I took the first part of the Solaris Certified System Administrator Exam this morning. I arrived about 30 min early, and they let me start the exam early. I only vaguely knew where the exam center was, so I wanted to leave plenty of time to find it if I got lost. They also said to be there 30 min ahead of my appointment, so I was.

I passed the exam with an 87%. Not too bad considering my practice exams were at the 65-70% range, and you need 64% to pass. They also gave me a detailed analysis broken down into sections

• Manage file systems – 87%
• Install software – 100%
• Perform system boot procedures – 88%
• Perform user and security administration – 72%
• Manage network printers and system processes – 81%
• Perform system backups and restores – 100%

That’s a really strange distribution for me since I work in security, it must’ve been the user stuff that I missed

The testing center was nice, a little dark and very crowded. My only complaint was that the monitor refresh rate was set to 60Hz or lower, and it gave me a headache. Even more motiviation to finish the test and be out of there as soon as possible.