Red Hat's OpenShift Certification Pathways evolve to meet the growing demand for cloud-native skills

Cloud-native technologies have taken the IT industry by storm and Red Hat OpenShift has emerged as a popular application and container orchestration platform for enterprise IT teams. Interest has accelerated with the availability of OpenShift on managed services like AWS and Microsoft Azure. As more companies adopt containerization and cloud-native technologies to modernize and develop new applications, professionals continue to seek ways to upskill in these areas. Red Hat recognizes this growing demand and continually updates its training curriculum and certification pathways to keep up with the industry's evolving needs.

As such, the Red Hat Certified Specialist in OpenShift program has been updated to reflect the importance and prestige of being skilled in OpenShift technology. The Red Hat Certified Specialist in OpenShift Administration has been renamed as the Red Hat Certified OpenShift Administrator, while the Red Hat Certified Specialist in OpenShift Application Development has become the Red Hat Certified OpenShift Application Developer. 

For those interested in preparing for an updated certification, the OpenShift Administrator exam (EX280) and the App Developer exam (EX288) both have  recommended (but not required) two-course sequences for preparatory learning. For the App Developer exam (EX288), there's an additional certification exam, Red Hat Certified Specialist in Containers (EX188), that is aligned with the first course in the sequence. The availability of this certification reflects a shift from viewing the building of containers as an administrative task to recognizing that this is principally a task undertaken by developers. While it's recommended to pass this exam, it's not required to take the Red Hat Certified OpenShift Administrator exam (EX280) or earn the OpenShift Application Developer (EX288) certification.

While Linux skills are always valuable for IT professionals, the changes to the OpenShift certification program effectively lifts the Linux-based prerequisites of the older OpenShift certifications, making them more readily available to a wider range of professionals. Professionals no longer need Red Hat Enterprise Linux skills to pursue their OpenShift certification journey. Certified professionals who have already earned the distinction of Red Hat Certified Specialist in OpenShift Administration or OpenShift Application Development will automatically see the change to their title in their Red Hat Certification verification page

These changes to two of our most sought-after certifications, along with more updates in the pipeline, reflect the growing importance of Red Hat OpenShift and Kubernetes in the IT industry. If you're interested in learning more about becoming certified on OpenShift, explore our recommended learning pathways today.