I’ve seen this comic strip quoted several times during my search for information regarding professional IT certifications.  Like most Dilbert comics, it’s memorable in its use of hyperbole to illustrate points that ring true to so many of us out here in the professional world.  This particular strip emphasizes a phenomenon that has troubled our industry for the past ten years or so, that of the ‘paper tiger’, whose list of resume acronyms would put the entire faculty of your local college’s medical school to shame.  The drill is as follows; go to some website or buy some software that has remarkably accurate practice tests, cram for a few days, take the test, get the certificate, rinse and repeat. In a matter of a few weeks anyone remotely intelligent and motivated can rack up a resume that would get their foot in the door pretty much anywhere, while perhaps not really knowing enough to competently do anything… which brings me to the RHCE  (Red Hat Certified Engineer) Exam and how it attempts to circumvent the issue, but perhaps I’m getting ahead of myself. My interest in pursuing the certification came from an entirely different angle.

It started with my interest in professional progression.  I’ve been managing Solaris and Linux systems for several years now, and I find myself wanting to understand more about the deep dark details as I become  comfortable with the day to day issues that arise.  I began my quest for knowledge where I have so many times in the past, with searching for books and other self study materials, and ended up a bit disappointed with the selection.  I found plenty of cure-all books for the UNIX administrator that would serve as great reference material for the day to day tasks like Apache, FTP, NIS, file system management and etc, but not much on the engineering, programming, or architect level.  Somewhere in my searching I came across a book called the Red Hat Certified Engineer Linux Study Guide by Michael Jang.  While the book itself is probably best classified as a good reference of the kind which I described earlier, I began reading reports about the test that caught my interest, and made me want to try it out for myself. At this point I hit a tangent and embarked on a so-called ‘side quest’.

From what I’ve read, the RHCE Exam isn’t simply a brain-dump, cram session, multiple choice test.  It’s a hands-on test of skill, a gauntlet of sorts for the brave and daring Linux administrators of the world to test their mettle.  It’s a full day test. You show up in the morning, sit down in front of a broken server, fix it, eat lunch, come back, and build a new server to a given set of specifications. While there are study materials  that can give you an idea of what to expect and prepare you to pass the test (such as the book I mentioned, and even a Red Hat course), the real beauty of the approach is this: even if you know what’s going to be on the test in advance, you have to actually demonstrate your skills in order to pass.  Furthermore, your grade has nothing to do with whether you know what all of the awk flags do or other such questions that quizzes rely on, the grading is performed solely on the end result, not how you get there.

So I’m currently planning on taking the exam in January, the next available local test date. Not for the acronym, not for the resume bullet, but for the challenge and pure geekdom glory.  In the coming weeks I’ll try to keep you up to date on the status of my preparations (don’t worry, I’ve already begun), and will report on whether it was drake or dragon, whether I became the slayer or the slain.

In the mean time, feel free to share your certification thoughts and opinions. Have you taken the RHCE Exam? Have you gotten another certification that you’ve found useful (or not)?