Monday, October 24, 2011

Red Hat Certified Engineer (RHCE) RHEL 6












I'm super psyched, I passed the Red Hat Systems Administrator and Engineer exams for Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6 last Friday!!  It is a very tough set of exams and you have to pass both in order to get the Certified Engineer certification.  They are 100% hands on exams.  It's so difficult because there is so much content in the course objectives that could potentially be on the test and you have to cram it all in just in case.

About two weeks prior to the exam I started in on this RHEL6 RHCE preparation guide that I picked up from Amazon and it was a very good resource and I'd highly recommend it.  It was difficult to motivate myself to get started on the book, but once I started I went through the whole book, quickly scanning over what I already knew and spending more time on new material.  It was very helpful to go through the end of chapter exercises and sample exams provided by setting up VMs on a test box like they recommend.  One quick thing to note, the book has a section on creating your own RPM package from scratch, but that is no longer in the RHCE objectives list

If possible, it is also helpful to take the RH300 Rapid Track course, which is a 4 day instructor led course.  However, it's a pricey class, so if someone else isn't paying for the class, don't think that you can't pass the exams without taking the class.  I think you can definitely pass both the RHCSA and RHCE exams by utilizing only the book as long as you go through the book cover to cover and do all the exercises/sample tests.  It certainly will help to reinforce the material in the study guide by going through the class, but it's not an absolute requirement. 

One quick tip, the instructor tells you multiple times prior to the exam to be SURE to reboot your VM multiple times during the exam.  The more the better, time allowing.  That way if you have a problem with a particular section you know what to spend your time fixing.  If you wait and reboot at the end, you may have no idea what the particular problem is.  Definitely good advice because two people in my class that took the exam did not end up rebooting at all and failed and they found out afterwards their VM did not boot.

So my best advice would be to get the book and go through it cover to cover, be sure you know what is on the RHCE objectives list and get some rest the night before the exam!  Good luck and definitely drop me a comment and let me know how you do!

1 comments :

Cha2ranga said...

Congratz for your RHCE...
Thanks for sharing your experience regarding exam. I'm plaining to do the exam next week. Is there any resource that i can get some practice question.

 
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