Saturday, 12 July 2014

CompTIA Server+ Certification

The Server+ Certification is provided by CompTIA, which is a non-profit trade association and provides various professional certifications for the IT industry, all over the world. CompTIA’s certifications including the Server+ certification are recognized by the American National Standards Institute (ANSI) which increases their significance in the IT industry.

CompTIA Server+ certification is a vendor-neutral certification for Professionals working in environments or providing technical support to servers. Server+ certification focuses on the knowledge and practical skills of IT professionals regarding server hardware and server operating systems, server specific concepts such as RAID, SCSI, multiple CPUs and disaster recovery.

Professionals certified with CompTIA’s Server+ certification having authenticated technical knowledge and skills which are required in a server based environment including the installation, maintenance, troubleshooting and providing support for server hardware and software. The Server+ exam covers in detail server related procedures such as virtualization, disaster recovery and server security policies.

Exam Requirements

Server+ certification was initially developed in 2001 and was later updated in 2005 and then in 2009. CompTIA’s recommendations regarding Server+ include that the candidates should be having 18 to 24 months of experience related to Industry Standard Server Architecture (ISSA) technology and a CompTIA A+ certification, although the latter is not an official pre-requisites in any way. The latest Server+ certification exam is known as SK0-003 and the exam consists of 100 questions which have to be attempted within 90 minutes. The passing score on a scale of 100 – 900 is 750. The exam is currently available in English language only and costs $239 for each attempt, with discounts available for CompTIA members.

The Server+ certification has the advantage of Lifetime validity and also in the combination forms of A+/Network+, A+/Server+ or with Security+ certifications, It also works a s an elective exam for Microsoft Certified Systems Administrator (MCSA) certification.

Exam Topics

The latest version of the Server+ certification exam was designed to accommodate the advancements in the server technology field that have occurred since the last exam version of 2005. The latest edition of the Server+ certification known as the Server+ exam SK0-003 covers the following six domains of expertise:

System Hardware
Software
Storage
IT Environment
Disaster Recovery
Troubleshooting

In contrast to the 2009 version of the exam, the previous version, Server+ exam SK0-002 covered the following eight domains:
General Server Hardware Knowledge
Installation
Configuration
Upgrading
Proactive Maintenance
Environment
Troubleshooting and Problem Determination
Disaster Recovery

Candidates can take the Server+ exams at the Pearson VUE and Prometric testing centers all over the world. Possibility remains that the latest version of the exam SK0-003 will be released internationally in the form of phases as it is translated into other languages. The previous version Server+ exam SK0-002 is expected to be retired by the end of the year.


Monday, 7 July 2014

CompTIA Linux+ Certification 2014

The Linux+ Certification 2014 is provided by CompTIA, which is a non-profit trade association and provides various professional certifications for the IT industry, all over the world. CompTIA also provides membership programs which include informative resources for the businesses and allows them to stay updated and at the forefront of the IT industry. CompTIA’s certifications including the Server+ certification are recognized by the American National Standards Institute (ANSI) which increases their significance in the IT industry.

CompTIA’s Linux+ Certification 2014 focuses on knowledge of the Linux operating system and its variant operating systems, including details regarding their installation and operation and the basic concepts of free software and open source licenses, associated with these operating systems. Professionals having the Linux+ Certification 2014 have the skills and knowledge to use the Linux command line, perform installation, configuration and maintenance of Linux workstations as well as assisting users with Linux.

Ever since its release the CompTIA Linux+ Certification 2014 exam has received some criticism about the huge number of questions related to hardware that were on the exam in its initial versions, the same kind of questions, which were covered on the A+ exam also. However the newest version of the exam has removed this discrepancy. The evolution of the CompTIA Linux+ Certification 2014 began in July, 2008 and incorporated a Job Task Analysis (JTA), in which subject experts on the operating system evaluated job roles and assignments of IT professionals involved with open source operating systems. This information is then used for the purpose of to updating the exam objectives of Linux+ Certification 2014s.

Linux+ Certification 2014 Requirements

Candidates attempting the Linux+ Certification 2014 must have 6 to 12 months of practical experience using the Linux operating system and its administration. The certification consists of two exams the LX0-101 and LX0-102. There are 60 questions on each exam and the duration of the exams is 90 minutes Passing score of 500 is required on a scale of 200-800. Currently the exam is available in English language with the German, Brazilian, Portuguese, Chinese and Spanish languages versions planned to be introduced soon by CompTIA.

CompTIA’s recommendations for Linux+ prerequisites are the CompTIA A+ and CompTIA Network+ certifications along with practical experience. The previous version of the Linux+ Certification 2014 exam was the exam XK0-002, which is scheduled to be retired at the end of October 2010.

Exam Topics

Exam topics frequently include subject matter related to the installation methods of Linux, configuration of boot loader, RPM management systems, working with Linux directories using the command line and bash shell, security matters, network administration, mounting file systems and configuration files of applications that Linux servers commonly run. Also included are topics about system architecture, GNU and Unix commands, devices under Linux, file systems and their hierarchy standard.

The configuration and usage of the X Window system is also a part of formal exam objectives, but questions regarding this topic rarely appear in the exam. The reason for this that the exam is concentrated more on use and working of the Linux operating system in the server and networks domain as compared to its use as a desktop