A couple of weeks ago, RedHat announced the general availability of RHEL6… also effective on this release is the change on their certification offering. RHCT will now be replaced by RHCSA (Red Hat Certified System Administrator), and if you would like to be RHCE on RHEL6 regardless of your certification on RHEL5 you still have to go through the RHCSA exam.. and then once you pass.. you are then allowed to take RHCE exam for RHEL6. More details here: RHCSA, RHCE
Since my self study modules/materials are on RHEL5, and it would take a while for the RHEL6 exam to come out and of course to review on that version.. and it’s really one of my personal goals to be RHCE asap! why not just take the RHEL5 RHCE? so I inquired, the exam center said the last RHCE exam for RHEL5 would be this December. So immediately I reserved and paid for my slot (yeah my own money!).
I had 1 month to prepare to read all the books, references, take notes, do experimentations, and simulate some critical exam scenarios. The catch is I have to do all of these on top of work time.. so I’ve got other stuffs to do like being engaged on pre-sales activities, creating work plans, doing some storage migration, doing performance tuning reports, attending a Golden Gate training, to name a few.. plus I got sick for 1 week, then here goes the Christmas parties which is too bad that I have to avoid all the fun and alcohol because of the much needed brain cellzzz.. Then even on the night before the exam I was cramming too much to make the email services work on my test environment. So yeah the preparation was a wild ride and I had lots of sleepless nights making sure that I’ll be able to do/simulate what I learn in theory.
Last December 18 I took the RHCE (it’s a hands-on performance based/situational exam).. I was really confident on the exam proper up to the finishing touches on my exam machine. When I came out of the exam center I really felt relieved because all the sacrifices are over!
After waiting for 3 days for the results.. I’m happy to be tweeting this
Wheeew whatta relief, I am now a RedHat Certified Engineer! the exam was challenging, all the sleepless nights paid off http://goo.gl/Qpd7Z
What’s even more surprising for me is when I was browsing on Red Hat Certified Engineer – Philippines Facebook page, I noticed that the last recorded RHCE passer (announcement) was last March 20, 2010.. cool 
hmm but I still have to verify this..
Thanks for all the congratulations, and to my loved ones, family, friends who supported and helped me I love you all!
