Mirantis Launches Vendor-Agnostic OpenStack Certification

Cloud certifications are popping up more and more. Some are vendor-specific. Some are vendor-agnostic. And across those two categories are certificates that cover various categories of cloud technology. Enter Mirantis, the pure OpenStack play vendor, with a new vendor-agnostic certification around the open source cloud platform.

Mirantis Certification for OpenStack is being targeted at systems administrators and OpenStack cloud operators as the first vendor-agnostic OpenStack certification. Whether it’s truly the first vendor-agnostic certification is debatable, but the company is aiming to certify OpenStack cloud professionals on their proficiency to deploy and operate vendor-agnostic OpenStack cloud environments. That’s a good step, and one that could play well in the open source cloud space as it continues to grow and gain traction.

“What enterprises are desperately looking for today is a standards-based, cost-effective control plane for a heterogeneous, multi-vendor infrastructure environment; and that is precisely the vision behind OpenStack,” said Boris Renski, co-founder and executive vice president at Mirantis, in a prepared statement. “We believe that infrastructure experts who complete Mirantis Certification for OpenStack are best positioned to help enterprises realize this cloud vision.”

To kick things off, Mirantis will be offering two levels of the certification:

​Although certifications will not expire, they will be tied directly to a specific release of OpenStack. That makes sense, especially considering some of the big changes that happen between OpenStack versions, and hopefully it won’t create any confusion for end customers who may look at an OpenStack certification and not understand the differences.

For those looking to take the exams, they will be delivered via 700 Kryterion locations in more than 100 countries. Prior to taking the exam, though, professionals will have the option to take the three-day Mirantis OpenStack Bootcamp course to beef up their skills.

Mirantis isn’t the only vendor offering OpenStack training courses and certification, though. OpenStack founder Rackspace has been offering OpenStack certifications for the last year, and the company also recently added to its elearning programs.