Red Hat is an international organization that offers cloud, integration, automation & management, infrastructure, and integration products to companies that want to improve their processes performance. At the same time, this well-known vendor has a detailed certification pathway that helps candidates stand out of the crowd by consolidating their expertise in Linux, Middleware, Cloud Computing, and more related concepts.

Red Hat Certification Program

Red Hat offers a wide range of designations that will help the applicants leverage and prove their competency in the following technologies:

• The candidates who want to validate their expertise in Linux can apply for Red Hat Certified Specialist in Services Management and Automation, Red Hat Certified System Administrator, Red Hat Certified Engineer, and other certifications.
• The category that focuses on Middleware technics includes designations such as Red Hat Certified Enterprise Microservices Developer, Red Hat Certified Specialist in Business Process Design, Red Hat Certified Specialist in Enterprise Application Server Administration accreditations, and several others dedicated to Camel development, business rules, messaging administration, and enterprise application development.
• The applicants interested in developing management skills can apply for the Red Hat Certified Specialist in API management and Red Hat Certified Specialist in Services Management and Automation qualifications.
• The category focusing on cloud computing includes the Red Hat Certified Engineer in Red Hat OpenStack, Red Hat Certified Specialist in Cloud Infrastructure, and Red Hat Certified Specialist in Linux Performance Tuning accreditation among others.
• The professionals who are interested in building a career with Openshift platform capability can apply for the Red Hat Certified Cloud-Native Developer accreditation.
• The section focusing on storage technologies includes the Red Hat Certified Specialist in Gluster Storage Administration and in Ceph Storage Administration qualifications.
• The designation related to virtualization is Red Hat Certified Specialist in Virtualization.

In addition to that, Red Hat certification fall into groups according to the job roles that candidates plan to acquire. Thus, one can find certifications for Specialist, Administrator, Developer, Engineer, Architect, and Operator roles.

Red Hat Certified System Administrator Certification

The RHCSA certificate is suitable for professional Red Hat Enterprise Linux system administrators who want to verify and consolidate their skills. As well, this accreditation is aimed at DevOps specialists who want to consolidate their competency in container technology and demonstrate their advanced skills in this area.

Moreover, this accreditation can be obtained by those applicants who pass the appropriate EX200 exam. As a preparation, the vendor recommends candidates to attend both the RH124 and RH134 training courses. Another option would be that the candidates attend the RHCSA Rapid Track class (RH199) class that combines the information included in the before-mentioned programs. Otherwise, it will be sufficient for candidates to have previous experience working as a system administrator and are interested in consolidating their skills on Red Hat Enterprise Linux.

Regarding the appropriate exam details, the RHCSA exam has a duration of 3 hours. The test-takers don’t have access to the internet during the exam and are not allowed to bring any documentation with them or consult it online. Every candidate needs to pay a registration tax of $400 or buy 2 Training Units. Besides, the examinees can take the exam either online or in test centers. The results will be delivered in 3 business days from the date of the exam from the Red Hat Certification Central.

Topics Tested for RHCSA Certification Exam

The candidates who attempt to pass the RHCSA exam must be able to finalize the following types of tasks:

• Understanding and using different types of tools such as input-out redirection, regular expressions, or grep that help in analyzing a text.
• Witting simple shell scripts that will help in conditionally executing code or using Looping constructs for file processing and command-line input.
• Operating running systems and understanding how to boot, reboot system, and shut down it normally, as well as manage tuning profiles.
• Configuring local storage as well as assigning physical volumes, and creating and removing logical volumes.
• Creating, mounting, unmounting, and configuring different file systems such as ext4, vfat, or xfs.
• Configuring the time service clients together with deploying, and maintaining systems.
• Managing fundamental networking concepts and configuring IPv4/IPv6 addresses.
• Managing users and user groups by creating, deleting, and modifying local user accounts.
• Managing security by configuring firewall settings and creating file access control lists.
• Managing containers and realizing how to inspect container images.

Red Hat Certified Engineer Accreditation

The professionals who apply for the Red Hat Certified Engineer or RHCE accreditation have already earned the RHCSA certificate and are ready to demonstrate their skillset in automating Red Hat Enterprise Linux-related activities.

The target audience is formed of individuals who want to learn how to integrate Red Hat with emerging technologies as well as achieve efficiency by applying the automation skills they learn during the preparation period.

Thus, once you gained the RHCSA accreditation, you should continue taking the necessary steps for obtaining the RHCE certification. This means that you should pass the EX294 exam. This test lasts 4 hours and costs $400 as an enrollment fee. Another registration option would be if you buy 2 Training Units. What’s more, the applicants can pass this evaluation either online, at the vendor’s location, or in one of the accredited testing centers.

Topics Tested for RHCE Accreditation

The candidates who decide to take the RHCE qualifying exam should demonstrate that they developed the following competencies:

• Possess an advanced level of understanding of the topics and concepts tested in the RHCSA certification exam.
• Understanding the Ansible key components such as the inventories, module, variables, plays, or facts.
• Installing and configuring the Ansible control node and the required packages.
• Configuring the Ansible managed nodes and distribute the SSH keys to managed nodes.
• Creating simple shell scripts to run ad hoc Ansible commands.
• Creating Ansible playbooks and plays and applying variables for retrieving the results obtained after running a command.
• Using the Ansible modules for various system administration tasks.
• Working and creating roles from the Ansible Galaxy system and use them in the business environment.
• Using advanced Ansible features.

For a qualitative study of the above topics, the vendor recommends attending the Red Hat Enterprise Linux Automation with Ansible (RH294) training course for 5 days.

Career Path

The professionals who succeed in becoming RHCSA and RHCE certified can apply for the following positions:

• DevOps Engineer
• Security Engineer
• System Administrator

But if you are interested in specific numbers, then according to the information provided by Payscale.com, a Security Engineer can reach an annual salary of approximately $93k. Meanwhile, if you choose to apply for the role of DevOps Engineer, then you should expect an offer of $96k as an annual payment.

Certification Path

As mentioned above, the Linux-related designation category includes many certifications. So, once you get RHCSA and RHCE certificates, don't stop there. Consider more narrowly focused areas such as:

• Red Hat Certified Specialist in Containers and Kubernetes
• Red Hat Certified Specialist in Linux Diagnostics and Troubleshooting
• Red Hat Certified Specialist in Security: Linux