After years in the making—and after some people had given up on ever seeing it—the distribution-neutral Linux Professional Institute and its affiliate, LPI-Japan, have finally jointly launched the LPIC-3 certification program.

The LPIC-3 represents the highest level of distribution-neutral Linux certification within the industry and is targeted at Linux professionals providing IT services at the enterprise level. The certification consists of a single "core" exam (LPI-301) along with additional "specialty" certifications.

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The new certification is meant to be the equivalent of the more well-known RHCE (Red Hat Certified Engineer) and NCLP (Novell Certified Linux Professional). These are high-level certifications that are meant for seasoned Linux professionals.

Jeff Smith, IBM's vice president of Linux and open-source and middleware, stated that "Linux has become an unstoppable force in the enterprise market and with its new certification program, LPI is raising the bar for excellence for Linux training. With its vendor-neutral approach to Linux training and certification, LPI is helping Linux professionals support the strong industry demand for high quality enterprise-level skills."

The LPIC-3's core exam (LPI 301) focuses on skills in authentication, troubleshooting, network integration, and capacity planning. This, in turn, can be supplemented by additional specialty certifications, the first of which will be Mixed Environments (LPI-302). Additional proposed specialty certifications include Security, High Availability and Virtualization, Web and Intranet, and Mail and Messaging.

Read the full story on Linux-Watch: LPI Releases Top-Level Linux Certification

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