Hi everyone,
Please I have a question for anyone who holds an ISC2 credential (CISSP, CCSP, etc.) alongside F5 certifications.
ISC2 accepts exam preparation as Group A CPE (1 credit per hour), but expects you to be able to provide evidence of the hours if audited. Between 2024 and 2025, I completed CTS LTM, ASM, APM, DNS, and CSE Security and Cloud. Most of my preparation was blueprint-driven self-study: K-articles, product manuals, and lab work on VE and UDF. There is no official study guide for these exams, so I don’t have a course certificate showing duration.
A few questions for the community:
- How have you documented F5 exam prep hours for ISC2 (or ISACA) CPE? Did ISC2 accept score reports plus a written summary, or did they ask for more?
- Has anyone used the Continuing Education Credits (CEC) dashboard in the Education Services Portal as supporting evidence? There’s an article titled “Are CEC related to CPE?” in the support centre. Does anyone know F5’s position?
- Does F5 publish recommended preparation hours per exam (301a/b, 302, 303, 304, 401, 402) that could serve as a reference point?
Any pointers from people who’ve been through an ISC2 audit with F5-based claims would be much appreciated.
I’ll tap in some of the folks on the Education team to see if we can start getting answers for you @Tofunmi - thanks for the question.
Hey! Having once been a CISSP, I understand your challenges. There’s a lot here, so let me see if I can clarify some things.
Study time is pretty idiosyncratic … I rarely “studied” for a certification other than an official class/course where I had a certificate documenting the hours spent (F5 does this for all of our courses we deliver). I wouldn’t even begin to know how to recommend or gauge the appropriate amount of time for the average person to prepare for an exam … its too dependent on the individual, their past knowledge, etc., etc. So, no, we don’t publish anything like that; sorry.
As far as CEC credits (and the new dashboard), CEC’s are mostly only issued for taking a formal course/training on our platform, so the dashboard isn’t going to do anything more than the certificate from completing the course/training. As that article (https://support.education.f5.com/hc/en-us/articles/56366930883995-Are-CEC-related-to-CPE) suggests, CEC and CPE are not really the same thing, because CEC’s are not always 1-credit to 1-hour, nor are they always the same things other organizations would count. For example, completing a self-directed training (SDT) on the Education Services Platform (ESP: https://education.f5.com/) will earn you 1 CEC for every hour the course is listed at; however, completing an instructor-led training (ILT) earns you 1.5 CEC for every hour of the class. In addition, we are looking to allow CEC credits for participation in DevCentral … something other organizations are unlikely to agree on.
So … we do provide certificates with every course we offer; and, every certificate does provide a CPE credit value that anyone accepting CPE should allow. That is how I’d document it.
[Edit] I totally forgot, mainly because it won’t help you specifically … yet. We did release “Accelerator” courses for the two Certified Administrator certifications (BIG-IP & NGINX). These were in response to the “no official course/study guide” criticisms. They are really the same courses we’ve had, but reorganized and aligned specifically with the exams for each. This is our intent with all of the existing certifications as we update them (LTM is in process now). I suppose, once those are available, you could use the course time to estimate preparation time??? Of course, actually taking the courses would provide the certificate with validated hours … but that is a lot to ask for someone “re-certifying”; and, I’m not sure the full course time is a reasonable estimate for simple re-study. But …
I realize this doesn’t help with the “preparation” credit aspect … but I’ll bring it up to the training and certification teams to see if someone has an idea.