RHCA timeframe

Bodanel

Hi guys

the new year started with a new job for me a new ideea came to my head. Since at my current workplace they pay for courses and I need to update my RHCE to RHEL7 I thought to go the extra mile and get RHCA datacenter. If you have some of the certificates of expertise from RH could you please share your feedback and tell me if a 2 year timeframe is realistic. I work as a Linux engineer for several years now and I dont think that updating my RHCE will take very much of my time.
I really would love some feedback here before going for this.

asummers

There are 5 exams. 3-4 months per exam sounds very doable. Will also allow you to learn the subject rather than "just what you need for the exam"

brombulec

It's doable in 6 months Trust me :> But you need some experience with RHEL

Bodanel

I work daily with various RHEL versions so this is not an issue. I was thinking at a 2 year timeframe taking into account busy schedule sometimes, VACATIONS etc. So this seems doable.

brombulec

Bodanel wrote: »

I work daily with various RHEL versions so this is not an issue. I was thinking at a 2 year timeframe taking into account busy schedule sometimes, VACATIONS etc. So this seems doable.

I was lucky that I had some projects related to the exams
And the path was quite funny :
RH318 (1.5 year without any RHEL Exams) -> RH413 (May) -> RH 436 (July) -> RH 210 (August) -> RH401 (September) -> RH200/RH300 (renewal) (September). And after that I had RH236 (June next year)
I took only one course - RH318 - but IMHO it's a waste of time and money. Docs from RH.com are more than enough to pass 318, 436, and 236.

u2brutus

Hi brombulec,

I will shortly be start preparing for RHCA and my plan is to do self study. I will really appreciate if you can share the methodology and material
for all the exams.

Thanks in advance.

asummers

u2brutus wrote: »

Hi brombulec,

I will shortly be start preparing for RHCA and my plan is to do self study. I will really appreciate if you can share the methodology and material
for all the exams.

Thanks in advance.

rofl - would you like him to take the exam for you too?

OctalDump

asummers wrote: »

rofl - would you like him to take the exam for you too?

I think that u2brutus just meant generally and names of books/courses, not complete contents.

I am aware of some materials for KVM on RHEL, and there's some more stuff on OpenStack, and there's some security stuff. Not gone much deeper than that. RedHat runs courses for /everything/ but they are $$$, although if you can convince your employer to pay, it's a good option.

wolfinsheepsclothing

brombulec wrote: »

It's doable in 6 months Trust me :> But you need some experience with RHEL

x2

OP, just wanted to know how you're progressing? Also, are you going for a specific CA track? Red Hat are in the process of releasing two new certifications (container based), should you be interested (they align with the RHCA: DevOps track).

Bodanel

@wolfinsheepsclothing

I have my RHCSA recertification exam scheduled on 3rd of June, RHCE recertification on 12 August and Puppet certification in October/November. RHCSA and RHCE should be no problem but I"m just nervous because until now I have paid from my own pocket and these are paid by the company. Talked with my manager and the plan is to finish next year (budget constrains) -one exam every 3 months because they pay also the courses so we have to take that into consideration as well.

I'm going for the datacenter track (company plans a new datacenter here and I'm planning to be the one who builds it)

wolfinsheepsclothing

I understand. I really liked the Puppet exam (EX405). Be sure you're familiar with Satellite 6.x though If you're already familiar with puppet, the rest of the exam will be straightforward.

Verities

Bodanel wrote: »

@wolfinsheepsclothing

I have my RHCSA recertification exam scheduled on 3rd of June, RHCE recertification on 12 August and Puppet certification in October/November. RHCSA and RHCE should be no problem but I"m just nervous because until now I have paid from my own pocket and these are paid by the company. Talked with my manager and the plan is to finish next year (budget constrains) -one exam every 3 months because they pay also the courses so we have to take that into consideration as well.

I'm going for the datacenter track (company plans a new datacenter here and I'm planning to be the one who builds it)

Do you have to recertify your RHCSA and RHCE for the current version of RHEL? You should call Red Hat and verify if you can just do your RHCE exam on RHEL 7. Unless I'm reading the recertification policy wrong, you can just recertify you RHCE and it refreshes your RHCSA. Also, if you take any of the courses for your RHCA and get a certificate of expertise, it refreshes your RHCE as well. Just offering up ideas so you have to take less tests unless you really want to take them all.

In any case, please continue updating us on your progress. I would like to one day pursue the RHCA certification but I don't see the benefit in shelling out a couple grand of my own money and there's no way my employer would pay for me to do it. I have heard Red Hat does like to poach RHCAs from other companies ($$$$).

wolfinsheepsclothing

Verities wrote: »

Do you have to recertify your RHCSA and RHCE for the current version of RHEL? You should call Red Hat and verify if you can just do your RHCE exam on RHEL 7. Unless I'm reading the recertification policy wrong, you can just recertify you RHCE and it refreshes your RHCSA. Also, if you take any of the courses for your RHCA and get a certificate of expertise, it refreshes your RHCE as well. Just offering up ideas so you have to take less tests unless you really want to take them all.

In any case, please continue updating us on your progress. I would like to one day pursue the RHCA certification but I don't see the benefit in shelling out a couple grand of my own money and there's no way my employer would pay for me to do it. I have heard Red Hat does like to poach RHCAs from other companies ($$$$).

That's correct. (My RHCSA is on RHEL6 but my CE is on RHEL 7). Also correct that each CoE renews the CSA/CE. If I didn't work for Red Hat, I would probably not have taken as many exams this year (due to cost), unless someone else was paying for it. (all courses/exams are free for RH employees).

OP, I'm sure you've heard the stories associated with Performance Tuning (EX442); I've been told that the new Diag/Troubleshooting exam (EX342) is even worse

TacoRocket

wolfinsheepsclothing wrote: »

That's correct. (My RHCSA is on RHEL6 but my CE is on RHEL 7). Also correct that each CoE renews the CSA/CE. If I didn't work for Red Hat, I would probably not have taken as many exams this year (due to cost), unless someone else was paying for it. (all courses/exams are free for RH employees).

OP, I'm sure you've heard the stories associated with Performance Tuning (EX442); I've been told that the new Diag/Troubleshooting exam (EX342) is even worse

How do you study for the exams outside of the RHCSA/RHCE exams? I don't know if there are any books on the subjects.

wolfinsheepsclothing

TacoRocket wrote: »

How do you study for the exams outside of the RHCSA/RHCE exams? I don't know if there are any books on the subjects.

If you take the course, it will come with a workbook. Otherwise, your best bet is to build a test environment (using whatever product is used on the exam) and be able to complete the requirements listed in the exam objectives.

TacoRocket

wolfinsheepsclothing wrote: »

If you take the course, it will come with a workbook. Otherwise, your best bet is to build a test environment (using whatever product is used on the exam) and be able to complete the requirements listed in the exam objectives.

So you would say beyond labbing to sign up for the subscription (I say because the cost of 1.5 courses is enough for subscription).

wolfinsheepsclothing

TacoRocket wrote: »

So you would say beyond labbing to sign up for the subscription (I say because the cost of 1.5 courses is enough for subscription).

Depends on the course/product; I would look for trial subscriptions and/or 'free' versions of products. If you can justify the subscription, go for it though Which exam(s) are you interested in? Or was this more a general question?

Bodanel

wolfinsheepsclothing wrote: »

That's correct. (My RHCSA is on RHEL6 but my CE is on RHEL 7).

OP, I'm sure you've heard the stories associated with Performance Tuning (EX442); I've been told that the new Diag/Troubleshooting exam (EX342) is even worse

This would have been good to know about a month ago but now the exams are scheduled and I cannot change it. It will be a good practice.
No offence, but horror stories dont scare me. My motto is "Go big or go home" and I really LIKE linux. My home box is a Arch linux and now I'm having huge fights at the office to allow me to use Fedora on my laptop.
If there is one thing I really like about the RH exams is that they are straight forwards, you know how to do something or you dont.

As for learning process I've found out that for me labbing is the best way. It also helps you find some nice tricks that you can use in your d2d tasks. What I do is to take exam objectives and try to solve each objectives in as many ways that I can (for example create a firewall rule to block something- use firewalld zone block, use rich rules, use iptables). Then I create a list of tasks and try to do them in my lab.

At this moment we've planned a Puppet study group(devs and infrastructure guys) at the office using the latest book by Jo Rhet.

Thks for your input wolfinsheepsclothing. This is very helpful.

I will keep you posted.

varelg

wolfinsheepsclothing wrote: »

Depends on the course/product; I would look for trial subscriptions and/or 'free' versions of products. If you can justify the subscription, go for it though Which exam(s) are you interested in? Or was this more a general question?

Subscription as in the online course subscription? If that, how many exams can you take in a year? $5500 a year isn't something to caugh at if you are financing it from your own pocket...
If it's support subscription we are talking about, I wish I had it before- I just recently got a desktop support subscription ($50 a year) just to be able to access the knowledge base and it's beyond well spent. "Solution verified"- no need to build your own reference library and guess, suspect and inspect.

Bodanel

Just checked with RH. My RHCE expired in February and need to take both exams. You need to be in the 3 years time frame in order to take only RH300 for recertification.

wolfinsheepsclothing

Bodanel wrote: »

Just checked with RH. My RHCE expired in February and need to take both exams. You need to be in the 3 years time frame in order to take only RH300 for recertification.

Oh okay. Even though the CSA/CE are now on RHEL7, many of the CoE exams are still RHEL6 (just a PSA). Best of luck with 442/342; didn't mean to imply that you're not capable of passing them. Just meant that they're considered by many to be the most challenging. I like your approach the exam objectives!

varelg, do you mean how many can one reasonably take in one year or are you asking if there is a cap? haha. I would go the 'free software' route if given a choice

varelg

I meant reasonably, not a cap.
Anyone has a SOHO setup of their own Satellite without RH subscription? Is it doable?

Bodanel

wolfinsheepsclothing wrote: »

didn't mean to imply that you're not capable of passing them. Just meant that they're considered by many to be the most challenging.

I understood what you are trying to say, didnt feel offended or something else. I just like a good challenge.
I would like to know also the answer to varelg's question.

Verities

varelg wrote: »

I meant reasonably, not a cap.
Anyone has a SOHO setup of their own Satellite without RH subscription? Is it doable?

Download Spacewalk and set it up:

Spacewalk: Free & Open Source Linux Systems Management

wolfinsheepsclothing

Verities wrote: »

Download Spacewalk and set it up:

Spacewalk: Free & Open Source Linux Systems Management

Spacewalk is the upstream for Satellite 5. The upstream projects for Satellite 6 are: Katello, Foreman, Pulp, and Candlepin.

Please note that the CoE for Satellite is still based on Sat 5 (so Spacewalk would be fine), but the CoE for Puppet/CM (EX405) uses Satellite 6.

Verities

wolfinsheepsclothing wrote: »

Spacewalk is the upstream for Satellite 5. The upstream projects for Satellite 6 are: Katello, Foreman, Pulp, and Candlepin.

Please note that the CoE for Satellite is still based on Sat 5 (so Spacewalk would be fine), but the CoE for Puppet/CM (EX405) uses Satellite 6.

Good information. I have to study up on Satellite 6 as I'll be building it out for our environment in the next couple weeks.

wolfinsheepsclothing

I love Sat 6; so feature rich (I may be biased though haha).

Verities

wolfinsheepsclothing wrote: »

I love Sat 6; so feature rich (I may be biased though haha).

I'm looking at the sizing requirements in the content management guide and have come up with some rather large numbers for my organization.

Since you've already had experience with Sat 6 :

How many systems do you support with it, how long have you been supporting Sat 6 in production, how many repos do you use, and how much growth have you seen with mongo, pulp, and pgsql?

TacoRocket

wolfinsheepsclothing wrote: »

Spacewalk is the upstream for Satellite 5. The upstream projects for Satellite 6 are: Katello, Foreman, Pulp, and Candlepin.

Please note that the CoE for Satellite is still based on Sat 5 (so Spacewalk would be fine), but the CoE for Puppet/CM (EX405) uses Satellite 6.

This is going to sound stupid but what do you mean upstream for Satellite 5?

I know what the product Satellite is but I'm confused about upstream.

Then in regards for Satellite 6 do you mean I would have to run all four of those to get the equivalent that Satellite 6 provides?

wolfinsheepsclothing

TacoRocket wrote: »

This is going to sound stupid but what do you mean upstream for Satellite 5?

I know what the product Satellite is but I'm confused about upstream.

Then in regards for Satellite 6 do you mean I would have to run all four of those to get the equivalent that Satellite 6 provides?

Upstream as in closer to 'bleeding edge' (just like Fedora is the upstream for RHEL; whereas CentOS is downstream/rebrand). Spacewalk will not be an upstream for Sat 6 though; the two technologies are quite different.

Satellite 6 FAQ: https://access.redhat.com/articles/880853

I've never tried to integrate the aforementioned technologies separately; I would start with Katello and go from there though.

Verities, I have yet to install Sat 6 in production. In my home lab, I've been using Puppet repositories (and plan to integrate Docker repos shortly).

brombulec

You can get a trial version of Satellite for 30 days (1 server + 1 client) and this is enough to pass the 401 exam.
Just ask the RH Sales representative or e-mail RH directly - I had no trouble to get the license and required certificate for Satellite entitlement.