Canonical Begins Ubuntu Server Edition Training
Canonical, as expected, has introduced training for Ubuntu Server Edition. I asked Billy Cina, Canonical’s Training Programmes Manager, for an update on the effort. Here are her thoughts.
First, a little background. WorksWithU in April 2009 reported that Canonical was launching online and face-to-face training for Ubuntu Server Edition. Training centers such as Fast Lane and Bridge Education vowed to offer the courses.
Now, the update from Cina. “We had the first beta run of the server course and it went very well,” Cina says. “A commercial services customer purchased most of the seats as part of their deployment package. We are now tweaking it before release for classroom instruction at the end of June.”
I asked Cina if Canonical plans to also introduce training for Landscape 1.3, the remote management tool for Ubuntu. “Landscape is part of the Ubuntu Certified Professional and Server courses; no plans at the moment to create an independent course for that,” she says.
Cina also noted that Canonical and the Linux Professional Institute (LPI) are offering a special promotion on Ubuntu exams.
As we’ve reported, Canonical is seeking to build an ecosystem around Ubuntu Server Edition. The ecosystem will included trained IT professionals, independent software vendors (ISVs), and hardware providers.
For instance, Ubuntu 9.04 has been tested to run on 45 different server configurations from Dell, Hewlett-Packard, IBM, Lenovo, Sun Microsystems and other server makers, notes Canonical CEO Mark Shuttleworth. Also, Canonical is expected to announce a closer working relationship with the HP ProLiant server team within weeks — though the relationship doesn’t include Ubuntu Server Edition preloads.
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Has Ubuntu achieved any security certifications to be used in U.S. government applications for example? If not, is Canonical working toward such things?
Here are some Red Hat has achieved over the years.
Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5 has now achieved the Evaluation Assurance Level 4 (EAL 4+) for Labeled Security Protection Profile (LSPP), Controlled Access Protection Profile (CAPP), and Role-Based Access Control Protection Profile (RBAC).
Hi Paul: I will check in with Canonical on your questions. Thanks for taking the time to raise them. Do you mind disclosing if you work for Red Hat or a Canonical competitor? I always strive to ensure readers understand who’s raising questions and why. Thanks again.
-jp
I do not work for Red Hat or a competitor. I currently work in academia (a large state university) but used to do some government work. I was just curious if they were working towards these certifications to possibly expand their audience.
@Paul: Thanks for telling us a bit more about your background. I will track down the answers to your questions and report back the week of June 1. Thanks for reading WorksWithU.
-jp
Joe:
Paul makes a very good point. Certifications like the ones he’s talking about let you get in the door in certain deployment situations. Because of that barrier to entry, these situations can end up being more lucrative from a service and support revenue pov than small business even though the small business market is larger in terms of raw adoption numbers.
What will be really interesting to see is what sort of certifications become important for secure utility computing. People are really just starting to wrap their heads about security issues in the cloud. Utility computing may break a number of implicit assumptions built into the certification criteria, invalidating the applicability of any of the existing certification levels to utility computing like EC2 instances. We probably don’t know enough yet to know what certifications will become important in the cloud.
-jef
Joe,
Any word on the certifications?
Hey Paul: I will follow up. Just got back from Cisco Partner Summit and will shift gears to Ubuntu world in a few hours 😉
Any word back on this? All the relevan threads started on the Ubuntu forums died with no answers. Especially important for removing impediments to government sector adoption is the Common Criteria Certification.
I’d still like to know as well, but from the slow response I’d wager this is not something Canonical deems important right now.
Here it is a year later and there still isn’t an answer. Just say “we didn’t do it and don’t care to.” There’s no shame in it, is there?