The Red Hat Certified Specialist in OpenShift Administration exam (EX280) tests the knowledge, skills, and ability to create, configure, and manage a cloud application platform using Red Hat® OpenShift® Container Platform.

By passing this exam, you become a Red Hat Certified Specialist, which also counts toward becoming a Red Hat Certified Architect (RHCA®).

This exam is based on Red Hat OpenShift Container Platform 4.6.

To help you prepare, these objectives highlight the task areas you can expect to see in the exam. Red Hat reserves the right to add, modify, and remove exam objectives. Such changes will be made public in advance.

To become a Red Hat Certified Specialist in OpenShift Administration, you should be able to perform these tasks:

Manage OpenShift Container Platform

• Use the command-line interface to manage and configure an OpenShift cluster
• Use the web console to manage and configure an OpenShift cluster
• Create and delete projects
• Import, export, and configure Kubernetes resources
• Examine resources and cluster status
• View logs
• Monitor cluster events and alerts
• Troubleshoot common cluster events and alerts
• Use product documentation

Manage users and policies

• Configure the HTPasswd identity provider for authentication
• Create and delete users
• Modify user passwords
• Modify user and group permissions
• Create and manage groups

Control access to resources

• Define role-based access controls
• Apply permissions to users
• Create and apply secrets to manage sensitive information
• Create service accounts and apply permissions using security context constraints

Configure networking components

• Troubleshoot software defined networking
• Create and edit external routes
• Control cluster network ingress
• Create a self signed certificate
• Secure routes using TLS certificates

Configure pod scheduling

• Limit resource usage
• Scale applications to meet increased demand
• Control pod placement across cluster nodes

Configure cluster scaling

• Manually control the number of cluster workers
• Automatically scale the number of cluster workers

Red Hat encourages you to consider taking Red Hat OpenShift I: Containers & Kubernetes (DO180) and Red Hat OpenShift Administration II: Operating a Production Kubernetes Cluster (DO280) to help prepare for this exam. Attendance in these classes is not required; students can choose to take just the exam.

While attending Red Hat classes can be an important part of your preparation, attending class does not guarantee success on the exam. Previous experience, practice, and native aptitude are also important determinants of success.

Many books and other resources on system administration for Red Hat products are available. Red Hat does not endorse any of these materials as preparation guides for exams. Nevertheless, you may find additional reading helpful to deepen your understanding.

This exam is a performance-based evaluation of skills and knowledge required to configure and manage Red Hat OpenShift Container Platform. You will perform the configuration and administrative tasks necessary to deploy Red Hat OpenShift Container Platform and are evaluated on whether you have met specific objective criteria. Performance-based testing means that you must perform tasks similar to what you perform on the job.

This exam can also be taken virtually as part of our remote testing format. Find out more about remote exams to see if this is the right choice for you.

• System and Software Architects who need an understanding of the features and functionality of an OpenShift Container Platform cluster.
• System Administrators who need to support the initial establishment of an OpenShift cluster.
• Cluster Operators who need to support ongoing maintenance of an OpenShift cluster.
• Site Reliability Engineers who need to support the ongoing maintenance and troubleshooting of an OpenShift cluster.
• System administrators who want to demonstrate their OpenShift Container Platform skills
• Red Hat Certified Engineers (RHCEs) who wish to become a Red Hat Certified Architect (RHCA)
• System administrators or developers who are working in a DevOps environment using Red Hat OpenShift Container Platform

DO286: Containers, Kubernetes, and Red Hat OpenShift Administration II with exam

Containers, Kubernetes, and Red Hat OpenShift Administration II with exam (DO286) helps you gain core knowledge in building and in configuring and managing Red Hat® OpenShift® Container Platform. This immersive and intensive, hands-on course shows you how to deploy applications to a local container engines and OpenShift clusters, manage the cluster on a day-to-day basis, and troubleshoot the deployment of containerized applications.

DO288: Red Hat OpenShift Development II: Containerizing Applications

Red Hat OpenShift Development II: Containerizing Applications (DO288) teaches you how to design, build, and deploy containerized software applications on an OpenShift cluster.

DO295: Containers, Kubernetes, and Red Hat OpenShift Development II

The Containers, Kubernetes, and Red Hat OpenShift Development II (DO295) teaches you how to design, build, and deploy containerized software applications to an OpenShift® cluster. Whether you are tasked with writing container-native applications or migrating existing brownfield applications, this course provides hands-on training to boost developer productivity powered by Red Hat OpenShift.

DO328: Building Resilient Microservices with Istio and Red Hat OpenShift Service Mesh

The Building Resilient Microservices with Istio and Red Hat OpenShift Service Mesh (DO328) teaches you how to control, manage, trace, monitor, and test your microservices.

DO370: Enterprise Kubernetes Storage with Red Hat OpenShift Data Foundation

This official Red Hat training course teaches the essential skills required to design, implement, and manage a Red Hat OpenShift Data Foundation cluster and perform day-to-day Kubernetes storage management tasks.

DO378: Red Hat Cloud-native Microservices Development with Quarkus

In this DO378: Red Hat Cloud-native Microservices Development with Quarkus course, you’ll learn how to develop microservices with Quarkus and deploy them on OpenShift.

DO380: Red Hat OpenShift Administration II: High Availability

Red Hat OpenShift Administration III: Scaling Kubernetes Deployments in the Enterprise (DO380) expands upon the skills required to plan, implement, and manage OpenShift® clusters in the enterprise. You will learn how to support a growing number of stakeholders, applications, and users to achieve large-scale deployments.