Get certified!

Open Source is another key area in which the major players are ramping up product releases and training.

Last month distributor Avnet Partner Solutions announced it had taken on the distribution of Novell SuSE Linux enterprise products and launched what it says is Australia’s first Linux testing and certification centre for ISVs, the Novell Authorised Testing Centre (NATC).

Avnet’s Costigan says the initiative with Novell SuSE was a response to increased curiosity from partners about commercialising Linux. The education process around Linux and open source would help infrastructure partners answer questions such as ‘what does it mean if I lead with Linux into a sale?’ he adds.

While admitting that the Australian industry was to some extent still in the transition from awareness to engagement with open source technology, Costigan says that partners would see a lot of large scale tender opportunities open up around Linux.

Other moves are afoot that will bolster the role of open source in the Australian IT industry this year.

Paul Dury, who looks after Global Learning Services and Professional Services for Linux company Red Hat, says the growth of Linux into a "serious corporate contender" has seen a corresponding growth in Red Hat certifications.

The number of courses being offered in A/NZ had doubled in the past year, he says. "We’re seeing a lot of the large banks and telcos getting their people skilled and deploying the product." Dury says the surge in Linux and Red Hat interest at an enterprise level provided an opportunity for the channel.

"Keep in mind that most of those large corporates won’t have designers and implementers. We’re certainly seeing demand for people to come in and look at the architecture."

But he notes that resellers should be rolling out basic Linux certifications through their staff base, warning of a potential skills shortage. "The number of certifications out there haven’t matched the growth of the products."

Despite calling for more Linux qualifications, Dury played down the significance of vendor-neutral qualifications such as Linux+. "We see a bit of it, but they don’t tend to carry as much credibility as a course from a vendor."

Earlier this month Red Hat completed a road show for its new RHEL4 (Red Hat Enterprise Linux 4) product. With security a major component of the new product, Dury says there were additional studies that partners could undertake around the security component.

Also on the training front, Red Hat recently introduced a new certification -- Certified Architect -- to its suite of engineer certifications. Released in the US about two months ago, the qualification was aimed at "the big consulting guys", says Dury.

The certification would allow them to work on major design projects in the large enterprise space. The courses are already available in Australia, but the certification exams (five in total) have yet to be offered here.

Dury says the tests should be available locally within three months, once Red Hat examiners were trained up on how to offer and supervise the ‘hands-on’ exams.

Other open source training opportunities are on the horizon with Sun Microsystems. Another open source player, Sun released the latest version of its Solaris operating system last month. Solaris 10 is an open source product available for free download.

A certification for Solaris 10 is on the way, says Alan Cory, Business Development Manager, Education Services for Sun Australasia.

The certification test, being developed by independent testing body Thomson Prometic, is due to be released by early May. The exam was being developed as a problem-solving exercise in a simulated work environment, says Cory.