Linux Professional Institute Certification 306 (High Availability and Storage Clusters) (306-500)

The LPIC-3 306 High Availability and Storage Clusters certification, offered by the Linux Professional Institute (LPI), is an advanced, vendor-neutral credential that validates expertise in building and maintaining highly available, fault-tolerant Linux systems. As part of the LPIC-3 specialty track, it requires passing the LPIC-3 306 exam (exam code 306-500) and holding an active LPIC-2 certification. This course equips Site Reliability Engineers (SREs) and system administrators with the skills to architect resilient infrastructure, leveraging native Linux solutions for high availability clusters, distributed storage, and single-node reliability. It prepares you to design and manage robust systems capable of withstanding failures and ensuring operational continuity.

Target Audience

This course is ideal for:

• Experienced Linux administrators aiming to specialize in high availability and storage.
• Site Reliability Engineers (SREs) focused on fault-tolerant system design.
• IT professionals pursuing the LPIC-3 High Availability and Storage Clusters certification.
• LPIC-2 certified individuals seeking advanced skills in resilient infrastructure.

Prerequisites

To succeed in this course, participants should have:

• Active LPIC-2 certification (required to earn LPIC-3).
• Extensive experience with Linux system administration and networking.
• Basic understanding of clustering or storage concepts (preferred but not mandatory).

What You Will Learn

In this course, you will gain expertise in:

• Designing and managing high availability clusters with load balancing and failover.
• Implementing clustered storage solutions like DRBD and GFS2 for reliability.
• Configuring distributed storage systems such as GlusterFS and Ceph.
• Enhancing single-node resilience with advanced RAID, LVM, and network redundancy.

Benefits of the Course

By completing this course, you will:

• Master the skills to build and maintain fault-tolerant Linux infrastructure.
• Be fully prepared to pass the LPIC-3 306-500 exam and earn a prestigious certification.
• Boost your career in roles requiring expertise in high availability and storage solutions.
• Gain practical knowledge to architect resilient systems for real-world demands.

Course Outline

• Topic 361: High Availability Cluster Management
  • 361.1 High Availability Concepts and Theory
    Candidates should understand the properties and design approaches of a high-availability cluster.
  • 361.2 Load Balanced Clusters
    Candidates will learn how to install, configure, maintain, and troubleshoot LVS, including the configuration and use of keepalived and ldirectord. Candidates should also be able to install, configure, maintain, and troubleshoot HAProxy.
  • 361.3 Failover Clusters
    Candidates will learn how to install, configure, maintain, and troubleshoot a Pacemaker cluster, including the use of Corosync (focusing on Pacemaker 2.x for Corosync 2.x).
• Topic 362: High Availability Cluster Storage
  • 362.1 DRBD - Distributed Remote Block Devices
    Candidates will learn how to install, configure, maintain, and troubleshoot DRBD devices, including integration with Pacemaker (covering DRBD version 9.0.x).
  • 362.2 Cluster Storage Access
    Candidates will learn to connect a Linux node to remote block storage, including understanding common SAN technologies and architectures, managing iSCSI, configuring multipathing for high availability, and using LVM on clustered storage.
  • 362.3 Clustered File Systems
    Candidates will learn to install, maintain, and troubleshoot GFS2 and OCFS2 filesystems, with awareness of other clustered filesystems available on Linux.
• Topic 363: High Availability Distributed Storage
  • 363.1 GlusterFS Storage Clusters
    Candidates will learn to manage and maintain a GlusterFS storage cluster.
  • 363.2 Ceph Storage Clusters
    Candidates will learn about managing and maintaining a Ceph cluster, including configuration of RGW, RBD devices, and CephFS.
• Topic 364: Single Node High Availability
  • 364.1 Hardware and Resource High Availability
    Candidates will learn to monitor a local node for potential hardware failures and resource shortages.
  • 364.2 Advanced RAID
    Candidates will learn to manage software RAID devices on Linux, including advanced features like partitionable RAIDs and RAID containers, as well as recovering RAID arrays after a failure.
  • 364.3 Advanced LVM
    Candidates will learn to configure LVM volumes, including managing LVM snapshots, pools, and RAIDs.
  • 364.4 Network High Availability
    Candidates will learn to configure redundant networking connections and manage VLANs, with a basic understanding of BGP.