RHCT / RHCE Certification

[ianw1974]

I'm currently having to study or if you will, "train myself" to become RHCE certified.

 

I've been searching, and finding information on this, and that RHCE is very difficult. So I think I'll have my work cut out in making sure I'm fully prepared for this. I've also read that maybe LPIC is a better certification level to choose than RHCE.

 

By the way, I don't have any course material, and won't be attending a training course. So, as you can see this will be one tough exercise! Considering, I've only been using Red Hat, and even Fedora the last couple of days.

 

The prior level to RHCE is RHCT of which my knowledge is scatty apparently, since I did take their pre-course test to see how I would fare in the exam. So I'm likely to have to start here, polish my skills before moving on to the major event.

 

So, what I'm thinking is, is it worth being RHCE or is LPIC better? We are business certified partner of Red Hat, so RHCE is probably more likely to be better for us. I'm just after a view point on all this.

 

I just need to make sure I pass now :P

[Gowator]

Unless you are a partner in the company and the company is completly bound to RH you might consider getting the most open qualification.

 

Long term learning distro-specific stuff is less transferable than LPI IMHO and what do you do if you are called into a company with 'other distro's'

 

My experience is in real world it makes no difference but say you bidded for a job which involved some Suse boxes your RH certs are likely more a barrier than not if someone else is Novell certified ... and RH certified.

 

If you go LPI you can realistically claim to be distro independent with extensive RH experience.

As some cracking linux apps come out I think we will find that these will drive the OS more than anything. My old job had software we leased per person at between 1k and 10k per month. Out SW maintainance and support bill each year was several million and one vendor supported RH only and another Suse only. Given what you are paying ... its easier just too run the distro the SW manufacturer supports even though you can probably run it on the other.

Some stuff like Oracle is supported on both RH and Suse ...

 

Novell are obviously aiming at exchange servers and migration tools etc. more than RH hence I can see the need for mixed distro's in larger companies increasing in the near future.

 

just my 2c

[ianw1974]

We've recently become a Red Hat Business partner, hence the part about RHCT/RHCE versus anything else.

 

I would prefer more generic stuff, like LPIC, plus it's cheaper too. But I have a feeling they will want it to be Red Hat specific. I can always achieve LPIC later providing I'm allowed. I tend to use many distros anyway, and all my experience to date comes from being a part of this community and learning using Linux in my job the last five months.

[Gowator]

We've recently become a Red Hat Business partner, hence the part about RHCT/RHCE versus anything else.

 

I would prefer more generic stuff, like LPIC, plus it's cheaper too.  But I have a feeling they will want it to be Red Hat specific.  I can always achieve LPIC later providing I'm allowed.  I tend to use many distros anyway, and all my experience to date comes from being a part of this community and learning using Linux in my job the last five months.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

I would look at it like this...

If they are willing t pay and give time off then go for the one that is best for the company...

if not go for the one you prefer because in the long term the company might switch preferred distro etc. if they offer to pay then they are obviously willing to invest in YOU but if not then you shouldn't IMHO invest to much in them! Imagine RH go broke ... you are putting all your egss in one basket with the companies eggs... I prefer to have my eggs in a different basket to my company :D

 

You have a job now but you might do better thinking what will get you your next job... even if you end up staying in the same company its my experience that companies only pay what they can get away with and the more portable you are (and easier to get a better paid job elsewhere) the more they are likely to pay you....

 

When my company switched from Solaris to more linux many of the excellent Solaris techies just got laid off because their qualifications were Solaris based and a external company offered to take care of Linux AND Solaris ... sad really because most of them had so much knowledge of the users and apps ... so the service went downhill becaue 90% of the suport was knowing the users and the apps not OS based!

[ddmcse]

LPI over RH

10 yrs ago I took my first certification test and got my ass handed to me on a platter.

get practice exams

any cert is better than none and remember these tests have close to ZERO to do with real life situations

[ianw1974]

Personally, I would do the LPI, because then I'm distro independant. If they pay, then I'll do the Red Hat, cos then I can always do the LPI later if I feel like it and have the time.

 

Found this link, rather interesting read:

 

http://business.newsforge.com/article.pl?sid=04/04/01/182206

 

After reading this, I think I've got a serious amount of reading and prepping to do!

[jlc]

I'd do RH my self and when I get time, I will ;)

 

Grab a book on rhce 4 and d/l CentOS 4.x and start playing(learning)

[ianw1974]

I just found out yesterday, that I am supposed to be going on the Fast-Track course for the RHCE. Nice!

 

Will still be practising though as often as possible during the normal office day. Evenings will be Mandriva, but it's an rpm distro, and everything config file wise seems to be in the same place. Or at least what I've seen so far.

[Gowator]

I just found out yesterday, that I am supposed to be going on the Fast-Track course for the RHCE.  Nice!

 

Will still be practising though as often as possible during the normal office day.  Evenings will be Mandriva, but it's an rpm distro, and everything config file wise seems to be in the same place.  Or at least what I've seen so far.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

vmware player !!!!

 

make a RH session and keep the copy then you can play to your hearts content and if anything gets trashed restore it ... you only need full vmware for a limited time to make the virtual session ... and its HW independent because it uses the vmware drivers.

 

Big plus is you can continue using Mandriva and work on RH at the same time!

[JonEberger]

moving between the rpm-based distros is a wonderful thing. it's like (almost) instant experience. or at least the ones i've tinkered with.

Edited January 17, 2006 by JonEberger

[jlc]

I just found out yesterday, that I am supposed to be going on the Fast-Track course for the RHCE.  Nice!

 

Will still be practising though as often as possible during the normal office day.  Evenings will be Mandriva, but it's an rpm distro, and everything config file wise seems to be in the same place.  Or at least what I've seen so far.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

vmware player !!!!

 

make a RH session and keep the copy then you can play to your hearts content and if anything gets trashed restore it ... you only need full vmware for a limited time to make the virtual session ... and its HW independent because it uses the vmware drivers.

 

Big plus is you can continue using Mandriva and work on RH at the same time!

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

Yes, you should most certianly be working on a rh box if you want to pass the test, its not an easy one.

 

Several Linux SA's I work with failed the first time, not trying to bring you down :) but you really need to study and work on the platform your going for a test, there is enough difference that if your taking a rhel4 test you wouldn't want to use rhel3 either.

 

On the flip side, I don't think some of these SA's actually no much, but thats just my opinion. The odds have been 60% +/- fail the second time :unsure:

 

That doesn't mean you can't pass the first, but I wouldn't go in blind, or use another distro to work from. (other than centos 4.x)