Red Hat Certs

[Ash Chole]

I am set to take the RHCT (Red Hat Cert Tech) cert this summer and the RHCE (Engineer) at the end of the year. Have not noticed anyone on this site with either of those or any Red Hat mentioned. I will not be working on Hacking just yet, am getting my BS in InfoSec. I might one day advance to hacking and such.

Just trying to get some feedback on what everyone thinks about these certs.

[hayabusa]

I'd assume they're good, but I haven't done the RedHat certs. 

I have LPI's LPIC-1 and Novell's CLA, CLP and CLE for SuSE Linux, and I know they did a good job with theirs.  From others I've spoken to, RedHat's RHCE was a good experience, but I've not talked to anyone, yet, who described the RHCT in any detail.

[unsupported]

It is my understanding that the Redhat certs are the premier Linux certifications and are very high quality.  I have only barely looked into Linux+ myself just to round out some of my UNIX/LINUX knowledge, but not too seriously.

Welcome to the board!

[Vedder]

I sat my RHCE exam today - finished it a couple of hours ago. Just waiting for the result now.

It's a harsh exam, three and a half hours sounds like a lot, but really it isn't!

It is the best Linux cert around - not just because Red Hat have the market share of Linux in the business world, but because the of the exam structure.

I'll let you know how well (or not) I did when I find out.

[KamiCrazy]

I sat my RHCT almost 3 years ago. It is the only exam in my entire life which I passed with a score of 100%.

It was completely practical based, I stayed up until 3am in the morning running over the lab routines over and over to drill it into my head.

I learnt a lot and it basically setup an appreciation for all flavours of unix derivatives.

It also meant that when I did OCSP I dived straight into it without having any hiccups due to incomplete understanding of linux.

I would like to do RHCE but with so many other certs lined up I dunno if I will ever have time.

[Ash Chole]

So has anyone found it to be DIRECTLY helpful in either getting a job or on the job. My instructor said that if I were to get RHCE that the only choices I would have to make is where to work and figure out what color Porsche I want. I am not truly relying on this cert alone. Just trying to figure out how much weight it actually carries.

[impelse]

To get that kind of money you need to show some exp.

[hayabusa]

impelse is on the money, here.  As with any certification, the pay is always commensurate on the proven experience.  You MIGHT get lucky and land something high-paying, simply by showing the cert, but if you start working, and can't perform as expected, you're likely to either be let go again, or have that Porsche and high salary taken away from you, or lowered.  I think for any instructor to make that type of comment, they are biased towards what they're teaching, without first understanding YOUR capabilities and retention skills. 

Additionally, a RH person, who knows RH, is always more likely to propose the value of RH, versus another distro.  Same for a SuSE person, or an Ubuntu person, etc.  It's all in the flavor you're accustomed to using.  Mind you, RH has the larger market share for the moment (but it is beginning to wane a bit to other distros,) but ultimately, if you have ANY Linux cert, and can show you understand it as well as some RHCE who has his cert 'on paper only' (meaning he passed a test, but doesn't retain the knowledge well, afterwards,) then you could still land that high paying job, and get your Porsche!

That said, I'd also agree with KamiCrazy's comments, that while RHCT, in his case, might not be something he uses, day in and day out, he noted the benefit it gave him, in using tools and distros, such as using BackTrack for his OSCP, and that fundamental, underlying Linux knowledge goes a long way to helping you do other things.

My full-time employer stresses Linux, and went as far as switching 80% or more of our folks to Linux, in a single year.  While there are still Windows folks in the mix, where they need to exist and use proprietary software and tools, it was amazing how fast certs like LPI's LPIC-1 came into play, in helping ourselves and our coworkers with day-to-day work.  The ONLY primary difference you'll find between distro's is some minor changes in the filesystem locations for things, etc, but ultimately, if you understand the OS, itself, those differences are easy to overcome and work through.

Good luck, and let us know how you do with your RH certs!

[Vedder]

I passed the RHCT, but fell short by about 10% on the RHCE.

Need to start saving again, its become like a mission for me!

[Ash Chole]

That is a shame Vedder $800 is a lot to throw down for a cert. I am hoping to place high enough in my class to get a free voucher for the RHCT cert. Well I have no XP but my scripting teacher tells me I show great talent for troubleshooting as well.  I am expecting to do a internship with Cisco over the summer. We will see how everything works out. 

[Data_Raid]

My instructor said that if I were to get RHCE that the only choices I would have to make is where to work and figure out what color Porsche I want.

That comment about the Porsche cracked me up 

This site has some interesting trend info for certifications and salary associated with those certifications. It's interesting to see the trends associated with a specific certification: http://www.itjobswatch.co.uk/jobs/uk/rhce.do
The average salary is worth noting.

Personally, I believe that the demand for Linux skills will increase in the future as more companies are looking to decrease costs and Linux is gaining more popularity especially amongst large financial companies. So having a RHCE certificate should come in real handy.

All the best for the future and your studies!