Keeping up with new trends and adapting to change are vital habits that you need to adopt to be a good software practitioner. The Red Hat certification programme provides an opportunity to develop and validate skills specific to IT security.

 

To be a Red Hat Certified Architect, you have to pass seven exams in total. The certification path begins with the RHCSA and RHCE exams followed by five more exams based on your choice to obtain the certificate.

 

Starting Your Journey - RHCSA And RHCE

 

The first hurdle on your path to attaining this Red Hat certification is an entry-level certification - Red Hat Certified System Administrator (RHCSA). This tests you on the following topics:

• The use of essential tools for handling files, directories, command-line environments, and documentation
• Simple shell scripts
• Running systems which includes booting into different run levels, identifying processes, starting and stopping virtual machines, and controlling services.
• Local storage configuration using partitions and logical volumes
• Creation and configuration of file systems and file system attributes, such as permissions, encryption, access control lists, and network file systems
• Deployment, configuration, and maintenance of systems, including software installation, update, and core services
• Managing users and groups
• Basic firewall and SELinux configuration
• Basic container management

The next exam - the Red Hat Certified Engineer (RHCE) exam focuses on the following:

 

• Configuration of a caching DNS server (unbound).
• SMTP nullclient (Postfix).
•  configuration of an iSCSI target and initiator.
• Configuration of Apache web server, including HTTPS.
• Running MariaDB.
• Configuration of NFS and SMB servers
• Basic shell scripting.

The RHCE is likely to be more challenging than the RHCSA as it is full of practical tasks designed to keep you occupied for the entire 3.5 hours.

 

Keep Climbing

 

As a Red Hat Certified Engineer, you need to keep going and prepare for the rest of RHCSA certification exams. Red Hat Certified Architect (RHCA) certification requires you to pass five additional exams of your choice from about twenty exam options. These are divided into concentrations on which candidate may choose to focus. The focuses are:

 

• Datacenter: concerned with skills common in an on-premises datacenter
• Cloud: revolves around skills with tasks common to cloud infrastructure
• DevOps: focuses on skills and knowledge in technologies and practices that can catalyse the process of moving applications and updates from development through the build and test processes and on to production
• Application Development: enhances skills in enterprise application development, integration, and architecture
• Application Platform: develops skills with tasks every day for building and managing tools and applications

You are free to pick exams across concentrations. Some examinations may not be conducted in your country. So in addition to the Red Hat certification cost, you must also be prepared to invest in travelling to exam centres.

 

Red Hat maintains a web page that shows a track record of all the Red Hat Certified Professionals and a list of all their Red Hat certifications.

 

Update Your Credentials

 

As in the case of reddest Hat certifications, the RHCA status does not last forever. For your RHCA certification to stay current, you must work to maintain five eligible credentials beyond the RHCE level. The certificates that you obtain, besides the RHCE certification, are valid for three years. It means that you have to take five exams every three years to maintain your RHCA status.

 

Now, these five exams can be the same exams you have prepared for in the past and already cleared. You can even pick any other set of exams from among the options eligible for RHCA. Besides that, being an RHCA makes you entitled to a 50 per cent discount on the Standard Red Hat Learning Subscription.

 

This subscription includes all the preparation materials and five first exam attempts. The ideal way to maintain your RHCA status would be to buy the Learning Subscription every three years and use it to pass five exams.

 

Conclusion

 

The journey of becoming Red Hat certified is neither long nor challenging, but it does require some amount of patience. It would help if you gave yourself the time to prepare well before appearing for each examination. Candidates have to keep in mind that doing well in one examination does not guarantee their success in the others. Take one step at a time.