'certification'
question.

I think an 'architect' needs to have implemented a lot of varying
server configs.  She needs to be able to effectively communicate to
skilled sysadmins the tradeoffs of various config decisions.  She
needs to be able to calmly support her design calls against hostile
internal competition.

I think that certs are possibly a timesaver for decisionmaking by
technically unskilled executives.  However, they are a red herring far
more than they communicate skill.  I say this having been certified
for v3, v4, v5 TSM: this is not sour grapes.


Precisely because they are easy to measure, certs are targets for the
clueless; squeak by, and you're done.  The cert tests are laughable
manual-regurgitation exercises; and the manuals are sometimes wrong.
Sometimes ludicrously so.

If we alternately stipulate good certs do you ever check the
certifying authority? Maybe they're lying.  HR won't check.


... All of this means to me that certs are neither necessary, nor
sufficient, to establish anything relevant to doing the job.  So I'd
say don't put it in unless your chain demands it: instead require that
applicants be prepared to discuss different server config design
decisions they've made over the years.  The candidate you want will be
delighted to show off thought processes and evolution.


- Allen S. Rout

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