Completed the RHCE - what next?

Question

So I've completed the RHCE exam last week, and all went well. Not bad for a Debian geek!

My employer is keen on continuing my certification, and is open to ideas. So my question is what tests do people recommened? I understand the RHCE is the defacto test, but is it worth continuting down the same path to towards to the RHCA collecting the specialized Redhat exams - or progressing out, perhaps to other tests?

I might as well make the most of the offer, so what do people think?

Answer 1

Although you don't specify your other skills, MySQL Certification has historically gone down well on CVs and isn't that widespread - dependent on your situtaion there are four separate certs:

• CMA: Certified MySQL Associate
• CMDEV: Certified MySQL Developer
• CMDBA: Certified MySQL Database Administrator
• CMCDBA: Certified MySQL Cluster Database Administrator

I assume you'd want the third one. Progression with RH is also of benefit, it really depends on your career aspirations. Where do you see yourself in 5 years? Do a course to get you there :)

Answer 2

It's not a certification, but I highly, highly, highly recommend reading "The Practice of System and Network Administration." It's all about the transferrable skills you'll need to possess for any admin job, regardless of what technology you will use. Soft skills, proceedures and best practices, mindsets, and What Not To Do. There's even stuff in there about management of kittens admins if your career gets to that point.

Technical study is important, but knowing about Change Management and why everyone should have a trouble ticket system is even moreso.

I also recommend "Time Management for Sysadmins". For completely different reasons.

Answer 3

If I were going down the certification route, I'd look at things that tie-in logically: A+, MySQL, CISCO, Network+, etc.

Might even throw-in the MSCE just so you're "well-rounded".

Answer 4

It really depends on what you want to do. Do you want to specialize or be a generalist with deep knowledge in several areas? Do you want to focus on internal system administration or Internet-facing system administration? Do you care for administration or architecting of systems?

If you want to pursue a well-rounded education aimed at web hosting, for example, I would recommend pursuing MySQL/Oracle expertise, a web-oriented programming language forte (PHP, ruby, Java -- has actual certification track, etc.), Cisco certification track, and security certification.

Nothing, however, beats doing the work and having a proven, demonstratable skill set. However, your question is about employer-sponsored certification tracks, specifically, and not marketability. I assume you will put in use what you learn and are certified in -- that will make it worthwhile to your employer and to YOU! Which brings us back to my first paragraph: it really depends on what you want to do.

Answer 5

I would recommend the LPI certifications, generally known as LPIC1 and 2. They are distro independent and make a lot of sense to me. Seeing that you have RHCE, you should theoretically be able to just sit the exams, at least for LPIC1.

Answer 6

Any Security certification. e.g. CISSP

Cheers