9 ms·

Changes to the Red Hat Certified Engineer program

63 points by BossingAround 8y ago

aequitas 8y ago
I don't know if these exams are still in the same format but I've always found them wildly more relevant compared to other exams as they focus on practical knowledge and problem solving skills instead of your skill to remember command line flags or your skills in multiple choice guessing game.
- reallydontask 8y ago
  I must admit that i've only looked at sample exams rather than actually having taken one but I have to say that I agree with you. I think Microsoft's exams are changing to be less of a multiple choice guessing game but the Red Hat seem to be the gold standard for certifications. (Speaking from a limited POV)
  - ratling 8y ago
    For now. The IBM sale made it a no brainer for us to migrate off CentOS last year. They 'could' not mess up Red Hat but I'm not betting against IBM's track record.
    - BossingAround 8y ago
      What's the track record?
      - ratling 8y ago
        Have you ever purchased or maintained an IBM 'product?' You better budget for at least 2 contractors to go with it.
    - eitally 8y ago
      I wouldn't worry too much. IBM is making a big bet on OSS friendliness as their differentiation, much like Google Cloud is.
    - andrey_utkin 8y ago
      Which distro you migrated to?
      - ratling 8y ago
        Ubuntu.
- xaldir 8y ago
  Linux Foundation exams are quite good on this aspect too (sadly they became quite expensive).
  - pnutjam 8y ago
    Suse uses the SCA certs, I'm not sure if they are any cheaper through Suse.
    - Conan_Kudo 8y ago
      I wish I had prepared for them before going to SUSECON, the exams are free as part of your SUSECON ticket. :) Maybe next year...
      - pnutjam 8y ago
        Thanks for that info. Good selling point. Might be a good time to test-prep with the actual exams, if they are paid for already.
- mgerdts 8y ago
  Indeed. Back in the dark ages I interviewed lots of sysadmins in a Solaris shop. Those that had a RHCE generally knew their way around a unix box. Other certifications did little other than indicate that the person worked somewhere that required the other certification.
weirdtunguska 8y ago
As a physicist by training that has been working as a data scientist and believing that the data science bubble will burst sooner rather than later, are these certifications a good path to help change course and keep myself relevant?
- reacharavindh 8y ago
  I'm curious to hear others' comments on this as well. Let me share my thoughts. I'm a sysadmin for a HPC cluster. I do not have any of these certs. I think my day job involves a lot of diagnosing issues which involves detailed understanding of how the system works rather than actually developing any parts of that system. A second fun part of this job is when designing infrastructure for use by others. To take into consideration all that can go wrong, performance characteristics of hardware, software, and workload and trade one off for other can be really challenging and fun if you're into that sort of a thing. I'm not sure the RedHat certs will help you all the way through, although they might be a good starter in this regard. A lot is obtained by getting hands dirty and learning by making mistakes. If you're into managing systems and building/engineering infrastructure, I'd wholeheartedly recommend spending time with small scale infrastructure in a "homelab" setting or if you can afford $$ with VMs in the cloud even. Cheers!
  - pnutjam 8y ago
    I don't have any certs and I'm a senior Linux admin. I like the Suse track. I would persue them before RH, https://training.suse.com/certification/ https://training.suse.com/certification/
- linuxftw 8y ago
  They're a good starting point. The Linux side is very broad and there's high demand.
- throwawaymanbot 8y ago
  The RHCE is well respected, and will do you no harm. If your resume is Linux light, then you can at least have that on it.
CraigJPerry 8y ago
Hands down the best examination format I have ever taken. I have a few certs in this area but the RHCE is an excellent model of how to examine someone's skillset. I wish more, maybe even most, technical certifications followed this model. The one down side was the fact they weren't willing to give performance feedback. I got 96.4% overall and was absolutely gutted I couldn't find out the reason I missed (still a respectable score - I believe the average score is a fail). There was a section at the end with 3 different tasks and you should choose 2. I finished pretty early so I decided to do the 3rd, i reviewed and reviewed my work before I left that workstation, I can't see what else I did wrong. Would love to know.
- mrbill 8y ago
  I got mine back in the RHEL4 days, got a 97%, and yeah its bugged me for years as I want to know what I got wrong. Probably the "hardest", most involved, "gotta know your shit" certification I've ever done. I definitely felt like I'd earned it.
- flukus 8y ago
  Could an employer reliable use this as an indication that an employee is at least competent? If so I'd love a programming equivalent and be able to avoid FizzBuzz like tests.
- BossingAround 8y ago
  This has changed nowadays; they'll give you feedback on what you got wrong.
ausjke 8y ago
I have been interested in linux certification for a while, but I'm not a redhat user, I use debian/ubuntu. How does RHCE compare to LPC certification? I'm not even sure if Ubuntu has similar certificates for testing.
- couterSpell 8y ago
  I'm assuming you mean the LPIC certification? LPIC certification: "Vendor neutral," meaning you need to memorize (note I said memorize, not learn) how both Debian and RHEL do things. For example, you'll be tested both on YUM and APT. LPIC certifications are multiple choice, and really come down to rote memorization of flags. You're also tested on stuff of questionable relevance, like X11, desktop environments, and CUPS. If you're supporting Linux desktops, that stuff is probably important. But Linux deployed mostly on servers. RHSA: RHEL/CentOS-only, and performance based. You can use man pages during the exam, so you can concentrate what commands do what and how to configure things. This is opposed to LPIC, where you're more focused on obscure flags. Ubuntu has no vendor-specific exam. If you really want to stick with Debian/Ubuntu, go with the Linux Foundation certs. They're performance-based and you can choose to do it on Debian.
  - ausjke 8y ago
    Thanks a lot. I was unaware of LF certs.
mancerayder 8y ago
Hm. I have mixed feelings reading this. I'm a very experienced Linux admin that rebranded to DevOps, and I can tell you no one outside of government/academia or slower organizations like (some legacy groups within) banks cares about your awk and zsh skills, or even kernel internals. They do care about coding, very very much. I get slammed with coding challenges, sometimes even before talking to a real human, and once three separate rounds, in interviews. Think they care you can set up a mail server, troubleshoot IO issues, read a tcpdump. Well the answer is they might. But Docker, extensive AWS and Python or Ruby at the software engineer level? They will. RIP systems administration and RHCE relevance. Don't waste your time if you're looking for a new job, for instance. Your time is better spent on the examples above. And soon, Kubernetes.
rurban 8y ago
They change it to "Red Hat Certified Ansible Specialist", no kidding. Relevance going from 80% to 20%.
technofiend 8y ago
So I attended Summit the past few years and each time sat on an education panel run by the head of Red Hat's education program. Most recently we discussed Red Hat Learning Subscription and the relative difficulty of the Red Hat Certified Architect track. RHCA requires the student complete certified sysadmin, certified engineer and then 5 more courses. In previous years RHCA required passing two gauntlet exams: Performance Tuning and Troubleshooting. These exams are no joke and will trip up senior sysadmins. Many RHCAs were upset that Red Hat lowered the bar by removing those two exams and not creating equivalent exams on the other tracks which are for development or devops concentrations instead of classic system administration. In my personal opinion Red Hat should have instead created multiple red hat certified engineer certifications for each of the various concentrations which could then feed into Red Hat certified architect certifications. Last year the head of the education program stated he wanted redhat certified architect to eventually be the equivalent of getting the notoriously difficult and rigorous CCIE. As a RHEL 6 and 7 RHCE with this move I feel like they've gone the other direction.

63 points by BossingAround 8y ago

I don't know if these exams are still in the same format but I've always found them wildly more relevant compared to other exams as they focus on practical knowledge and problem solving skills instead of your skill to remember command line flags or your skills in multiple choice guessing game.

reallydontask 8y ago
I must admit that i've only looked at sample exams rather than actually having taken one but I have to say that I agree with you. I think Microsoft's exams are changing to be less of a multiple choice guessing game but the Red Hat seem to be the gold standard for certifications. (Speaking from a limited POV)
- ratling 8y ago
  For now. The IBM sale made it a no brainer for us to migrate off CentOS last year. They 'could' not mess up Red Hat but I'm not betting against IBM's track record.
  - BossingAround 8y ago
    What's the track record?
    - ratling 8y ago
      Have you ever purchased or maintained an IBM 'product?' You better budget for at least 2 contractors to go with it.
  - eitally 8y ago
    I wouldn't worry too much. IBM is making a big bet on OSS friendliness as their differentiation, much like Google Cloud is.
  - andrey_utkin 8y ago
    Which distro you migrated to?
    - ratling 8y ago
      Ubuntu.
xaldir 8y ago
Linux Foundation exams are quite good on this aspect too (sadly they became quite expensive).
- pnutjam 8y ago
  Suse uses the SCA certs, I'm not sure if they are any cheaper through Suse.
  - Conan_Kudo 8y ago
    I wish I had prepared for them before going to SUSECON, the exams are free as part of your SUSECON ticket. :) Maybe next year...
    - pnutjam 8y ago
      Thanks for that info. Good selling point. Might be a good time to test-prep with the actual exams, if they are paid for already.
mgerdts 8y ago
Indeed. Back in the dark ages I interviewed lots of sysadmins in a Solaris shop. Those that had a RHCE generally knew their way around a unix box. Other certifications did little other than indicate that the person worked somewhere that required the other certification.

weirdtunguska 8y ago

As a physicist by training that has been working as a data scientist and believing that the data science bubble will burst sooner rather than later, are these certifications a good path to help change course and keep myself relevant?

reacharavindh 8y ago
I'm curious to hear others' comments on this as well. Let me share my thoughts. I'm a sysadmin for a HPC cluster. I do not have any of these certs. I think my day job involves a lot of diagnosing issues which involves detailed understanding of how the system works rather than actually developing any parts of that system. A second fun part of this job is when designing infrastructure for use by others. To take into consideration all that can go wrong, performance characteristics of hardware, software, and workload and trade one off for other can be really challenging and fun if you're into that sort of a thing. I'm not sure the RedHat certs will help you all the way through, although they might be a good starter in this regard. A lot is obtained by getting hands dirty and learning by making mistakes. If you're into managing systems and building/engineering infrastructure, I'd wholeheartedly recommend spending time with small scale infrastructure in a "homelab" setting or if you can afford $$ with VMs in the cloud even. Cheers!
- pnutjam 8y ago
  I don't have any certs and I'm a senior Linux admin. I like the Suse track. I would persue them before RH, https://training.suse.com/certification/ https://training.suse.com/certification/
linuxftw 8y ago
They're a good starting point. The Linux side is very broad and there's high demand.
throwawaymanbot 8y ago
The RHCE is well respected, and will do you no harm. If your resume is Linux light, then you can at least have that on it.

CraigJPerry 8y ago

Hands down the best examination format I have ever taken. I have a few certs in this area but the RHCE is an excellent model of how to examine someone's skillset. I wish more, maybe even most, technical certifications followed this model. The one down side was the fact they weren't willing to give performance feedback. I got 96.4% overall and was absolutely gutted I couldn't find out the reason I missed (still a respectable score - I believe the average score is a fail). There was a section at the end with 3 different tasks and you should choose 2. I finished pretty early so I decided to do the 3rd, i reviewed and reviewed my work before I left that workstation, I can't see what else I did wrong. Would love to know.

mrbill 8y ago
I got mine back in the RHEL4 days, got a 97%, and yeah its bugged me for years as I want to know what I got wrong. Probably the "hardest", most involved, "gotta know your shit" certification I've ever done. I definitely felt like I'd earned it.
flukus 8y ago
Could an employer reliable use this as an indication that an employee is at least competent? If so I'd love a programming equivalent and be able to avoid FizzBuzz like tests.
BossingAround 8y ago
This has changed nowadays; they'll give you feedback on what you got wrong.

ausjke 8y ago

I have been interested in linux certification for a while, but I'm not a redhat user, I use debian/ubuntu. How does RHCE compare to LPC certification? I'm not even sure if Ubuntu has similar certificates for testing.

couterSpell 8y ago
I'm assuming you mean the LPIC certification? LPIC certification: "Vendor neutral," meaning you need to memorize (note I said memorize, not learn) how both Debian and RHEL do things. For example, you'll be tested both on YUM and APT. LPIC certifications are multiple choice, and really come down to rote memorization of flags. You're also tested on stuff of questionable relevance, like X11, desktop environments, and CUPS. If you're supporting Linux desktops, that stuff is probably important. But Linux deployed mostly on servers. RHSA: RHEL/CentOS-only, and performance based. You can use man pages during the exam, so you can concentrate what commands do what and how to configure things. This is opposed to LPIC, where you're more focused on obscure flags. Ubuntu has no vendor-specific exam. If you really want to stick with Debian/Ubuntu, go with the Linux Foundation certs. They're performance-based and you can choose to do it on Debian.
- ausjke 8y ago
  Thanks a lot. I was unaware of LF certs.

mancerayder 8y ago

Hm. I have mixed feelings reading this. I'm a very experienced Linux admin that rebranded to DevOps, and I can tell you no one outside of government/academia or slower organizations like (some legacy groups within) banks cares about your awk and zsh skills, or even kernel internals. They do care about coding, very very much. I get slammed with coding challenges, sometimes even before talking to a real human, and once three separate rounds, in interviews. Think they care you can set up a mail server, troubleshoot IO issues, read a tcpdump. Well the answer is they might. But Docker, extensive AWS and Python or Ruby at the software engineer level? They will. RIP systems administration and RHCE relevance. Don't waste your time if you're looking for a new job, for instance. Your time is better spent on the examples above. And soon, Kubernetes.

rurban 8y ago

They change it to "Red Hat Certified Ansible Specialist", no kidding. Relevance going from 80% to 20%.

technofiend 8y ago

So I attended Summit the past few years and each time sat on an education panel run by the head of Red Hat's education program. Most recently we discussed Red Hat Learning Subscription and the relative difficulty of the Red Hat Certified Architect track. RHCA requires the student complete certified sysadmin, certified engineer and then 5 more courses. In previous years RHCA required passing two gauntlet exams: Performance Tuning and Troubleshooting. These exams are no joke and will trip up senior sysadmins. Many RHCAs were upset that Red Hat lowered the bar by removing those two exams and not creating equivalent exams on the other tracks which are for development or devops concentrations instead of classic system administration. In my personal opinion Red Hat should have instead created multiple red hat certified engineer certifications for each of the various concentrations which could then feed into Red Hat certified architect certifications. Last year the head of the education program stated he wanted redhat certified architect to eventually be the equivalent of getting the notoriously difficult and rigorous CCIE. As a RHEL 6 and 7 RHCE with this move I feel like they've gone the other direction.