F5 402 Exam reading list and notes
Disclaimer: The collection of articles and documentation are credited to original owners. This is not an official F5 402 exam guide.
I recently passed the F5 402 - Certified Solution Expert - Cloud exam. I am pleased that I finally achieved it. Many are asking what I used to prepare for the exam.
First, be familiar with the 402 - CLOUD SOLUTIONS EXAM BLUEPRINT. It is located at K29900360: F5 certification | Exams and blueprints.
https://support.f5.com/csp/article/K29900360
The pre requisite to take the F5 402 exam is that you are currently a F5 CTS for LTM (301a and 301b) and DNS (302). These exams would have already exposed you to BIG-IP LTM and DNS. However, you should also read on and have an idea what are the other BIG-IP modules and their functionality.
The F5 402 exam blueprint already gives you the topics you will need to familiar with.
It really helps if you have hands on experience on working on cloud environments, such as AWS and Azure, and container environments such as in Kubernetes. For me, it was a bit of AWS and Kubernetes.
You will need to be familiar with cloud terminologies - services, features, etc - and how they relate to cloud vendors.
Familiarity with container orchestration terminologies such as in Kubernetes will also help.
Bundle these Cloud/Container terms and features and how they relate to BIG-IP deployments in the cloud, plus, mapping them per the F5 402 exam blueprint, will help you organize your knowledge and prepare for the exam.
Looking back and while preparing for the exam, here are the documentation which I would start to review and build a knowledge map. There are links in the articles that would supplement the concepts described, my suggestion, consult the F5 402 exam blueprint and see if you need more familiarity with a topic after reading thru the articles.
- https://clouddocs.f5.com/cloud/public/v1/
- https://clouddocs.f5.com/cloud/public/v1/aws_index.html
- https://clouddocs.f5.com/cloud/public/v1/azure_index.html
- https://clouddocs.f5.com/cloud/public/v1/matrix.html
- https://clouddocs.f5.com/containers/latest/
- https://aws.amazon.com/blogs/enterprise-strategy/6-strategies-for-migrating-applications-to-the-cloud/
- https://www.f5.com/company/blog/networking-in-the-age-of-containers
- https://aws.amazon.com/blogs/networking-and-content-delivery/deployment-models-for-aws-network-firewall/
- https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/architecture/aws-professional/services
Good Luck!
Published Jul 19, 2022
Version 1.0
- ArvinF
SIRT
thanks Juergen_Mang . I'll see if I can create one for F5 401 exam. 🙂
what I used in the past for the F5 401 is the same contents as this https://clouddocs.f5.com/training/community/f5cert/html/class17/class17.html
It should give you enough material to review for the 401.
Thanks, Arvin, this is great information! I'd also recommend candidates study up on licensing (GBB, CLP, BYOD, etc) and autoscaling options.
Juergen_MangMVP
Thanks for sharing this. There are a way too less information about the 40x exams. I wish this article exists for 401 also 😉
- ArvinF
thanks Jim-PedleyF5 , indeed, F5 402 exam will also test on licensing and autoscaling
for licensing, we can look at:
K14810: Overview of BIG-IP VE license and throughput limits
https://support.f5.com/csp/article/K14810
K49243459: BIG-IP VE BYOL product listings on public cloud marketplaces
https://support.f5.com/csp/article/K49243459and also be familiar with each cloud's BIG-IP VE images in their marketplaces
example:in https://clouddocs.f5.com/cloud/public/v1/aws_index.html , there is an autoscaling section that points to https://github.com/F5Networks/f5-aws-cloudformation-v2/tree/main/examples and shares information how the AWS CFT will do Autoscaling.
Also, review how each cloud provider implement their auto scaling features.
- Nikoolayy1
Thanks for sharing this! I see that the exam is still on 12.1 and this is strange to me as now even 13.1 is not supported 😐
- ArvinF
hi Nikoolayy1 , like you, im a test taker 🙂 so I don't have an authoritative answer for this.
I will borrow an answer from the linkedin F5 certified professionals group from our F5 certification team - https://www.linkedin.com/feed/update/urn:li:groupPost:85832-7030945536094420992?commentUrn=urn%3Ali%3Acomment%3A%28groupPost%3A85832-7030945536094420992%2C7044705577926557697%29
where it says
F5 exams are designed to be version agnostic, with the shipping version listed at the time of the last major update solely as a courtesy. However, since we focus the exams on the "what" (concepts/ideas) rather than the specific "how" (check boxes, specific syntax), the exams are not dependent on that version number.
So while I agree that the F5 402 exam was based of v12, from what I remember from my previous attempt, the concept/syllabus have not changed until I took the exam where I passed it, the features/concepts in them also remain in the current F5 products. So indeed, the exam is version agnostic. what we knew before on previous version of F5 products are still applicable today. Similarly, the cloud and container orchestration concepts have barely changed and if we are updated on these, it will help in the exam preparation.
I hope this helps.
- Nikoolayy1
I took the 402 Exam and I can't say that it is not a version specific as there were many questions about 12.1. Is an update planned for the exam?
As an extra note APM is involved in the exam so reading the APM operations guide and the APM getting started will help and maybe ASM/AWAF getting started doc and videos.
