Value of RHCE?

[freegeeks]

I'm a CCNP certified network engineer working towards my CCIE R&S
I used to be a *nix sysadmin and always enjoyed that also. What is the value of RHCE? How is it looked upon? Might try to add a Red Hat cert for more job security. I'm freelance so this way it would be easier to go also for the sysadmin jobs out there.
I have quite a lot of linux sysadmin experience (centos actually)

How hard is it?

 

[freegeeks]

nobody?

 

[postaled]

Read the question right after you posted it but I like the others that most likely read this.... I don't have any experience/knowledge to answer it.

 

[Nothinman]

Same here, I'm a big Linux guy in my personal life and I do use it at work but never needed any certs or anything because the usage is for myself. Our clients are almost all Windows so my Linux experience is just a nice addition.

 

[xSauronx]

The only person Ive known that has it was a teacher at uni. I cant remember if he got it because it was required to admin the Red Hat course the university uses, or if he got it for the hell of it because he had spent so much time with the red hat course that he figured there was no better time than now to get it.

Either way, he got his job at the school (linux admin of some level) without it. He said the test was pretty tough, and he already had a decent amount of experience before he got to the school.

/for whatever any of that is worth

 

[wheresmybacon]

I've never seen RHCE as a job requirement; it's just not a widely-known cert by most people doing the hiring. Folks who need a Linux admin are in my experience much more interested in what you can do and how much experience you have as opposed to having certs.

Last year the company I worked for put several of us through a SLES 11 class, and the guy who taught it literally had no formal education at all and no certs. He just happened to eat, sleep, and breath Linux. As I recall, his friend basically hired him for the gig over IRC. LOL

That being said, if you're a freelancer and intend to stay that way, I would get it. If you're constantly in the position of selling yourself for project work, anything that can set you apart from the next guy is a good thing.

 

[JD50]

RHCE is a great cert to have, in my experience it's very respected. You can't braindump for the RHCE like you can for other certs, you either know how your stuff or you don't. I got mine in 2008 and got a ton of job offers after I put it on my resume.

 

[wheresmybacon]

RHCE is a great cert to have, in my experience it's very respected. You can't braindump for the RHCE like you can for other certs, you either know how your stuff or you don't. I got mine in 2008 and got a ton of job offers after I put it on my resume.

Hmm...this is interesting. I don't doubt its difficulty, I just didn't know it was so widely known. News to me!

I've kind of got the bug to get another cert. Maybe RHCE should be that cert.

What materials did you use to study?

 

[JD50]

Hmm...this is interesting. I don't doubt its difficulty, I just didn't know it was so widely known. News to me!

I've kind of got the bug to get another cert. Maybe RHCE should be that cert.

What materials did you use to study?

I used the Michael Jang (sp?) RHCE book and virtualization. It's incredibly easy to build multiple clients/servers on one box using virtualization. That book is also good for general reference when you're a linux noob, it's not just a brain dump type book for the RHCE exam. That's what's so great about the RHCE (or any Red Hat exam), you can't brain dump it.

You can also get anything you need to know from http://docs.redhat.com/docs/en-US/index.html

They're very up front about the topics that are covered on their exams, they just don't go into a lot of details. Also, the Red Hat courses are very good, just be prepared to study a lot at night, they really bombard you with a lot of material. You need to be pretty familiar with most of the material beforehand or you're going to have problems. It's not like you can take the RHCE bootcamp course with little or no prior linux experience and pass the RHCE immediately afterwards.

 

[freegeeks]

I used the Michael Jang (sp?) RHCE book and virtualization. It's incredibly easy to build multiple clients/servers on one box using virtualization. That book is also good for general reference when you're a linux noob, it's not just a brain dump type book for the RHCE exam. That's what's so great about the RHCE (or any Red Hat exam), you can't brain dump it.

You can also get anything you need to know from http://docs.redhat.com/docs/en-US/index.html

They're very up front about the topics that are covered on their exams, they just don't go into a lot of details. Also, the Red Hat courses are very good, just be prepared to study a lot at night, they really bombard you with a lot of material. You need to be pretty familiar with most of the material beforehand or you're going to have problems. It's not like you can take the RHCE bootcamp course with little or no prior linux experience and pass the RHCE immediately afterwards.

thx, I'll look into it

 

[Fallen Kell]

I'm mixed on it. I havn't seen a requirement anywhere (but I havn't been looking all that hard, just the normal keep my eyes open and watching pay/compensation). Then again, I have my Solaris 10 System Administrator certification, and then just the CompTIA Linux+ cert (which is a joke to be honest). The Solaris cert is pretty well respected as it is such a comprehensive test which no amount of brain dumping will get you ready for (you simply have to have had a lot of hands on and know the stuff). And most places will see that and be satisfied that you can admin the linux systems (well, you need to go learn yum, and how to build and maintain your own repositories, and also know enough about rpmbuild to build from a source package, and then understand LVM...). But really, you can typically do that in an interview setting if you have experience with it.

 

[wheresmybacon]

I used the Michael Jang (sp?) RHCE book and virtualization. It's incredibly easy to build multiple clients/servers on one box using virtualization. That book is also good for general reference when you're a linux noob, it's not just a brain dump type book for the RHCE exam. That's what's so great about the RHCE (or any Red Hat exam), you can't brain dump it.

You can also get anything you need to know from http://docs.redhat.com/docs/en-US/index.html

They're very up front about the topics that are covered on their exams, they just don't go into a lot of details. Also, the Red Hat courses are very good, just be prepared to study a lot at night, they really bombard you with a lot of material. You need to be pretty familiar with most of the material beforehand or you're going to have problems. It's not like you can take the RHCE bootcamp course with little or no prior linux experience and pass the RHCE immediately afterwards.

Oh I didn't expect to just read and then regurgitate the datas. I've administered SUSE servers before and currently administer VMware ESX 4.1. And of course there are my Linux boxes at home...

I've elected to get my CCNA next, but RHCE could be in the future depending on where my current contract goes...or stops. LOL

Thanks for the info though. :thumbsup:

 

[liquidki]

I'm a little late to this thread but in case anyone is listening for replies:

What I've seen is that people from the "certs are crap" crowd don't care much about RHCE versus any other cert, and often don't know that it's not just a multiple choice written test.

People from the "some certs have value" crowd generally know what is required to get the RHCE cert (a timed, 6 hour test where the majority of that time is spent configuring and troubleshooting a live system) and respect it along with the other practical certs CCNA, CCIE, etc.

People with no strong opinion about certs are generally very receptive once they hear what goes into getting the cert.

 

[moddestmike]

I used the Michael Jang (sp?) RHCE book and virtualization. It's incredibly easy to build multiple clients/servers on one box using virtualization. That book is also good for general reference when you're a linux noob, it's not just a brain dump type book for the RHCE exam. That's what's so great about the RHCE (or any Red Hat exam), you can't brain dump it.

You can also get anything you need to know from http://docs.redhat.com/docs/en-US/index.html

They're very up front about the topics that are covered on their exams, they just don't go into a lot of details. Also, the Red Hat courses are very good, just be prepared to study a lot at night, they really bombard you with a lot of material. You need to be pretty familiar with most of the material beforehand or you're going to have problems. It's not like you can take the RHCE bootcamp course with little or no prior linux experience and pass the RHCE immediately afterwards.

Jang books are good, just finished my L-PIC 1 & 2 now about 3 chapters into Jangs book. I have a long way to go for RHCE but RHCSA shouldn't be too bad. Too bad I'm currently stuck doing backend support for EBS. ERP's suck so bad.