SAIR Linux GNU is a Linux program owned by Thomson Prometric, the testing organization with offices across North America and the world.

SAIR, instead of being either “vendor-neutral” or “vendor-specific” could be described as “multi-vendor.”

Bill Patton, the president of SAIR, says that its certification “goes into the configuration of the three different flavors of Linux: SUSE, Red Hat, and Debian.” In his view, there’s great value in a Linux certification whose focus is wider than a single vendor.

Plenty of employers agree. HP uses SAIR as one of its certification partners, Patton notes. And when Reuters made a systems switch, SAIR trained some 1,000 of its IT worker. SAIR has also trained employees of companies like FedEX and GlaxoSmithKline.

SAIR, which sells both the exams and courseware, requires a series of four tests for each of its certification levels.

• Level 1 – Linux Certified Administrator
Demonstrates proficiency in single server installation and configuration; requires in-depth knowledge of command-line arguments, network integration, and security and privacy issues.

• Level 2 – Linux Certified Engineer
Requires everything from Level 1, plus multiple server installation and configuration in a heterogeneous environment; also, proficiency in Apache Webserver, Samba, and Sendmail.

The combined cost for the course manuals and test fees is $900 for Level 1, with an additional $900 for Level 2. Or, an individual may chose to take just one or two of the exams within a given cert, which would lower their fees.

Level 2 certification “opens up a lot of jobs,” Patton says. Successful exams takers get both a wallet card and lapel pin proving they’ve passed. The Level 2 cert equates with Red Hat’s RHCE cert, he says.

Touting his program as any company president would, Patton claims that the SAIR cert is “Quite more comprehensive than the Red Hat or Novell,” certification.

Take a look at these leading Linux certification programs:

Red Hat

Linux Professional Institute

CompTIA