Mirantis Launches Advanced OpenStack Certification

OpenStack vendor Mirantis is expanding its training and certification programs for open source cloud computing. Building on earlier offerings, the company has launched a new, upper-level certification for professional cloud administrators.

The new offering, called MCA200 Professional Certification, is designed for IT professionals seeking validation of their skills in building, configuring and managing an OpenStack cloud environment. It verifies a set of skills at a level higher than Mirantis’s MCA100 “Associate Level” certification, which the company introduced in 2013, and of which more than 200 organizations were reportedly taking advantage just a few months later.

Completing Mirantis’s OpenStack Bootcamp, an in-the-flesh OpenStack training course, is currently a prerequisite for taking the certification test. A statement from the company suggests that the exam later might become available to candidates who have gained the necessary OpenStack expertise in other ways, however, since it mentions “an IT professional who has practical OpenStack experience” being able to sit for the test.

Mirantis said its decision to introduce a higher-level certification stemmed from demand within the channel for OpenStack expertise that continues to grow. “With industry research indicating that the cloud marketplace is expected to grow at four times the rate of the overall worldwide Information Technology market, individuals with OpenStack experience must find new ways to highlight their expertise,” said Lee Xie, head of Training, Mirantis, in a statement. “Our newest Professional Certification is an ideal way for those individuals to showcase their proficiency with OpenStack.”