LPI and Digital Metrics Announce Merger of Linux Certification Efforts

The Linux Professional Institute (LPI) and Digital Metrics (DM) have announced the final terms of their merger, which will result in a common certification program for Linux administrators.

The two programs first agreed to merge last fall and finalized the arrangement at the end of 1999. Under the terms of the agreement, DM will no longer offer its web-based certification exams and will instead join in with LPI to create a common certification program. People who have taken the DMCLA exam and attained the certification of 'DigitalMetrics Certified Linux Administrator (dmCLA)' will be integrated into the LPI program in the following manner: The integration has already begun with a number of questions being supplied to LPI for the upcoming 'T1b' exam. DigitalMetrics also provided to LPI psychometric data derived from the tests taken by DM certification candidates, which will aid LPI in ensuring the validity of the LPI exams.

People who have passed the DMCLA exam will be contacted directly over the next few weeks about how they will be able to participate in the LPI process. More information will also be available at www.lpi.org and www.digitalmetrics.com. The Linux Professional Institute is a community project to develop professional certification for the Linux operating system. Established as a nonprofit organization focused on defining distribution-neutral and vendor-neutral certification standards, LPI involves a unique blend of hundreds of volunteers and professionals in many different capacities and encourages public involvement through mailing lists and its website of www.lpi.org. LPI's multi-level program of exams is administered globally through test centers operated by Virtual University Enterprises (VUE), a division of NCS (Nasdaq:NLCS). Major financial sponsors of LPI include Caldera Systems, IBM, Linuxcare, SGI, SuSE Linux AG and TurboLinux as well as the Gold Sponsor Hewlett-Packard and Wave Technologies. More information can be obtained at www.lpi.org.