F5 401 and 402
I have a deadline to write F5 401 and 402 before the end of July. It's been very challenging getting documentation specific to the study guide. For those who have recently renewed or are recent achievers of the certification, how did you go about it? If you could share notes with me as well, I would appreciate that.Attempting the new path to BIG-IP Certified Administrator
A couple weeks ago I had kjsalchow on for an episode of DevCentral Connects, which you can watch at your pleasure here: I had reached out to Ken and HeidiSchreifels after one our MVPs made a comment on this new path toward certification. I missed the memo (Heidi's article here), but this was big news and I knew we needed to have a conversation with the community. During our chat, Ken mentioned that all five beta tests required to earn your BIG-IP Certified Administrator would be available on-site at AppWorld (as would the recertification test available to ANYONE who has previously held the cert) and that he needed more people to start at #5 and work backwards. And so I did. I had time Tuesday morning before "The Hub" opening party kicked things off, so I knocked out all five beta tests. Here are my thoughts about the experience. I went in completely blind. I did not study, (but the blueprint is here for you) and I did not do the prep work to get my device ready for testing. I did pre-register for tests #3 - #5. When I arrived at the room, the cert team did a great job helping me get the tools set up on my laptop. The test environment downloads a secure browsing session, and there are some known issues with company laptops that lock things down, so you might be best suited to test from a personal laptop. To my knowledge in discussions with them, tablets are not supported. The certiverse delivery was great. Strong improvement from what I recall for the previous versions. Seeing the questions and the diagrams and being able to reference back and forth was far easier to assess the challenges. I always try to use the flagging system for review and that worked great. As this was a beta, I took extra time to provide feedback. For the betas, I had a range of questions from I think 39 to 58 across the five tests and an hour to complete each. For production tests, I believe that will be 30/30. None of them concerned me on time. I really liked the breakdown in the new format. This allows you to progress through the material when studying without having to keep it all upstairs for one test. BIG-IP Administration Install, Initial Configuration, and Upgrade BIG-IP Administration Data Plane Concepts BIG-IP Administration Data Plane Configuration BIG-IP Administration Control Plane Administration BIG-IP Administration Support and Troubleshooting I felt pretty good about the analysis questions, that stuff is pretty cemented in my brain. I work mostly with the BIG-IP APIs now, so I'm less solid on specific tmsh commands or tmui click paths. I put myself in the cone of shame on a few questions because I filmed lightboard lessons for them but I wasn't confident in the right answer. All that said, I have no idea if I passed them, but I think I hit minimally viable candidate on four of them? As they were betas, there were some questions that probably need to be removed, and some questions might need to be refined a little. This is where the always fascinating psychometrics come into play. But for the most part, I though they were a good summary of the knowledge one should have for basic administration. I got the first three tests completed quickly enough to take the other two. Registering for them on-site and jumping into them was painless. The cert team is the bomb-diggity. They're so helpful, friendly, encouraging, and super eager to make everyone successful. It's always a pleasure to cross paths with them! The downside of betas is they are not scored immediately, so I have to wait. Jason does not like waiting... How about you, community? Anyone else take the betas for the refreshed BIG-IP Certified Administrator (or the recertifying exam) and want to share your experience?
What's New with F5 Certification?
Big changes are coming to F5 Certification, and we’re here to break it all down! On this episode of DevCentral Connects, Jason welcomes back Dr. Ken Salchow to discuss the education services portal and exciting changes to the certification exam structure and how this shift will benefit you. Join us live Feb 13th at 8am pacific with your questions!Help F5 Transform the BIG-IP Administrator Certification
Many of you received a copy of the BIG-IP Administrator Certification beta exam email announcement earlier this week. We hope you can carve out some time to participate in the beta exams. For anyone who missed this F5 Certified message sent to candidates earlier this week, you can check it out below. If you’re seeing this for the first time, it probably means you’re not a part of the F5 Certified community yet. Now is an ideal time to join! The How do I enroll in the F5 Certified Professionals program? article will guide you through the process. And finally, for those of you who wrote and reviewed items for the new BIG-IP Administrator exams— THANK YOU! You did an incredible job. Thanks to your contributions, we can confidently say that the certifications our candidates attain are in line with the high standards and integrity on which our certification program was established. Please let me know if you have any questions or if you would like to volunteer for additional certification exam development activities. We always need SMEs! Cheers! Heidi The F5 Certification team is excited to announce some exciting changes in our program and invite you to help us transform it by participating in the BIG-IP Administrator beta exams. When considering what changes needed to be made, we asked our candidate community, “What could we do to increase the value of being F5 Certified for you?” Your feedback was clear. You value the F5 BIG-IP Administrator certification, but you want updated, more relevant exams. You want the exams to be easier to take while still providing the same quality items that legitimately test the knowledge, skills and abilities of those who achieve certification. You want the same level of quality and integrity in the program with more options to maintain your certifications. We listened, and are excited to share what has changed, and provide you with a glimpse into what will be changing in the future, in the F5 Certified Program Updates article. Here is how you can help us with a vital step in the transformation. Before we can publish the final version of the new BIG-IP Administrator certification exams, we need you to take the beta versions of these exams. Here are the necessary steps and helpful information in the FAQ: F5 Certified Administrator, BIG-IP BETA exams article, to get you started. Existing candidates, login to the new Education Services Portal. If you are new to the program, login using your F5 SSO credentials to complete registration. For detailed login instructions, see How to Log Into the Education Services Portal article. ALL candidates are eligible to take the BIG-IP Administrator beta exams. Even if you have achieved a higher level of F5 certification, you can participate! We want your input. Schedule the BIG-IP Administrator beta exams by following the instructions in the How to Schedule a Beta Exam article. The beta exams are live today through February 28, 2025. Each beta exam is 60-minutes with up to 60 items. The beta exams are delivered exclusively online at Certiverse. The cost is $20 USD for each exam with promo code F5CABBETA There are five beta exams: BIG-IP Administration Install, Initial Configuration, and Upgrade (F5CAB1-B) BIG-IP Administration Data Plane Concepts (F5CAB2-B) BIG-IP Administration Data Plane Configuration (F5CAB3-B) BIG-IP Administration Control Plane Administration (F5CAB4-B) BIG-IP Administration Support and Troubleshooting (F5CAB5-B) To prepare for all five of the beta exams, refer to the Certified Administrator, BIG-IP Certification blueprint. The beta exams will be scored AFTER the beta period closes. Candidates who have passed all five exams, will achieve Certified Administrator, BIG-IP Certification. For more information about these beta exams, see the FAQ: F5 Certified Administrator, BIG-IP BETA exams article. Complete all five of the beta exams and provide us with the data and feedback necessary to create the final version of the BIG-IP Administrator exams. Thank you for being a valued member of the F5 Certified Community! Please email us at support@mail.education.com with any questions or feedback.F5 Certified Administrator NGINX certification now available!
F5 Certified Administrator NGINX certification now available! The F5 Certification team is thrilled to announce that the first official F5 NGINX certification is now live! Introducing the F5 Certified Administrator NGINX certification. The NGINX Certification validates a candidate's understanding of how NGINX works and their ability to perform basic functions related to the administration of NGINX acting as a web and proxy server. To achieve the F5 Certified Administrator NGINX certification, candidates must be a part of the F5 Certification program and pass all four of the following NGINX exams: NGINX Management NGINX Configuration: Knowledge NGINX Configuration: Demonstrate NGINX Troubleshooting About the NGINX certification exams: Each exam contains 30 questions and is 30 minutes long. Each exam costs $50 USD. Each exam is delivered online through Certiverse and can be taken in any order. Preparation for the NGINX Certification exams begins with the NGINX OSS Blueprint. The NGINX certification is based on NGINX Open Source Software, not NGINX+. NGINX Certification FAQs. You can register here for the F5 Certification program to schedule NGINX exams. Note*: This link takes you to a non-F5 site where you will need to establish an account login if you haven not already done so.* Go to F5 Certification Program site for additional NGINX training resources. For additional information, refer to the NGINX Certification FAQ page. If you have additional questions, please email support@mail.education.f5.com And check out Buu Lam's conversation with Dylan Thomas, one of the first people to be NGINX Certified, to learn about how to prepare for the exam.
validity for - 101 application delivery fundamentals exam
Hi, I just passed f5 101 and I was wondering how long it is valid? For reasons that are not worth mentioning here, I need to switch my focus momentarily to some other technical topic. I'd like to come back and take at least the 201 exam, but I'd like to know how much time do I have? I've looked for how long is 101 available but I couldn't find any info regarding this, hence my post here. If somebody can point me in the right direction please let me know! Thank you in advance! TudorF5 Certified Practice Exams
Thinking of taking the F5 Certified 101 or 201 exams but not sure if you are ready? Ease the anxiety by taking a F5 Practice Exam! That’s what I did, and it sure helped. If you remember, back in August I attempted the 201-TMOS Administrator exam and successfully failed, missing by a few questions. I’ve been wanting to try again and had an opportunity last week but I hadn’t studied since that initial attempt at Agility. If I failed again, I’d have to wait another 45 days to give it another go. So instead, I decided to take a practice exam. Practice exams provide candidates with an accurate prediction of their performance for the live, production exams. Other than the section-level score reports, they are not intended to be used for study or learning purposes. Their entire value is based on their similarity to the production exams and their validity in predicting your performance. If you think you’re getting a sneak peek to real questions, think again. They use entirely different questions on the live exams, so unless you actually learn the underlying knowledge, 'knowing' the practice questions is completely useless and becomes waste of time. The Practice Exams are designed to mimic the real tests with 80 questions timed to 90 minutes. There are exhibits to consider, you can flag questions to review and you get instant feedback on your results. You can complete on your own device and you can ‘alt-tab’ to look up the answers if you so desire. Not that you should – defeats the purpose. While you do not get an actual score, you do get an indication if you Passed or Failed and insight (Below/Borderline/Meets) on how you did on the sections. As you can see, 4 months of not studying doomed my fate. The 201 is no fly-by and really requires daily hands on experience. If I had done well, I could have taken the real exam the following day. This way, I know exactly where I need to focus and what I need to do to finally pass the 201. They don't allow unlimited access to the practice exams and recommend using the practice exams no more than two, at most three, times as part of your preparation. Once you become familiar with the questions, the practice exam loses its value. Practice exams are delivered via their Zoomorphix Exam Studio system and only available to registered candidates. They have 101 and 201 rehearsals with 301a, 302 and 303 practice exams coming soon. If you’re preparing for a @F5Certified exam, you can review some of the F5 Certification study materials that are available. Good luck! ps
