Red Hat Certification has worked to make sure that IT professionals are certified to show they are proficient in their chosen field. Certification also ensures that employers hire the best candidates to solve problems and complete IT projects effectively and efficiently.

What is an RHCA?

A Red Hat Certified Architect (RHCA) is a Red Hat Certified Engineer (RHCE) or Red Hat Certified JBoss Developer (RHCJD) who has attained Red Hat's highest level of certification. This is accomplished by passing (and keeping current) five additional hands-on exams on Red Hat technologies.

IT professionals are able to select what they wish to focus on, or choose from a suggested concentration on either DevOps, Cloud, Datacenter, Enterprise applications development, and Application platform.

What are RHCA Levels?

Once upon a time, there were only five specific exams one could take beyond RHCE in order to earn RHCA. Over the years, however, Red Had Certification has added new exams and certifications to our catalog. RHCAs were among those earning these new certifications, but earning them provided no incremental benefit or recognition to their RHCA status.

Two years ago, Red Hat Certification changed policy so that IT professionals no longer had to take five specific exams. Additionally, the decision was made to recognize RHCAs who went above and beyond the five-exam requirement, and we introduced RHCA levels.

RHCA Levels show that an IT professional that has passed more than five exams within the RHCA path. This certifies and proves that this individuals has an even broader understanding of the Red Hat product portfolio. For example, an IT professional who has passed seven exams would be a RHCA Level III.

An accomplishment that recognizes the most elite IT professionals, becoming an RCHA is the highest level of certification Red Hat offers.

What it takes to be an RHCA

A Red Hat Certified Architect (RHCA) is a Red Hat Certified Engineer (RHCE) or Red Hat Certified JBoss Developer (RHCJD) who has attained Red Hat's highest level of certification by passing (and keeping current) five additional hands-on exams on Red Hat technologies.

What that means

RHCE and RHCJD have significantly different job roles and skills sets. This means that the set of certifications that an IT professional can apply toward earning an RHCA is dependent on whether one start out as and RHCE or RHCJD. There are a handful of certifications, however, that can be earned by both.

In some cases, especially for the DevOps concentration, certifications may be applied toward RCHA whether you are a RHCE or RHCJD. The list of qualifying exams that can be counted toward RHCA is as follows:

For RCHEs:

Red Hat Certified System Administrator in Red Hat OpenStack
Red Hat Certificate of Expertise in Hybrid Cloud Management
Red Hat Certificate of Expertise in Application Server Management
Red Hat Certificate of Expertise in Container Management
Red Hat Certified JBoss Administrator (RHCJA)
Red Hat Certificate of Expertise in Containerized Application Development
Red Hat Certificate of Expertise in Platform-as-a-Service
Red Hat Certified Engineer in Red Hat OpenStack
Red Hat Certified Virtualization Administrator
Red Hat Certificate of Expertise in Red Hat Enterprise Linux Diagnostics and Troubleshooting
Red Hat Certificate of Expertise in Deployment and Systems Management
Red Hat Certificate of Expertise in Configuration Management with Puppet
Red Hat Certificate of Expertise in Server Hardening
Red Hat Certificate of Expertise in High Availability Clustering
Red Hat Certificate of Expertise in Performance Tuning
Red Hat Certificate of Expertise in Data Virtualization
Red Hat Certificate of Expertise in Security: Network Services (Retired)
Red Hat Certificate of Expertise in Directory Services and Authentication (Retired)
Red Hat Certificate of Expertise in SELinux Policy Administration
Red Hat Certificate of Expertise in Hybrid Cloud
Red Hat Certificate of Expertise in Ansible Automation

For RHCJDs:

Red Hat Certificate of Expertise in Application Server Management
Red Hat Certified JBoss Administrator (RHCJA)
Red Hat Certificate of Expertise in Container Management
Red Hat Certificate of Expertise in Containerized Application Development
Red Hat Certificate of Expertise in Platform-as-a-Service
Red Hat Certificate of Expertise in Persistence
Red Hat Certificate of Expertise in Configuration Management with Puppet
Red Hat Certificate of Expertise in Camel Development
Red Hat Certificate of Expertise in Data Virtualization
Red Hat Certificate of Expertise in Fast-Cache Application Development
Red Hat Certificate of Expertise in Business Rules
Red Hat Certificate of Expertise in Business Process Design

For Both:

Red Hat Certificate of Expertise in Application Server Management
Red Hat Certified JBoss Administrator (RHCJA)
Red Hat Certificate of Expertise in Container Management
Red Hat Certificate of Expertise in Containerized Application Development
Red Hat Certificate of Expertise in Platform-as-a-Service
Red Hat Certificate of Expertise in Configuration Management with Puppet
Red Hat Certificate of Expertise in Data Virtualization

NOTE: More information about Red Hat certification exams is available here.