How long is the RHCE “good” for? – It seems like this is the million dollar question everyone wants answered –including myself. Some people say the RHCE is only good for a single major release of Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL), others say its a year or two without providing anything substantial to back such claims. However, according to RedHat, the RHCE is valid for 2 full releases after the release on which the exam was taken.

This is the legalese you have probably already seen at RedHat;

The validity period for all RHCEs and RHCTs is pegged to the release of the Enterprise product commercially available at the time certification was earned. RHCE and RHCT certifications are considered current until Red Hat retires exams of the release following the version on which your certification was earned. For example, certificates earned on Red Hat Enterprise Linux 3 will be current until August 31, 2007, the last date on which Red Hat Enterprise Linux 4 exams will be offered. Note that Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5 was released in March, months before the final retirement of the version 4 exams.

To provide further clarification for earlier versions, Red Hat Enterprise Linux 4 will remain current until Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5 exams are retired, several months after the release of Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6.

Now this raises another interesting question; What’s the life expectancy of a RHEL release? In my next blog post, I attempt to answer this question and provide an easy to read bar graph illustrating RedHat releases of RHEL3, RHEL4 and RHEL5. I also offer a time-line for each of the RHEL releases.