I\u2019m starting my RHCA (Red Hat Certified Architect) journey!<\/p>\n
It took me some time to get my mind set on this, and it was important to understand the reasons I\u2019m willingt to do this in the first place.<\/p>\n
I do Linux system administration for a living. Although the world is moving towards DevOps, containers and automation, this doesn\u2019t change the fact that Linux remains the go-to choice for the cloud, and regardless of the job title, one still does a lot of sysadmin work day in, day out.<\/p>\n
I\u2019ve been running Linux in production for the past 7 years (and even longer as my personal desktop OS), with the last 4 years being Red Hat based OS exclusively. Over time, I transitioned from running servers on Debian to Ubuntu and then to Red Hat\/CentOS. As much as I like Debian, Red Hat has become my distribution of choice. As a result it just seemed natural to learn it in depth.<\/p>\n
I\u2019m a self-taught RHCE. I passed<\/a> the exam a couple of years ago.<\/p>\n If you\u2019re reading this, then you\u2019re likely aware that Red Hat exams are hands-on. As a result, they have something of value. You get presented with complex problems, and more often than not you need to know where to find answers on a RHEL system.<\/p>\n This testing methodology is advantageous because it does not require you to simply memorise things, but to know where to find information. Of course, you need to memorise bits and pieces, but it\u2019s muscle memory that\u2019s the key to success.<\/p>\n Having said that, there are three things required to achieve RHCA: practice, practice, practice. You need to perform the tasks over and over to be an expert in using a product, be it Red Hat High Availability clustering, Satellite or OpenStack.<\/p>\n I\u2019m a person who\u2019s eager to learn new things. This includes looking for challenges that would help me grow both personally, and professionally.<\/p>\n As I said some time ago, RHCA is not a sprint, it\u2019s a marathon. It\u2019s also a massive undertaking and should not be taken lightly. This alone makes me want to pursue it. To become better in what I do.<\/p>\n To quote Arnold Schwarzenegger:<\/p>\n “Never, ever think small. If you’re going to accomplish anything, you have to think big. No matter what you do, work, work, work!”<\/p>\n I\u2019m doing this for myself. It\u2019s a project that I feel is worth investing time and resources. I\u2019m not doing RHCA to get a new job, or to get a rise. There are much easier and less time consuming ways of achieving either of those things.<\/p>\n I expect this journey to be a lengthy process with lots of challenges that I\u2019ll need to overcome, including exams, travel and life itself.<\/p>\n Chances are that things won\u2019t always go my way even if I\u2019m well prepared, therefore it\u2019s important to be honest with myself and understand why I\u2019m doing this in the first place.<\/p>\n I don\u2019t have a strict deadline, but my aim is to pass the exams by the end of the year. I started planning my RHCA studies back in 2018 so that I would have plenty of time in 2019.<\/p>\n I use HA clustering at work, therefore the decision to take the EX436 was somewhat easy to make.<\/p>\n EX436 will be my first exam, and I\u2019m already approaching the end of the study process<\/a>. I use official documentation available on Red Hat\u2019s website, and a lot of practicing.<\/p>\n My home lab for HA clustering is quite simple: a laptop with a quad-core CPU, 16GB of RAM and 128GB SSD, running KVM hypervisor and four RHEL 7.1 virtual machines. One VM is used to provide storage services, and the other three VMs are for clustering. In terms of networking, I use five network interfaces (2x corosync redundand rings, 2x iSCSI multipath, 1x for LAN). Corosync and iSCSI networks are non-routable.<\/p>\nWhy am I doing this? Motivation and Expectations<\/h2>\n
Timescale<\/h2>\n
The First Exam: EX436 High Availability Clustering<\/h2>\n