Dear all, I plan to do RHCE certification, I have familiarity with Linux servers worked for one year. Is it advisable to install Linux (RHE 4) at home PC and learn on own and do a certification. are there any CBT nuggets available? kindly advice thanks in advance, Raman.
On Fri, Oct 23, 2009 at 8:41 PM, Ramang G mailramang@yahoo.com wrote:
Dear all,
I plan to do RHCE certification, I have familiarity with Linux servers worked for one year. Is it advisable to install Linux (RHE 4) at home PC and learn on own and do a certification.
are there any CBT nuggets available?
kindly advice
thanks in advance, Raman.
You just need to attend one of the 'very special' certification exam oriented coaching classes at Vibrant or Ultramax (just google around for their websites) or there might be other centers if you ask around, if your sole intention is to clear the North American Linux Vendor's certification schemes.
'Familiarity' or real time hands on experience with GNU/Linux or a truly community edition operating system like CentOS 5.3 is _not_at_all_ a requirement, You need to just know how to hack (I did not say crack) the North American Linux Vendor's certification exams.
The exam is designed in such a manner to very large extend that only people already familiar with the exam pattern (read having paid The North American Linux Vendor 250$ a couple of times as exam fees and having failed in the first few attempts, and and also purchased their so called study materials) can pass. The short cut way is to attend the 'very very special' coaching classes at some places in Mumbai (including at Vibrant and Ultramax).
The rates of 'very special coaching' package at the coaching centers can be reduced if you know how to bargain well enough or have a few people as a batch with you. (If you want to know about the rates, kindly contact me off list).
A phd in Fish Market style bargaining always helps on such occasions.
Please use CentOS 5.3 and set up a small home lab consisting of at least 2 or 3 workstations to prepare for the exam. Try configuring one GNU/Linux box as a router. If possible get an MTNL connection with a static I.P Address (that is what I use these days), It took me just 1 day to get the Static I.P Address assigned (for the TriBand 256 Unlimited Downloads scheme) from the MTNL Vashi Office.
The Modus operandi to get the Static I.P Address assigned within a day is to visit the MTNL office and request them (read pester) very very very very politely till they give you one. And you know Bingo it works!!!!!
The whole process of setting this home lab and configuring the Hardware and Software itself would make you more than competent to handle the North American Linux Vendor's exam and most importantly will give you hands on experience with basic GNU/Linux Systems and Network Administration.
CBT tutorials are good but nothing beats setting up the lab yourself.
ps:- I am a practicing Senior GNU/Linux Systems Administrator and I do use Cent0S 5.3 at my work place and also on my personal laptop these days and have been using various GNU/Linux distributions for close to 7+ years including the North American Vendor's offerings.
Regards,
On Friday 23 Oct 2009, Ramang G wrote:
I plan to do RHCE certification, I have familiarity with Linux servers worked for one year. Is it advisable to install Linux (RHE 4) at home PC and learn on own and do a certification.
RHEL 4 is old - get a copy of CentOS 5.4 which is binary compatible with RHEL 5.4.
Strongly advise above method v/s attending special classes with the objective of clearing the certification exam (see Vivek Cherian's post).
In the long run your own hands on experience will pay off much more than your 90% @ the certification exam [1].
With virtualization, you can simulate a small network on your machine and observe the behaviour of applications ...
At the end of the day, 90% means diddle squat when you cannot execute basic server administration; believe me your competency will be apparent within a day or two if not sooner.
are there any CBT nuggets available?
Join the CentOS/openSUSE/Debian mailing lists/forums and also go through the respective archives. Although the S/N ratio can be low sometimes, you will come across real life issues faced by admins across the world and you will definitely pick up nuggets.
Besides looking @ RHCE also go through the LPI (www.lpi.org) curriculum - it is distribution agnostic and tests admin skills at the CLI level.
kindly advice
IMO, those who are really into open source solutions seldom give much credence to the certification stamps that job candidates present. I do not. I have crafted my own 45 questions quiz based on RH033 module plus basic networking fundas. Out of the ~60 candidates (some with > 80% in their cert. exam) whom I have interviewed, the best is 16 correct answers (only 2 persons). The average is a pathetic 10/45.
[1] I had one engineer working for me (passed a very popular Linux cert with 90%) who did not know the basics of server administration. I had asked him to complete the setup of an openLDAP server that a previous engineer had left half complete. For an entire day he kept trying to connect to the server w/o success until I asked him "have you checked if the openldap server is running?"
There are no short cuts if you truly desire to be the one of the best in your chosen profession.
HTH
On Sat, Oct 24, 2009 at 4:20 PM, Arun Khan knura@yahoo.com wrote:
On Friday 23 Oct 2009, Ramang G wrote:
I plan to do RHCE certification, I have familiarity with Linux servers worked for one year. Is it advisable to install Linux (RHE 4) at home PC and learn on own and do a certification.
If you are located near to harbour line and able to reach at Vashi. You can also meet one more person Mr. Sadhiq who is also taking coaching classes for RHCE.
He is very much efficient and very well teacher. if you want his contact detail reply me off list.
At any institute you can't do much bargaining. They will say you coaching fee 15K bucks. And offer you one time payment will give 13-14K, not less than that.
If you told them you don't required Red hat study material your cost will reduced to 12K anyway.
This is what you get.
RHEL 4 is old - get a copy of CentOS 5.4 which is binary compatible with RHEL 5.4.
Strongly advise above method v/s attending special classes with the objective of clearing the certification exam (see Vivek Cherian's post).
In the long run your own hands on experience will pay off much more than your 90% @ the certification exam [1].
With virtualization, you can simulate a small network on your machine and observe the behaviour of applications ...
At the end of the day, 90% means diddle squat when you cannot execute basic server administration; believe me your competency will be apparent within a day or two if not sooner.
are there any CBT nuggets available?
Join the CentOS/openSUSE/Debian mailing lists/forums and also go through the respective archives. Although the S/N ratio can be low sometimes, you will come across real life issues faced by admins across the world and you will definitely pick up nuggets.
Besides looking @ RHCE also go through the LPI (www.lpi.org) curriculum - it is distribution agnostic and tests admin skills at the CLI level.
kindly advice
IMO, those who are really into open source solutions seldom give much credence to the certification stamps that job candidates present. I do not. I have crafted my own 45 questions quiz based on RH033 module plus basic networking fundas. Out of the ~60 candidates (some with > 80% in their cert. exam) whom I have interviewed, the best is 16 correct answers (only 2 persons). The average is a pathetic 10/45.
[1] I had one engineer working for me (passed a very popular Linux cert with 90%) who did not know the basics of server administration. I had asked him to complete the setup of an openLDAP server that a previous engineer had left half complete. For an entire day he kept trying to connect to the server w/o success until I asked him "have you checked if the openldap server is running?"
There are no short cuts if you truly desire to be the one of the best in your chosen profession.
HTH
Arun Khan
I am agree to Arun. Even we do our certification, it's not provide or teaches us each and everything. You have to learn deep for knowing each and every tweaks of Linux and it's whole try and error learning, do the mistake and solve it. what happens is that you will get new error every time you do it.
regards,
Ganesh Gajare(Dragger) Be a fossers, use GNU/Linux
On Sat, 2009-10-24 at 16:20 +0530, Arun Khan wrote:
On Friday 23 Oct 2009, Ramang G wrote:
I plan to do RHCE certification, I have familiarity with Linux servers worked for one year. Is it advisable to install Linux (RHE 4) at home PC and learn on own and do a certification.
RHEL 4 is old - get a copy of CentOS 5.4 which is binary compatible with RHEL 5.4.
Strongly advise above method v/s attending special classes with the objective of clearing the certification exam (see Vivek Cherian's post).
There are benefits of doing a structured study course. You have to decide whether you want to learn Open Source way of working and learning or just get a certification (or any degree).
In the long run your own hands on experience will pay off much more than your 90% @ the certification exam [1].
Definitely, but sometimes a structured initiation helps.
With virtualization, you can simulate a small network on your machine and observe the behaviour of applications ...
How to virtualise, is also a big question for starters? Even how to install - and that is quite a legitimate hurdle.
At the end of the day, 90% means diddle squat when you cannot execute basic server administration; believe me your competency will be apparent within a day or two if not sooner.
are there any CBT nuggets available?
Join the CentOS/openSUSE/Debian mailing lists/forums and also go through the respective archives. Although the S/N ratio can be low sometimes, you will come across real life issues faced by admins across the world and you will definitely pick up nuggets.
The desire to learn has to stem from you. If you are the kinds who can take the risk of charting unknown territory without the risk of getting demotivated this is the best method. If you will attend the course so that the money paid for the course is not wasted and it forces you to be regular in the class - it works for me this way for my yoga class - then better join.
Besides looking @ RHCE also go through the LPI (www.lpi.org) curriculum - it is distribution agnostic and tests admin skills at the CLI level.
Do a certification only if you wish to use it as a tool to get to the interview table. do a search in Naukri and other job sites. Select the most popular one !! Else look at learning as the objective.
kindly advice
IMO, those who are really into open source solutions seldom give much credence to the certification stamps that job candidates present. I do not. I have crafted my own 45 questions quiz based on RH033 module plus basic networking fundas. Out of the ~60 candidates (some with > 80% in their cert. exam) whom I have interviewed, the best is 16 correct answers (only 2 persons). The average is a pathetic 10/45.
Arun is correct and that is my own experience as well. But by own learning as well, you miss out on certain aspects as your learning gets skewed more towards areas that you are interested in rather than an all round understanding of basic concepts. Therefore I use RHCE as a basic qualification for calling for interviews and then use my own assessment questionnaire; and the results are not too different from the above, but my experience of non-RHCE candidates is not too feasible as well because the really good ones (the self learners) are only available at prohibitive costs.
[1] I had one engineer working for me (passed a very popular Linux cert with 90%) who did not know the basics of server administration. I had asked him to complete the setup of an openLDAP server that a previous engineer had left half complete. For an entire day he kept trying to connect to the server w/o success until I asked him "have you checked if the openldap server is running?"
I am sure we all have had Engineers from good institutes in such situations as well. That does not mean the the Engineering course was ill designed - just that there was something wanting in people who imparted the course or the people who attended it.
There are no short cuts if you truly desire to be the one of the best in your chosen profession.
Definitely,
HTH
Arun Khan
Therefore if you know what you want - learning or certification, the course will help if you know of the right place that imparts learning and not just training for certification.
If you just want certification - then I am not too sure whether you should look at honing your skills in the Open source Arena
Regards
Varad Gupta Keen & Able Computers Pvt Ltd FOSTERing Linux New Delhi & Gurgaon varad.gupta@fosteringlinux.com www.keenable.com fl.keenable.com +91-11-30880046/7/8/9 +91-124-4080880 FAX +91-11-41808565 +91-124-4268187
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Arun Khan -
Ganesh Gajare -
Ramang G -
Varad Gupta -
Vivek Varghese Cherian