Exams Costs

[Rob1]

Hi All , 

  Im wondering if you are able to take RedHat Exams with out attending the courses , And thus just using materials to study for he exam ?

  Reason im asking this , is pughly down to cost . 

If so , has anyone in the community done so and how did you find the route via this method to gain your certification ?

Cheers Rob. 

[JS_Learning]

Hi @Rob1 ,

Yes, the Red Hat exams are somehow independant to the Red Hat courses.

The exams are a test to validate some expertise and experience in the Red Hat products. I have known some people who passed Red Hat Certified Specialist in Ansible Automation exam (EX407) just with their experience at work.

The trainings are a way to help acquire some knowledge in a Red Hat technology. The trainings are an opportunity to practice and provide a lab environment. The training, lead by very qualified people, are also a way to transfer some pro-tips and explain some products differently. They are not a guarantee to pass all exams!  It's again about validating the real experience, sometimes there are difficult exams with real world questions.

Sometimes a technique to pass is to do and redo every labs and exercice in a training until it's all easy to do and redo. Then chance the exam, there will be some topics where real world experience would have helped, anyway that's a good basis to try find solution during the exam.

Overall it's safe to say that many Red Hat exams are rather difficult.

Finally, the method for users with expertise and experience, is simply to read the exams objectives, which are present in every exam pages, like this:

https://www.redhat.com/en/services/training/ex407-red-hat-certified-specialist-in-ansible-automation... 

From there build your own training plan. Most importantly, practice, practice, practice because the exams are hands on. From my many experiences it's not much free time even when being strongly prepared. Some people use VM and make their own labs, with vagrant and the likes. It takes time in doing some setup rather than focusing on practicing...

That is why sometimes it's easier to attend a Red Hat training, it has the content, the tips, the labs already made, and numerous exercices.

Which certification you have in mind? For example, I found for RHCSA (System Administrator) RHEL8, the course fast track RH199 was very valuable (it has a lot of pro-tips). 

[Rob1]

Hello Js Learning ,

I was looking at the Ansible D0407 , As I believe that you must complete this before any other . 4 day class room is great but the cost £2600 + VAT is way too much for a single person.

So self-paced learning is my next step. As my role is changing more and more towards infrastructure as a code , it only been a year I have started to use Visual Code to write my playbooks and using git.

And Now two years in using ansible.

Getting a recognised certificate in Ansible my look like the next step forward.

Many thanks for your reply.

Rob.


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[JS_Learning]

Hi @Rob1 

Can you elaborate on why you said "I believe you must complete this before any other"?

If any course is usually recommended before any other course, it's the RHCSA (System Administrator) as it's about RHEL and using that operating system. I think it's true, even people with solid Linux Skills could benefit from it, see what's new in RHEL8, learn the more advanced tools, see what was deprecated...

Ansible is important nowadays, that even the RHCE (Certified Engineer) has evolved to be some sort of "advanced system administration using Ansible automation". The new RHCE exam, RHEL8 based, is EX294:

https://www.redhat.com/en/services/training/ex294-red-hat-certified-engineer-rhce-exam-red-hat-enter... 

If I were in your position, I would ask, which one to choose then DO407 or EX294? See this answer: "A lot of the content in RH294 will be the same as the current DO407.  We are also working on a new Ansible best practices class that will also get it's own certification exam. " Source: https://learn.redhat.com/t5/Red-Hat-Learning-Subscription/Difference-between-RH294EA-amp-DO407-Cours... 

I did D0407, and the exam EX407 two years ago. I recently passed EX294 after one failed attempt. With my newly acquired experience, I would suggest you to consider doing EX294 instead. It would grant you the hard-to-get and recognized title of RHCE (Certified Engineer) and it's based on Ansible. It's a bit more topics than DO407, I think it's worth it. The exam cost is the same anyway.

That is also part of many advanced certifications like Devops, RHCA (Certified Architect). I could rephrase that, if you would consider doing any other advanced certifications, such as the RHCA, the RHCE would be mandatory to have.

If you want to go further, there is even a specific advanced Ansible exam , EX447:

https://www.redhat.com/en/services/training/ex447-red-hat-certified-specialist-advanced-automation-a... 

I heard from a collegue it's also about Ansible Tower and teaching Ansible Best practices. 

PS: I agree the cost of training is rather high for individuals, not everyone can afford to invest in that. Good employers would pay for training, especially that its very relevant skills for business!

[maixens]

Jus to point the fact that your RHCE (EX294) will be validated only after passing RHCSA which is required.

With my RHLS I passed : EX200, EX294, EX447, EX280, EX288, EX318 and preparing EX403 to get my RHCA. OUF!!!