According to IDC Infobrief: The business value of Red Hat Certification, 2021, “Interviewed organizations reported that staff with Red Hat Certification have greater skills and stronger technological know-how, allowing them to deliver more value to their organizations than other employees. They view certification as a differentiator for staff responsible for running their IT infrastructures and developing software for their customers and employees.”
Additionally, the study found that certified staff lead to a:
- 409% 3-year ROI
- 23%–51% faster to deploy infrastructure
- 24% more productive development teams
- 13% more cost effective infrastructure
- Almost 7 weeks faster for new hires to reach full productivity
In other words, certifying existing and new hires just makes good business sense.
4 Red Hat Certifications Your Systems Administration Team Needs
1. Red Hat Certified System Administrator (RHCSA)
As the name suggests the Red Hat Certified System Administrator (RHCSA®) certification is ideal for systems administrators managing a Red Hat Enterprise Linux environment.
RHCSA’s typically complete two Red Hat training courses prior to sitting for their exam:
The goal of the RHCSA training track and certification is to verify a candidate’s knowledge, skills and ability as it relates to the key tasks needed to become a full-time Linux administrator. RHCSAs can successfully perform the following tasks within a Red Enterprise Linux environment:
- Utilize the essential tools necessary for managing files, directories, documentation, and command-line environments
- Write simple shell scripts
- Operate running systems
- Configure local storage
- Create and configure file systems and attributes
- Deploy, configure, and maintain systems
- Manage users and groups
- Manage security
- Perform basic container management
2. Red Hat Certified Engineer (RHCE)
A Red Hat® Certified Engineer (RHCE®) is the next step after earning the RHCSA certification. This certification is ideal for Linux systems administrators as well as IT professionals working within a DevOps environment,
Prior to sitting for the exam, Red Hat recommends existing RHCSAs enroll in the Red Hat System Administration III: Linux Automation (RH294) training class.
The goal of the RHCE training course and certification is to verify a candidate’s knowledge, skills and ability as it relates to the skills needed to manage systems in a DevOps environment and understanding how Ansible Automation interacts with other Red Hat technologies. RHCEs possess the capability for effectively automating the deployment, management and support phases of multi-system environments.
3. Red Hat Certified Specialist in Red Hat Virtualization
After earning the RHCE, the next step for Linux systems administrators is to earn their Red Hat Certified Specialist in Red Hat Virtualization. This certification is ideal for experienced Linux system administrators tasked with managing enterprise servers and who also want to manage large numbers of servers or virtual machines using Red Hat Enterprise Virtualization.
Prior to sitting for the certification exam, Red Hat recommends candidates successfully complete the Red Hat Virtualization (RH318) training course.
The goal of the RH318 training course and certification track is to verify a candidate’s knowledge, skills and ability to use Red Hat® Virtualization to successfully deploy and manage virtualization infrastructure, hosts, and guests. A Red Hat Certified Specialist in Red Hat Virtualization is also expected to perform the following tasks in the Red Hat Virtualization Manager:
- Create datacenters, clusters, pools, and templates
- Install and configure Red Hat Virtualization hypervisors
- Manage Red Hat Virtualization hypervisors & more.
4. Red Hat Certified Architect (RHCA)
The Red Hat Certified Architect (RHCA) is the highest level of Red Hat certification a Linux systems administrator can attain. Unlike the other certifications on this list, to attain the Red Hat Certified Architect (RHCA) certification a candidate must pass and maintain passing five additional certifications chosen from a list of more than 40 certifications.
The RHCA certification path offers a flexible track for attaining the necessary knowledge and skills in managing your company’s Red Hat Enterprise Linux environment and how it relates to other Red Hat products. While candidates can choose any combination of certifications to comprise the 5 certifications necessary to receive the RHCA title, Red Hat does offer suggested groupings of certifications to develop a well rounded understanding of specific technology concentrations.
Open Hybrid Cloud:
- Red Hat Certified Specialist in Hybrid Cloud Management
- Red Hat Certified Specialist in Gluster Storage Administration
- Red Hat Certified Specialist in Virtualization
- Red Hat Certified Specialist in OpenShift Administration
- Red Hat Certified System Administrator in Red Hat OpenStack
- Red Hat Certified Specialist in Deployment and Systems Management
DevOps, containers, and OpenShift:
- Red Hat Certified Specialist in OpenShift Administration
- Red Hat Certified Specialist in Ansible Automation
- Red Hat Certified Specialist in Configuration Management
- Red Hat Certified Specialist in API Management
- Red Hat Certified Specialist in Advanced Automation: Ansible Best Practices
Telco Cloud:
- Red Hat Certified System Administrator in Red Hat OpenStack
- Red Hat Certified Engineer in Red Hat OpenStack
- Red Hat Certified Specialist in Ceph Storage Administration
- Red Hat Certified Specialist in Ansible Automation
- Red Hat Certified Specialist in Configuration Management
- Red Hat Certified Specialist in Advanced Automation: Ansible Best Practices
Linux mastery:
- Red Hat Certified Specialist in Linux Diagnostics and Troubleshooting
- Red Hat Certified Specialist in Linux Performance Tuning
- Red Hat Certified Specialist in Server Security and Hardening
- Red Hat Certified Specialist in Identity Management
- Red Hat Certified Specialist in High Availability Clustering
- Red Hat Certified Specialist in Deployment and Systems Management
- Red Hat Certified Specialist in Advanced Automation: Ansible Best Practices
- Red Hat Certified Specialist in Security: Linux
Ready To Gain Your Next Red Hat Certification?
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