How useful and difficult is the ACTC certification material?

October 21, 2009 1:28 PM

My boss may be offering me an ACTC certification. I don't know whether computers are a hobby or a career for me, and I have limited free time. Should I talk to him seriously about sponsoring (paying the fees) me for the exam?

I work at a small Mac shop supporting (not alone, obviously) a few dozen computers, a few servers, and a print system. The print system was built in-house, and we use Radmind on the client machines (although we're now exploring some imaging/ASR alternatives/supplements). Like most of my colleagues, my experience is primarily from Linux and UNIX-based CS courses, which leads to interesting problems sometimes.

I'm very interested in computers, and daydream about some kind of techy job, whether as a sysadmin or a programmer. I would totally jump at this chance to learn an operating system on someone else's dime, except I'm also a student and I cannot realistically reserve any significant amount of time to this effort except during the month of December.

So, broken out into more specific parts, my question is this:

1. How will knowing the ACTC material help me do my job, which includes both Apple-supported software and others? In other words, how relevant is the curriculum?

2. What is an ACTC certification worth in a prospective sysadmin?

3. Is it realistic to expect a pass after a month's study? My boss has made vague suggestions of willingness to buy study material and an examination for anyone who was interested, but he would then (reasonably) expect a serious effort to pass the exam.

Anonymous because I'd prefer my boss not to know my reservations going into this. Throwaway email at [e-mail] for clarification.

posted by anonymous to Technology (1 answer total)

First, you need to spend some time reading about the different Apple certifications before you can decide whether ACTC is the appropriate certification for you job. For instance, you may only need the Apple Certified Support Professional (ACSP). Only you can really figure this out, since we don't have an overly detailed description of your job.

My general rule of thumb is that anyone supporting Mac OS X Server on a daily basis needs to be ACTC and possibly ACSA, with the latter being reserved for those who are comfortable with the command line, the Unix underpinnings, directory services, and custom scripting (shell, perl, etc.)

You say your shop is using Radmind for workstation maintenance and parity, so there must be someone there with at least some familiarity with Mac OS X command-line tools. U-Mich has made Radmind must more accessible to entry-level Mac sysadmins, but there's still a fairly steep learning curve with understanding the "engine" that Radmind uses to operate (transcripts, negatives, fsdiff, etc.). If *you* are the one that's built Radmind at this shop and are maintaining it, then you should definitely explore ACTC and possibly ACSA.

The Apple-led classes are excellent (I used to lead them int the 10.2 and 10.3 days), but they are expensive. The secret here that Apple doesn't really want you to know is that most of what's covered in the classes can be learned from the excellent (and Apple-authorized) Mac OS X Server Administration books (10.4 by Regan, 10.5 by Marczak; and 10.6 isn't released yet but I know the author personally and he promises me he's working hard on it). The issue here is to ask yourself if you can learn from these books. Some people learn well from books and others need a structured environment with a lab where you run through the exercises with an Apple Certified Trainer.

Furthermore, Apple just switched on their certifications for Snow Leopard five days ago. These classes and tests are so new that nobody really knows what the differences are. Most Mac sysadmins, myself included, are just getting around to installing Snow Leopard Server to play with. It's a new beast with significant under-the-hood changes (e.g. Dovecot for its mail engine, for instance). So right now is an interesting time for you to get certified. Figure out whether you want 10.5 or 10.6 certifications, because both are still offered and they are different things.

To answer your questions specifically:

1. How will knowing the ACTC material help me do my job, which includes both Apple-supported software and others? In other words, how relevant is the curriculum?

It depends on your job responsibilities and your work environment. The curriculum for each of these courses/books can really only apply to Apple software. They rarely, if ever, deviate from this, and then only to discuss "best practices" or the integration of a common 3rd-party technology into Apple's technology (AD integrating with OD, for instance).

2. What is an ACTC certification worth in a prospective sysadmin?

This kind of depends on where you live. I live and work in the NJ/NY metro area. There are, even in this shitty economy, still jobs out there for talented Mac sysadmins and techs. In other parts of country, this may not be the case. If you don't live in a part of the country where there are established large bases of Macs and Mac users (NY, San Fran, Portland, Santa Fe, Miami, Minneapolis, Austin to name a few), then a certification from Apple may not be as valuable. I think that if you're employer is willing to pay for the class and the test, then go for it. The test is only $150 but the classes are often $1000 - $1500 for 4/5 days of training.

3. Is it realistic to expect a pass after a month's study? My boss has made vague suggestions of willingness to buy study material and an examination for anyone who was interested, but he would then (reasonably) expect a serious effort to pass the exam.

Yes, probably. Especially if you are already a Mac server sysadmin and have a base of Macs that can be your testing pool. Most of the tests are about 90-100 questions, with the first few being informational and not counting towards the total...so a 90 question test would have like 83 "real" and "countable" questions. Passing for every Apple test I've ever taking is 72 percent or higher, although I seem to remember the 10.2 or 10.3 ACSA exam having a lower pass threshold because it was ridiculously difficult.

Hope this is helpful. Feel free to MeMail or E-mail me (info in my profile) if you have any further questions. I obviously live and breathe this stuff.
posted by mrbarrett.com at 8:04 PM on October 21, 2009