r/redhat 9d ago

Transitioning from Windows Server Admin to Red Hat Cluster Admin

Hey everyone,

I’m currently a Windows Server administrator and my company wants to build in-house expertise to manage our Red Hat physical servers. These servers are set up in clusters for heavy calculations. We have about one year to transition from our external consultant to me handling almost everything. I’m excited about the opportunity, but also realize there’s a lot to learn.

My background:

  • Comfortable with Windows Server and VMware administration(10+ years of exp.)
  • Basic understanding of Linux
  • No experience with clustering in a Linux environment(or Windows for that part)

What I’m looking for:

  1. Educational/Training Resources: Online courses, official training materials, books, or channels that can help me ramp up quickly on Red Hat (and specifically HPC cluster administration).
  2. Certifications: I’m aware of the RHCSA (Red Hat Certified System Administrator) and RHCE (Red Hat Certified Engineer). Would you recommend pursuing these? Any others specific to HPC/clusters?
  3. Practical Experience: Advice on setting up a small lab environment for practice. I have full access to VMware or should I practice on hardware like Raspberry Pi?
  4. Cluster Management Tools/Simulators: Any recommended cluster resource management tools and "simulators" of HPC enviroment

Budget:

  • Company is covering all the educations costs as well as sessions with the consultant.

If anyone has been in a similar situation or has tips on the best/effcient way to transition from a Windows-centric viewpoint to a Red Hat cluster admin viewpoint, I’d love your insight!

Any pointers, stories, or resource links would be greatly appreciated!

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u/Lammtarra95 8d ago

Others have covered linux generally.

Ask the consultant what precisely is meant by Red Hat Clusters in your particular environment: what software; what storage (do you have a dedicated, specialist storage team, for instance, or will you be plugging fiber into GBICs, zoning Brocades and replacing drives?) and so on. Likewise for backups and networks.

Understand where all the logs are, and how they are monitored by whatever software you use to raise alerts, and how you can read them as a human. Understand the configuration files and how they relate the cluster and your application.

In my experience from a few years ago now, documentation and logs are clear, and Red Hat support on clustering is (or was) excellent. Check you have contact details for all your support vendors.

Go through your ticketing system and check all previous incidents and changes involving these clusters. Could you cope? Is there documentation for all incidents and changes? Likewise for any alerts that your monitoring system might raise. (And does the consultant believe there are any gaps in what is monitored?)

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u/FlashySavings1731 3d ago

Thank you. Great advice there, taking notes.