I followed an interesting post on Linkedin this week about the changes to RHCX certifications and I didn’t notice earlier that the certifications have now moved to a calendar based expiration. For those who haven’t seen the changes, when you certify on RHEL 6, your cert is only deemed “current” for 3 years and only for RHEL 6. Anyone who got certified on RHEL 5 – nothing is changing for you, you’re still certified until RHEL 7. RHEL4 – your certs are no longer current so you need to do something.

About this 3 year “window”: if you obtain any other certificate, your 3 year window is reset to the date you got the new cert. For example, if you pass the RHCSA exam (replaces the RHCT) in January 2011, you are current for 3 years, becoming non-current in February 2014. If you later pass the RHCE exam in January 2012, your window shifts such that you become non-current in February 2015. Further, you obtain any of the Certificates of Expertise in January 2013, your windows shifts again, becoming non-current in February 2016.

I don’t like it. Each release of RHEL has a lifetime of 10 years. That means you must “re-certify” 3 more times after the initial certification if you want to be certified for the entire lifetime of that release. That’s 4 tests in all, raging from $400 to $749. And, that’s for each version of RHEL. Each certification and certificate of expertise is good only for a specific version of RHEL.

I don’t mind a certification or certificate being linked to a specific version of RHEL, but why should I have to re-certify on a version of RHEL that’s not supposed to change significantly over it’s lifetime? Another way to look at it: let’s assume in a 10 year period, there are 3 major releases of RHEL. That means you have to take 9 tests to maintain a current certification for all 3 releases over those 10 years. That’s anywhere from $3,600 to $5,694 (US dollars) for just the exams (also assumes the cost of the exams remains the same over those 10 years.) Sure, there are arguments along the lines of “investing in your career” and “you can write it off on your taxes” and such. If I’m a business owner who pays for the exams for the 20 RHCE’s on staff, my costs have just gone up considerably.

Is there a way of looking at this as anything other than “Red Hat milking the RHCX’s for more money”?

Randy Russell Director of Red Hat Certifications seems to think otherwise:

“We are not taking anyone’s certification away, de-listing them or anything like that. We are not requiring anyone to stay current unless they (or employers) see value in it. Even when people are non-current, it is still possible to verify their certification number online.

The purpose of having a certification program is to provide external, impartial validation of someone’s skills. If we are going to put our name and brand behind someone, we want to make sure they have some baseline level of skills and knowledge. We take this responsibility seriously enough to use practical, hands-on exams.

Similarly, if we are going to say someone is “current”, we need to make sure that “current” has significant meaning. We don’t know if the inidividual who certified back in 1. is a RHEL super-user or someone who simply passed the exam and never used

RHEL again. But that person and the person who passed a RHEL 5 exam last week are in the same boat under the old re-certification policy.

If someone has been actively engaged with the technology, three additional years are a plus. If they haven’t touched it, then those years mean rust. We don’t know which it is. We’d like to be able to differentiate between the two, if possible.

Therefore, under the new system we peg being current to the calendar. We also do something a bit different than other programs. Once someone certifies as RHCSA under RHEL 6, the three-year window moves out to the date of each successive exam they take. In other words, they don’t have to keep taking the same exam to stay current, although that is an option as well when there is a newer release. This provides more flexibility and some positive incentives for expanding one’s skills.

Again, no one has to re-certify if they don’t see a benefit in doing so, but if we aren’t providing some positive incentives for professional growth, we aren’t being the program we should be.

The one thing we aren’t trying to do is milk more money out of people who are certified. They’re eligible for significant discounts to re-certify. The goal is to have meaningful certs and have “current” carry weight as well.

For current specials and re-certification discounts look here: https://www.redhat.com/training/specials/

Re-certification discounts look here: https://www.redhat.com/training/specials/get_current/