F5 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! psBecoming F5 Certified - BIG-IP Administrator Certification - 101 & 201 Exams
How Do I Become a certified F5 BIG-IP Administrator? There are two exam you'll need to pass to become an F5 BIG-IP Administrator; Exam 101 – Application Delivery Fundamentals Exam 201 – TMOS Administration The 101 exam is mandatory, you will not be able to jump ahead to the 201 exam, or the 300 level exams. You may not like that, but once you take it you will really appreciate why F5 did this. If you work with F5 on a daily basis you are well aware there is more to becoming an F5 expert than memorizing commands and configuring BIG-IP modules. True application delivery administrators / engineers know you need skills ranging from networking, server administration, security, to development. That is the key to what separates a good F5 admin / engineer, from someone who is only comfortable adding a VIP or modifying pool members. The 101 exam was built to asses foundation knowledge in most of those areas. Not so much on the dev side, but basic iRule concepts are indeed on the 101 blueprint. About the Author Guest author Austin Geraci is a subject matter expert in F5 Networks Technology, and has worked in the ADC space for 10+ years. When he's not working with & evangelizing F5's cutting edge technology, you can find him on the squash courts, going for a ride around Lady Bird Lake, or listening to some live music in ATX. Check out WorldTechIT to read more from Austin. Step 1 - Sign up / Register yourself in F5s Credential Management System The very first thing you are required to complete before you schedule your actual exam is sign up for the F5 Certification program in the F5s Credential Management System. Once you do that you will receive an authorization email from F5 clearing you to schedule the 101 exam. The site is relatively intuitive once you register. This will be your home-base for things like F5 provided blueprints, study guides, and certification logos you can use on your website / business cards. I should note, the study guides you will find on this site are not full blown / the only thing you will need to pass the exams. They are outlines and examples of the objective topics. They will include references to material you should be basing your studies from. On the cred mgmt site you will also find an option to publish credentials, which allows you to send a certified email with your certification credentials from the credential verification services @ PEARSON VUE - note the email comes from a slightly different domain than you may be familiar with from PEARSON - CredentialVerificationServices@pearsoncred.com. This can be a handy tool to send your official creds to potential employers, boss or maybe even tease your co-workers ;). Step 2 - Schedule your test with Pearson Vue Some people will prefer to start studying before they schedule their first exam, other will take the opportunity to light a fire under their posterior. Either way, once you're cleared to test from F5 you can go ahead and schedule your F5 101 exam at F5s Certification landing page at PEARSONS VUE. Once you're registered & logged in at the PEARSON site you will see the 101 exam under pre-approved exams, go ahead and click on it - you will then be brought to a page with the exam details and a big blue button that says "Schedule this Exam". From there you will proceed to the test center search and pick a day and time that work best for you. Give yourself ample time to prepare and review all the blueprint material. I personally like morning exams, as I feel the most fresh in the am - but somehow it seems I'm always landing an afternoon slot that works with my schedule ;). When you do take the actual exam, make sure you are rested up, fed, and stress free the day of the exam. I have a friend who actually checks himself into a hotel the day before. This might sound extreme, but if you have a big family at home, the distraction free zone might prove to be worth it. However you prep in the days before, avoid cramming - it doesn't work for these types of tests. Step 3 - Preparing for the 101 Application Delivery Fundamentals Exam It's important you fully understand what you're getting yourself into before you go gung ho and schedule your exam. Review F5s 101 – Application Delivery Fundamentals Blueprint and create a plan & time-line to pass the exam. Be realistic and take it seriously, there's nothing like blowing money on the exam for a reality check, but some of you will inevitably need that motivation ;) You can go through the blueprint and create your own study guide, or you can opt to purchase the Application Delivery Fundamentals Study Guide by Philip Jönsson & Steven Iveson. There is also a free F5 101 exam study guide put together by Eric Mitchell on university.f5.com (requires login.) What did I do? I took a good look at the blueprint, and said phh I know this stuff! I then gave some quick study to sections I haven't hit on in a while. Even though I have a good background in networking and work on F5 gear on a daily basis, I found myself pressed for time, but I did indeed pass. If you are in a similar situation, I would not underestimate the exam, take your time to prepare. I didn't have Erics guide or the paid version when I took the exam - if I were to take the exam today I would probably do all 3, shell out $9.99 for the paid version, take a look at Erics study guide, and suppliment with some of my own material. F5 101 Exam Hands-On & Tips The 101 exam wasn't designed to run you ragged with hands on questions, but hands on preparation will definitely not hurt you. If you're not working on F5s BIG-IP software everyday, I would highly recommend you set yourself up with a virtual machine and purchase a license for the F5 BIG-IP Virtual Edition. For just under $100 bucks, you can have access to practice on just about all the F5 BIG-IP modules - the Policy Enforcement (PEM) & Link Controler (LC) modules are not included. You are also limited to 10mb bandwidth, and there are some limitations with the APM module, but that's no problem for the testing you'll need it for. It was a bold move by F5, which clearly shows their commitment to building competency on their platform. You can also get a free 90 day VE trial. If you do set up a VE box, make sure you get v11.4 up and running for the 101 (not always going to be v11.4), that's what the test (at this time) is based on. Remember this is a fundamentals exam, once you go through the blueprint you will see there are a lot of topics on fundamental knowledge of Network Engineering & Application Delivery. In other words, you won't have to go crazy with hands on - but it's not going to hurt & it will help you for the 201 test. Here are some quick tips to keep in mind when taking the 101 exam: Version # The test is currently based on TMOS v11.4 Number of questins on the 101 exam There are 70 questions on v1, and 80 on v2. V2 is going live sometime in Q1 of 2015. 10 of those v2 questions are unscored Passing score You will need a ~69% to pass the exam (may change with v2) Partial Credit No, All questions are scored equally, and no partial points are awareded. Time Limit 90 Minutes (non-native English Speaking residents automatically get 30 additional minutes. Time managment Manage your time appropriately, don't dwell on hard questions - especially if you're taking v2 - the question might not even count! So answer what you know and move on. Utilize the mark question feature and review what you didn't answer at the end of the exam, the back button is your lil friend. Step 4 Preparing for the 201 TMOS Administration Exam Allright, you made it this far - you passed the 101! Give yourself a pat on the back, but don't get carried away, the fun has just started ;). In about a day from passing the 101 you should receive an official pass letter and an authorization email from F5 clearing you to schedule the 201 exam. I'll take this opportunity to mention some people have reported failing the exam at the testing center but passing when they received their email from F5. I'm not sure what the deal with that is, I only mention this so you don't lose all hope if you fail at the testing center. Again, you can go ahead and schedule the 201 exam now, or take the time to review the 201 TMOS administration blueprint and study to fully assess the time frame for the task at hand. At the time of publishing this article, the only public F5 201 study guide is the one completed by the gentleman and scholar, Eric Mitchell, also available on university.f5.com. I used this Study guide and filled in some of the lighter sections with my own -I passed the exam. I was more mindful of the time crunch this time, but I still cut it close on the limit. From discussions in study groups this is done on purpose by F5, as part of their assessment on you. F5 201 Exam Hands-On & Tips If you take a look at the 201 Blueprint you'll quickly see the topics cover actual administration of the Traffic Management Operating System (TMOS). You will absolutely need hands on experience to pass this exam. If you're not working with the gear everyday, and you didn't take my advice to setup that BIG-IP VE for the 101- Now would be a good time. Let me be clear, you will not pass this exam unless you have experience working on BIG-IP Software and in particular the Local Traffic Manager (LTM) module. Keep in mind this test is geared to measure your "administration" skills, particularly from the GUI. The 300 level exams will test more of your working knowledge of the CLI. With that in mind, don't rule out all of the CLI - pay attention to the blueprint and don't put 100% faith in someone elses study guide. Here are some quick tips to keep in mind when taking the 201 exam: Version # The test is currently based on TMOS v11.1 Number of questions on the 201 exam 80 with 10 of those questions being unscored (F5 testing out new questions) Passing score You will need a ~69% to pass the exam Partial Credit No, All questions are scored equally, and no partial points are awarded. Time Limit 90 Minutes (non-native English Speaking residents automatically get 30 additional minutes. Time management You will need to work efficiently, and effectively - manage your time appropriately!! I can't harp on this enough, I almost ran out of time - it came right down to the wire for me! Remember, only 70 of the 80 answers count - answer what you are confident in, then move on. Once you've answered all you know do some quick math of reaming time divided by remaining questions and try to stick to that limit when going back to them. BIG-IP Administrator Recertification You may be wondering how do I recertify my BIG-IP Administrator Certification? First, you should know your certification is good for 2 years from the time you became F5 certified. As long as you are within the 2 years, you can take the 201 exam again, or achieve F5 CTS status. Which means passing the 302, 303, 304, or 301A & B exams. To clarify further, you need to pass both 301A & B, one won't cut it, opposed to the other 300 level exams that only consist of one exam. If you let your two years pass, you will indeed need to retake the 101 exam. Make sure you stay on top of your time-line, and create a plan that leaves you plenty of time before the 2 year expiration. What's next? Hopefully by this point you've received the victorious pass letter from F5 with the subject line "You have been certified as an F5 Certified BIG-IP Administrator!". Take some time to celebrate and acknowledge your accomplishment - you're now officially an F5 Certified BIG-IP Administrator ;) Don't stop there, if you log into F5s Credential Management System you will see you now have access to all the 300 level Certified Technology Specialist (CTS) blueprint & study guide. Note the 301b exam will only be available for you to take with PEARSON after you pass the 301a exam. Some people opt to conquer the 301a/b first, since they just finished the 201 exam, others take a break and hit one of the other exams. There is no right or wrong here, it's all a mater of preference. Which path are you going to choose? Here is a list of all the 300 level F5 CTS LTM Exams Exam 301a – LTM Specialist: Architect, Setup and Deploy Exam 301b – LTM Specialist: Maintain and Troubleshoot F5 CTS GTM Exams Exam 302 – GTM Specialist F5 CTS ASM Exams Exam 303 – ASM Specialist F5 CTS APM Exams Exam 304 – APM Specialist What has your experience been like with the F5 Certification program? Any tips or insights of your own you'd like to share? Maybe a question or two about the certification process? (NOT an actual cerfication question. Sharing certification exam details can result in loss of certification and expulsion from the program for life!)Well jump on in and comment below!F5 Certifications Mega Meta Series: The art of knowing what you need to know
In this series of articles, I will go into the details of how the exams are developed (...as far as I know at least), and how I think you can improve your chances of passing them. With F5’s exams being focused on what you can do in real life, rather than what you know in theory, it makes it difficult to know what exactly you need to know for the exams. Techies don’t like that – we are like binary; we know it or we don’t. We’re not good at blagging (cheeky British term for obtaining through persuasion) our way through a conversation about something we don’t know, so why should exams be any different. Unfortunately, real life doesn't work like that, and neither should exams. This can therefore easily become a stumbling block when preparing for the F5 exams; “I don’t feel I know everything I need to know, so therefore I’m not going for the exam yet.” Guest Author: Alex Tijhuis An evangelist for anything software designed and security, and a self-described massive network geek, Alex is an F5 trainer and consultant at ABCT.net. While certified and highly skilled and interested in all things F5, he's just as happy pulling cables in a data center and designing scalable systems as he is messing around with the latest cool kids toys our fine industry has to offer. In this article (part five of eight), I hope to give you some hints and tips on how to find the right information. Everyone has their own ideas on how to work through the material though and I am under no illusion that my way is the best way – whatever works for you, great! Step 1: Blueprint K29900360. The one document to rule them all! A simple document, but oh so powerful! These are the topics that you need to know about and this is the document that the exam developers use to come up with questions (check out a recent article about that if interested). So, think of yourself sitting in the pub with some of your F5 friends and you start talking about these topics; what would you talk about, what could you ask each other? Who knows, see it as a highly specific F5 pub quiz! How simple it may sound, that will probably be the things that you would need to know about Then, looking back on the study guide, the more I already know about a certain topic on the blueprint, the less time I will spend on studying for it. Also remember that the vast majority of questions are about testing if you know the technology and how to apply it in real time, not whether you can remember facts – Google is much better at that! So don’t worry too much about remembering facts, spend more time at playing with the kit! (see our upcoming article for more about that) Step 2: Training and Research If you don’t know what a topic in the blueprint means, go to Google! (other search engines are available – I’m sure Yahoo, Bing or AltaVista may still work…) Simply get a better understanding of what a protocol or function means. Protocol-wise, I’m a big fan of Wikipedia. F5 has a variety of repositories available as well for all kinds of information; Clouddocs,AskF5, DevCentral. – get familiar with them and use them. This is also a good moment to think about training courses, if you haven’t done so already. Although the F5 training courses don’t specifically focus on the exams, they do cover a large variety of topics from the products and give you the chance to play with the kit. Most F5 trainers are also very knowledgeable about their products - they must have passed the respective 300-level exam to be allowed to deliver it after all, so feel free to ask us about it. Step 3: Expand your knowledge You will learn more than you have to for the exams – get over it. Yes, if exam is based on a book, you know exactly what you need to learn and what not. Because we don’t, and we want to make sure that we are covered, you will learn more than you have to. Is that such a bad thing? It wouldn’t be the first time that I get to a consultancy a few weeks after I’ve learned something new and they ask me if I’ve got experience with that specific topic. “Ahyes, sure! I’ve just done a project for this a few weeks ago!” They don’t necessarily have to know that it was a project in my own lab, as long as I understand and have experience with it. If anything, it shows the power of the exam; you expand your knowledge and improve your overall worth! So don’t be afraid to take some detours from the blueprint now and then when you are studying; a lot of that knowledge will come back at some point. If not to better understand the material for this exam, then at least for whatever you will do afterwards – maybe even the next exam! Step 4: Study guides Read the study guides that are available; f5books.eu are supposedly pretty good! They were developed after I’ve finished my 101 and 201, so haven’t used them myself, but have heard great things about them. Step 5: Blueprints Revisited See if the topics make more sense now. If you haven’t done so already, read the example questions that are showing on each section. If anything, it’s a form of cheating to already get these questions; use them! These example questions should be fully understood by now and you should know what technologies they are talking about and how this works with F5. If unsure, build a lab scenario that contains this information. When reading these example questions, you should also know what other technologies are related to this. For example, something that may pop up in an APM exam; understand how the F5 works with AD. Well, that tells me that I need to know the basics of AD, how the F5 works with AD, what troubleshooting tools are available for it and how it normally functions. Besides that, I can imagine that questions about related technologies such as LDAP, Radius and the likes can also be expected. Just now typing in “f5 apm ad” in Google already gives me a nice list of the most common ways to configure and troubleshoot this on the first page. Brilliant! That is my study guide sorted for the next half hour. Once you start reading stuff that either clearly hasn’t got anything to do with it, or you start to read things that you have already read, you are done for now on that topic! Step 6: Shortlist Make a list of any topics that still elude you. There are likely to be some topics that you simply don’t know where to start, or that you cannot find any good resources for. In those cases, Google and the likes are less likely to help you. Speak to colleagues, speak to consultants, trainers, presales, whoever you can find that you can talk to about it some more. It is very likely that you have simply thought of a topic the wrong way around, or have misinterpreted what it means. Someone that knows the technology can explain it to you in a different way, and all of a sudden, it may just click! They can also often give you some information that you simply hadn’t thought about yet, or can fill in other gaps. Don’t be afraid to ask. Even though I have been working with networking and security for over 10 years and I’m supposedly an expert in this area, about 25% of my time still goes on training; reading articles, joining webinars, training sessions and building scenarios – it never ends. The more I can learn from other people, the better! The only idiot here is the person that thinks they know everything. At this late stage, people often start looking for exam dumps. An honest warning; don’t. Not only are they likely to be either old exams, practice exams or just nonsense questions, you are also likely to get the wrong information because of it. Just because someone somewhere has said that for this question, this must be the right answer, it doesn’t mean it’s true. Ah, the good old days when information on the internet could be trusted. Always check for yourself and know your stuff. Better still, stay away from exam dumps altogether as they negate the effectiveness of any exam and degrade the quality of your hard-earned certificates. In addition, F5 spends quite a bit of effort on tracking unsavoury behaviour by test takers and the like (for good reason!) and I’d hate for anyone to be barred from the program because you got a bit lazy. Step 7: Relax Because of the scenario-based nature of the questions, people tend to do quite well on the exam or pretty badly. Which if I’m correct, should translate in a better spread of the overall exam results. Combine this with the knowledge that you can’t really cheat on the exam and that the exam doesn’t have to trick you to test your knowledge, and you will find that the pass mark for F5 exams are also be reasonably low. If you get a few things wrong, no worries – that’s part of the process. If you forget some protocols during the day, meh, you’ll be fine. So, get preparing… As long as you’ve done your due-diligence beforehand and tried your best to cover all topics, you’ll do fine during the exam as well. Good luck! Dr. Ken Says... In regard to the “examples” given on the blueprints, it is important that candidates understand this is not an exhaustive list of the knowledge, they are simply what they say they are: examples. If, after failing the exam, you come back to me and say, “such and such wasn’t on the blueprint, but it was on the exam”, you are: a) incorrect, because the blueprints are constantly consulted and verified by numerous experts using a rigorous process while the exam is being developed; and, b) not qualified and the exam results correctly reflected that. I really hate to say it, but feedback on the exams, especially in regard to the validity/veracity of the questions, doesn’t really mean much if you have just failed the exam. I know we all would prefer for someone else to be at fault, but if you don’t know the material enough to pass the exam, then you don’t know the material enough to provide a qualified review of the exam. That being said, if you pass the exam but still think there are issues with a question: tell us. We are not perfect, but it is not from a lack of trying.I’ve Successfully Failed the F5 Certification 201-TMOS Administration Exam
Yup, you read that right. I did not pass the F5 Certified BIG-IP Administrator test I took while at F5 Agility 2017. And I’m not ashamed since it was a challenging test and I will be trying again. Sure, I went through Eric Mitchell’s (F5er) comprehensive 201 Certification Study Guide along with the TMOS Administration Exam Blueprint. However, I probably should have taken more time ON a BIG-IP messing around…especially for tmsh commands…which is where, I believe, I got tripped up. This is key. Reading and memorizing commands along with some practicing can only get you so far. Doing it regularly is what’s needed. This is a key feature of the exams, particularly as you move up the exam expertise. The exams are designed to test real knowledge and experience, not if you can cram the night before. Pretty sure my errors came with tmsh and the UCS upgrade questions since I had limited experience in those areas. Going in, I was a bit less confident (than from the 101) but also, less anxious. And about three-quarters through the exam I was feeling pretty good. I might pass this thing. However, the 201 Certification exam is not something to take lightly and is much more challenging than the 101. While the 101 has a 70% pass rate overall, the 201 hovers around 67% pass rate overall. 69% correct is a pass – I got 63%. I probably would have received my diploma from an educational institution but for Dr. Ken, a 63 is not a ‘pass’ with the F5 Certification Program. But that’s OK and why I like the program. At whatever level, a pass is a true achievement. You know your stuff. At Agility 2017, the F5 Professional Certification team administered 227 exams. They had 245 scheduled so only 18 no-shows for whatever reason. When I took the exam on Monday, there was a constant flow of folks taking the exams and over the course of the event, I spoke to many who were either about to take one or had already completed theirs. No matter pass or fail, all were impressed with the caliber of the exams. For F5 Agility week, the disposition is as follows: So you don’t have to work out the percentages: Slight edge to the Pass group, congratulations…but still, you got a 50:50 shot. Even though I failed, I’m glad to have taken it and know what I need to brush up on for my next attempt. For others that also failed, don’t be discouraged. While in Chicago, I was reminded of this Michael Jordan quote: ‘I've missed more than 9000 shots in my career. I've lost almost 300 games. 26 times, I've been trusted to take the game winning shot and missed. I've failed over and over and over again in my life. And that is why I succeed.’ psZero to F5-CTS LTM Certified!
It’s been nearly a year since the DevCentral team wrestled the 101 exam to the mat at Agility 2016. This last week, I finished the road to the F5 Certified Technology Specialist Local Traffic Manager (F5-CTS LTM) certification, with a passing score on the 301B exam! I don’t usually get test anxiety, but I had that in spades in the days leading up to the 301B. I’m not sure if I felt I hadn’t prepared well enough or if it was the thought of the merciless mocking from my peers that was sure to come should I walk out with the cone of shame. BUT...once in the examination room, there was no time to worry, I had to get on with it! Rather than recap all the exams necessary to get here, I’d like to focus on a few areas that might help you in your own journey to LTM certification. Test Taking Strategies All the exams are 80 questions and 90 minutes in length, with time exceptions for ESL examinees. This means you have roughly 1 minute and 8 seconds per question. If you look at the blueprints for each test, you’ll see the Cognitive Complexity Key in play for each objective, each bullet requiring more brain power and thus time to accomplish: R - Remember A/E - Analyze/Evaluate U/A - Understand/Apply Create For knowledge questions, this is plenty of time, you know it or you don’t. But for the analysis/application type questions, you will need more time than that, and sometimes, a lot more time than that. So I would suggest on knowledge questions, answer quickly and flag for review where necessary. This serves the dual purpose of a) preserving time and b) allowing future questions to perhaps inform your answer on previous questions that you might change. One thing that wastes precious seconds is not viewing the entirety of a diagram or config shown in the pop up dialogs. Make sure you slide the vertical and horizontal sliders to their full highth and width before closing them to answer the question, otherwise, you’ll have to open the diagrams again and do so before you can move on. Also, use the booklet the test center gives you! I use it primarily for the following three purposes: Drawings. I find it cumbersome to go back/forth from diagrams to the questions and answers, so where it makes sense, I recreate the drawings and configs with enough detail to evaluate the answers. The question numbers I flagged for review and the issue covered. Sometimes when it is fresh, I like to go back before review if I am clued into the right answer for that question, so knowing exactly where to go is useful. To write down concepts I’d like to review after the test that I’m less clear on. You can’t take this with you afterward, but by writing it down, I’m able to recall most of it when I leave the test center, and I sit in my car and write as much of the list down as possible, expanding on any ideas I might explore (or write about!) for future study. General Test Information Obviously, the blue prints and study guides are your friends, and should be the starting point for preparation. But past the 101, if you don’t get your hands on at least a virtual edition of the BIG-IP, you are seriously hindering your chances at passing the exams. Make sure you are doing your CLI/GUI prep work on the TMOS version covered by the test! There are some nuances in TMOS behaviors between versions that might impact your working knowledge of the product as it relates to the test. Profiles are a big part of the 301A/B tests, and there are many changes to where some features might be, or changes in default behaviors for these profiles. This is true for monitors, virtual server precedence/flow, and many other features as well, so be on guard for version-dependent information. All of the blueprint information is important and shows up on the tests, but If I were to encourage you to focus in a handful of primary areas of study it would be: Virtual servers - From types, protocols and profile management, to SNATs and pools, the virtual server is THE system object that moves data through the box. It is critical to have deep understanding in this area. Profiles - Virtual servers allow things to move, but the power to make things move securely, effectively, and efficiently resides in your profiles. Knowing not only what individual profiles perform what functions, but how to customize, and how to combine with other profiles is necessary. Pool Members & Monitors - How pool ratios and available members work, what “disabled” really means, how monitors work, how they impact pool member status, pool status, and virtual server status. How to debug monitors. All important stuff. Load Balancing Algorithms - Application delivery is a slightly important feature in the F5 product line, so this knowledge is a must. System Stuff - Backups, High Availability options, Self-IPs and port lockdown, differences between TMM & Host. For the 301B Specifically - In addition to knowing all the BIG-IP stuff as it relates to the LTM module, you really need to know the HTTP protocol fairly well, and be very comfortable with the operation and analysis of the tcpdump utility. I can’t emphasize enough how important it is to know these things well. Make no mistake, these are not easy tests! Kudos to the certification team for creating a certification path that requires a lot more than memorization skills. I’m nowhere near as familiar with the nuances of the BIG-IP as I was when I was operationally responsible for them, but that said, if you study diligently and put the time in on the command line andthe web interface, you should have the tools to achieve certification as well!COVID-19 Response: F5 Certifications Q&A
F5 knows that COVID-19 restrictions greatly affect your ability to schedule and attend exam certification appointments. No candidate will lose certification as a result of these extraordinary events. AskF5 published K25023468: COVID-19 update for F5 Certifications, which provides answers to the following questions: What is F5 going to do to solve this? I got notified that my certification is expiring/expired, but I cannot schedule an exam; what am I supposed to do? Why can’t you just extend certifications to stop the messages and prevent the certifications from reporting as expiring/expired? Will F5 implement online proctored exams like some other organizations are doing?F5 Certifications Mega Meta Series: How to take the stress out of the F5 exams
F5's certification exams are awesome; a good way to test and prove your skills and worldwide recognized. But they are not easy! And neither should they be. Unfortunately, because of their structure and time limits, many people struggle to pass them or simply don't want to take them. There are many people out there that are brilliant with F5's, but don’t have anything to show for it. Not to say that everyone should have the certification, but if you know your stuff and you want to show it, there shouldn't be anything stopping you. In this series of articles, I will go into the details of how the exams are developed (...as far as I know at least), and how I think you can improve your chances of passing them. With some preparation and the right mind set, everyone can have a better chance of passing these exams and show them off to the world! After all, the exams should not be a test to see if you can work under pressure (you can leave that to your boss), but instead to prove that you know your F5's! Guest Author: Alex Tijhuis An evangelist for anything software designed and security, and a self-described massive network geek, Alex is an F5 trainer and consultant at ABCT.net. While certified and highly skilled and interested in all things F5, he's just as happy pulling cables in a data center and designing scalable systems as he is messing around with the latest cool kids toys our fine industry has to offer. ...and why should I listen to you? After saying bye to the railways in 2009, I picked up my old hobby of networking, by studying for Cisco’s CCNP and CCDP exams. I loved every minute of it, and loved the technology, but unfortunately, as this was the height of the financial crisis, nobody was looking for Cisco engineers that couldn’t prove they have practical experience. More than once did recruiters hang up on me mid-sentence; “Well, I can’t prove my experience, but I do have the certific….”. Even to recruiters it was clear that having the certificates on their own is not good enough. Anyway, luckily I got employed in a small town of rural England on a European wide helpdesk that looked after basically all vendors similar to Cisco, apart from Cisco itself. And as the company had to have a certain level of certified engineers in various technologies, the deal with my manager was simple; he will keep sending me on training courses, as long as I keep passing the exams. Oh, and those Cisco certs? “Yeah, they’re nice, but only tells me that you have an interest in the technology, not that you actually know your stuff…” So, over the next couple of years I turned in to a certification monkey; Juniper JNCIS-Sec, JNCIS-Ent, JNCIS-SSL, PaloAlto ACE, BlueCoat BCCPP, Checkpoint CCSA, VMware VCP-NV, Ruckus WiseGuy, I’ve done them all… With varying levels of success and enjoyment, but one thing clear between all of them; as long as I read the book and followed the standard course, I could pass them! So when F5 brought out their new certification program, there was one sucker in particular that was kindly but firmly asked to pass the exams. Gmbmglrmlbn… stupid F5’s, I don’t like that stuff… bgmbmrrn…. Ok… (Ross, if you are reading this, I still owe you my gratitude for “forcing” me into F5… ;) When starting to get stuck into this technology, one thing became clear early on; just sitting on training courses and reading the books didn’t make me pass them! Hmm, that’s a new one! Although to be fair, the 101 I passed roughly based on all my previous knowledge and hardly picking up a book – that already showed me the opposite is true as well; if you know your stuff, you don’t have to study! Moving through the exams and the structure, I also started to enjoy working with the kit and now I can’t leave it alone. This prompted me to move from helpdesk to presales, to training and consultancies. From someone who hated F5 to someone who’s just a massive fanboy – that’s my life… Having passed 401 and 402 and all intermediate exams (including the elusive 202!), I look back at these exams and compare them to all the other ones I’ve done, I can honestly say that these are the best structured and most worthwhile exams out there. There are exams out there that are purely paper exercises, some that are nothing more than a checkbox exercise and some that are purely there to generate cash. Not to say there are no other worthwhile exams out there, but the F5 program is definitely one of the better ones! …so what’s your idea? I’d like to tell you about my experiences running through all kinds of exams, and in particular F5 exams and how to best prepare yourself for them, and give yourself the best opportunity to make sure that your technical knowledge prevails during your actual exam, rather than your fears, stress and other distractions. With my lovely wife now having been infected with the F5 bug as well, and having started her own certification path – or maybe she just does it so I may finally shut up about it… - I thought I might as well write all this down. Dr. Ken Says... The only comment I have here is in regard to the statement, “the exams should not be a test to see if you can work under pressure”. While I believe the sentiment was well-founded, it is not entirely correct. Time constraint is absolutely an element of our assessment process; thus, some amount of “work[ing] under pressure” is inherently present. “Expert” practitioners generally require less time to evaluate and apply their knowledge; they require less “input” in order to identify the scope of the problem, the key aspects affecting the problem, and the likely causes. As such, we have intentionally limited the amount of time on our exams to better identify those that can consistently perform within an “average” amount of time, versus those that get stuck. This is a key element of the assessment process. At the end of the day, when an employer sees someone with an F5 certification, they should know that the individual can consistently solve problems in an efficient manner, saving time/money in the long-run. We think this adds significant value in having our certifications. Over the next weeks, I’ll be highlighting the best ways to prepare yourself for the exam, how the exam development process works, how this helps you better understand the exam, and how to deal with time pressure. I will keep my technical recommendations to a minimum, simply because there are lots of good resources available out there that can help with that, and I rather focus on various areas of the “softer” side of the exam. Of course, if anyone DOES want to talk more about the technical side of it, I’m all ears! I hope these articles are useful, and just as a disclaimer; all notes and opinions in these articles are mine and mine alone. Hopefully you (and F5?) agree with them, but if not, please do not hesitate to let me know. May the 401 be with you!The Road to F5 Certification
Over the last 4 months, the DevCentral team has been preparing for the F5 Certification exam. We’ve met a number of times for group study and for each session, we reviewed a particular section of the Exam 101 - Application Delivery Fundamentals Study Guide. We prepared and presented a certain topic and had open discussions about particular use cases, customer scenarios and even played some guessing games as to what might be asked on the exam for that section. Now the time has come to take the test. Since the DevCentral team will be at Agility 2016 in Chicago this year, we decided to take advantage of the Certification Team’s mobile testing center. While you can certainly go to one of Pearson Vue’s test centers, the Certification Team will be on hand at F5 Agility to administer their various exams for those looking to get F5 Certified. It’s a pretty cool set up – almost like a band on a mini regional tour. They’ll have everything you need to take the test. I gotta tell you, I’m a little nervous. I’m sure I’ll be able to nail sections 2-5 since those are the areas I’ve focused on for the past decade…it’s the first part, OSI, that I’m a little weary. Not that I don’t know my 7 layers – All People Seem To Need Data Processing – but maybe some of nuances or lack of recent real world subnetting that concerns me. I’ll use this last month before the exam to keep prepping to make sure I don’t embarrass myself. But let's look at the stats. Recently Ken Salchow, F5’s Sr. Manager Professional Certifications, has posted some interesting statistics about the program, particularly pass rates and certification by region. Ken notes about the pass rate graph, ‘I am also often asked about exam pass rates ... which is not an easy thing to really post. Below is a graph that shows ALL TIME pass rates by exam. It is important to note that these pass rates encompass thousands of exams and even different versions of exams. As such, take these with a grain of salt and realize that if I did a 12-month average, 24-month average and last month average, they would all differ from the below. Oh ... and have I mentioned how much I distrust data coming from our candidate management system?? Yeah ... so ... you've been warned.’ And the graph: So there's a 70% pass rate on the 101. Fairly decent. Ken also posted another chart which shows the breakdown of certification by region as a percentage of the whole. Nice mix of global certifications. We - the DevCentral team - will take some pictures and let you know how we did. If you are at Agility and taking a Certification exam this year, let's compare notes for the final wrap. Pass or Fail. My energy says, 'Success!' ps Related: Jumping on the Rails of the Technical Train Let the Training Begin! .I Am an Application Delivery Fundamentalist!
Fun and a little mental. If you’ve been following along the DevCentral team’s journey toward F5 Certification, then you may be aware that we were in Chicago last week for F5’s Agility 2016 conference and took our 101 Application Delivery Fundamentals exam. I am happy to report that all of us, Jason, John, Chase and I, passed our exams. I gotta tell you, it’s a relief since I didn’t want to title this article, 'Two Out of Three Ain’t Bad.' Good song but wanted to avoid that. We started this excursion back in April (me in March) with the team deciding to create a study group. Each week we’d tackle a topic with the guidance of Eric Mitchell’s excellent Study Guide. We worked through the sections and decided to test our luck with the Certification Team’s mobile testing center...with the pressure of passing during an F5 event. Imagine the slight pre-test anxiety going through our minds if we didn’t pass. ‘How long have you been at F5?’ the questions would have started. My mouth covering, embarrassing, face-palming, muffled response of, ’12 years,’ would not have been sufficient. As Ken told us on the way into the exam room, ‘I tell people it is either pass or fail…so don’t worry about your overall score.’ But he also added specifically to me, ‘You know if you fail, I will give you grief.’ No Pressure. Well, we were prepared and we all passed! Jason, John and I took the exam Tuesday morning. After registering and scheduling with Pearson Vue, we arrived at the mobile test center. You need to sign in and present two forms of ID, one with your picture. Even though the Certification team knew all of us, we still needed to follow the procedure, no exceptions. We liked that we had no special treatment – other than the ‘hello’ hugs – and had to process and pass fair and square. We were seated in different areas since the exam room was fairly full when we entered. The moderator helped each of us get to the proper test associated with our registration and the timer started. For the 101, you have 90 minutes to answer 80 questions. At 23 minutes in, Jason got up and was finished. ‘Wa?!?’ as I look up seeing him walk by, ‘I’m only on question 28!’ I lamented. At least John was still there and I kept an eye on my time and question count the rest of the way. But I also told myself, ‘I’m in no hurry and if I need the full 90 minutes, I’ll take it to the last tick.’ John finished about a 40 minutes later and I was left for the last 30 to myself. With 10 minutes left, I was done but took that remaining time to review my answers. One tip: you can flag questions for review during the test or make comments for yourself as you move along. Close out the ones you know and go back for the more challenging questions. In the end I think I changed 3 answers. No idea if it swayed the results either way. When you are done, you walk back to the registration room and your preliminary results are already waiting. I felt a quiver when Heidi glanced at my results and gave that ‘I’m sorry,’ look. But that was soon turned to glee as I read, ‘you have Passed.’ We were 3 for 3. Chase took the test on Wednesday and also passed. I feel it was a very fair test to determine one’s basic application delivery knowledge. Some networking, some security, some infrastructure. And although we did prepare, it was still a challenging test. These exams are not supposed to be cake-walks but a good way to measure your knowledge around a certain topic. While we passed and may be certifiable in our own right, we are not ‘officially’ F5 Certified. That comes with the 201 exam. The 201-TMOS Administration exam is the second exam required to achieve Certified F5 BIG-IP Administrator status. Candidates must have passed the 101-Application Delivery Fundamentals exam in order to be eligible for the 201 exam. And wouldn’t you know it, we’re all now shooting for the 201. We plan on doing the team study again but we’ll also need to dig into some on box time for this one. I plan on keeping you posted for the 201 but for now, I’ll just bask in my 101 glory. Phew! ps Related: Jumping on the Rails of the Technical Train Let the Training Begin! The Road to F5 Certification DevCentral at F5 Agility 2016F5 Certifications Mega Meta Series: The cool side of the exam development process
In this series of articles, I will go into the details of how the exams are developed (...as far as I know at least), and how I think you can improve your chances of passing them. In this article (part four of eight), I will share some insights in how they (F5) come up with the exam questions and how to use this to your advantage. Guest Author: Alex Tijhuis An evangelist for anything software designed and security, and a self-described massive network geek, Alex is an F5 trainer and consultant at ABCT.net. While certified and highly skilled and interested in all things F5, he's just as happy pulling cables in a data center and designing scalable systems as he is messing around with the latest cool kids toys our fine industry has to offer. Over the years, I’ve been lucky enough to have been able to participate in the development of some of the F5 exams and get an insight in the workings of them. My top tip; if you ever get the chance to help with the exam development process – I would highly recommend it! One of the strong points of the F5 exams is that they are developed by a bunch of industry experts, rather than “some idiot with a book”. I’ve seen many exam questions myself over the years that are asking for such obscure knowledge that the only way to answer it correctly is to have read the exact book that the question comes from. What a waste… You have just proven that someone can read a book! (and to be honest, in real life you’ve got Google to tell you that stuff anyway) Having a bunch of people from around the world work together and come up with questions makes for a much more varied and scenario-based experience. Think about developers, consultants, support engineers and all those. They are speaking from their own experiences when writing questions, and if you ever find a question that thinly-veiled asks how “an F5 engineer has misconfigured something, what may have caused this” – you bet that that person was speaking from their own experience… Once someone has come up with a good question, it gets shown to the rest of the group; who of you can answer this question? There are normally about 10-15 people in a room, the facilitator would expect that at least half to three-quarters of all people should be able to spot the right answer. If everybody can quickly guess the right answer, it’s clearly too easy, if nobody can spot the right answer, it’s clearly too hard. It’s a first test to check a question’s validity, but a pretty good one in my eyes! Not that this is the whole process – not by a long shot! (and I’m sure I will get beaten up for making it sound so simple…) After this, questions first go into a beta exam program, all kinds of funky data analysis will be done on it and any comments from real test-takers assessed, before it may actually make it into the real exam. So if a question makes it to the real exam, you can be pretty certain that it makes sense and they are not trying to catch you out! Saying that, if you don’t agree with questions during an exam, feel free to leave comments. Every question has a comments field, so feel free to use it and they do read them. Unfortunately, your exam timer does not stop when writing comments, so be quick. I believe in Beta exams you get an extra ten minutes or so afterwards to fill in comments. This brings me to the Practice Exam. This is a facility that is available for you when you sign up to the exam certification process. Something like 25 dollars for a go, and a nice facility to have available. Personally, I’m not a big fan of it, but it does have its place; if you want to get a feel for whether you are ready for the real thing, and want to get an idea of what the exam actually looks like, feel free to give it a go. As you will likely get the same set of questions (none of which are on the real exam), there is also no point in doing it more than once really. You just start to remember the questions, instead of the topics. There are also some no-no’s when it comes to writing the question, the correct answer and the “distractors” – a cool term for the wrong answers. Such as: Questions are not meant to catch you out. If an answer looks like the right one, it probably is. If you have two or more answers that look pretty good to you (and you only need one), then you probably will have missed something, rather than the exam trying to play a trick on you. Someone who just walks in with no knowledge of the exam, should NOT be able to guess the right answer. For example; “From what direction does the wind blow?” A: North, B: South, C: West, D: It depends on the weather of that moment.” In other words, is the question idiot proof? The distractors can NOT be correct in certain cases. It needs to be clear from the question that only one answer can be correct. Don’t make the question overly complex and don’t use double negatives. The exam is to test your F5 knowledge, not to test if someone can read. In fact, with the exam being taken worldwide, the simpler the language used, the better. And remember, simple to read questions doesn’t mean a simple question to answer - “How many stars are there in the Universe?” F5 works with a measurement called a Minimally Qualified Candidate (MQC), which means a person who is JUST competent enough to not be fired. They should be able to pass the exam. The exam is not checking if you are the best in your field. As such, questions will not be checking if you know about this obscure knowledge that you only learned on page 275 of the book, or which you must have seen once while working in the dark pits of a datacentre during a blackout. F5 has something called the Wheel of Validity (it almost sounds like a game show!) which they use during the exam development process, and always hold it against what they want to really test. Starting with the subject of the exam this will turn into the blueprint, an assessment of how often these topics are actually popping up in real life, and followed by the questions per category. Even the number of questions per category being dependent on the importance of a category. See it as a risk assessment. If you normally do a certain F5 task only once a year, and if it goes wrong, nobody cares, it’s clearly not THAT important to have it right. Whereas if you have a job to do every week that MUST be done right, otherwise the place burns down, you better know what you are doing! The latter subject will therefore result into more questions. Many moons ago, when I had a quick chat with them, I mentioned that I was surprised to get quite a number of questions in my 201 exam about raising a support ticket. As it turned out – at least back then, that it is something that many people need to do “regularly” and it often goes wrong! Apparently raising a priority 1 call in the middle of the night to sort out a minor lab issue is not the nice thing to do. …but I digress. If you want to know more about what’s going in to the exam development process, there are a few really good videos / interviews with the brains behind the exam process on the DevCentral YouTube channel, such as the one embedded below – it shows you how much work goes into delivering a few lines of text on your screen while you are sitting there and sweating over them. Dr. Ken Says... There’s a lot in this post; and, while, yes from my perspective it is extremely simplified, it does capture the gist of how we put every effort into making the exams do one thing: determine if someone is minimally qualified or not. That is the only goal. I did want to clarify two things: the minimally qualified candidate (MQC), and the value of practice exams. MQC: This is not an F5 concept, but a standard concept in psychometric assessment development; and, while it sounds a bit incongruent or backwards, it is extremely important. Defining the MQC means detailing, exactly, how much knowledge we require before we are confident to allow the individual to do something. It is drawing a line in the sand saying, “if you know, at least this much, then we will trust you to do the job.” There are thousands, or millions, of minimally qualified airline pilots, brain surgeons, teachers, etc. practicing their professions today. It is really about simply defining the line between feeling confident you can do the job or not. This is also why our exams are pass/fail: you either make the mark or you don’t. We don’t actually care if you know more than the MQC, we just need to know whether you know enough to be one. Practice Exams: I know practice exams are somewhat of a contentious topic, but I believe that is because most people only know them in the way they have been used for many years: a list of questions that people study and review as a “learning” tool. Our practice exams are not designed for that. Our practice exams are built using the same process as our production (i.e. “real”) exams; in fact, we could easily use the practice exam for the real exam as it is equated (i.e., “identical” to the real exams in terms of number of questions, construction, and difficulty) to the real exams. The only difference is that it does not have the same questions. The value of this is that candidates taking the practice exam can get the same information (passing/failing, which sections they need to work on, same time constraints, understanding the style of questions, etc.) all without having the cost of taking the real exam and without it affecting your retake status. This is all extremely valuable, and I’ve known many a candidate who has just taken the real exam (from many vendors) just to get this information. The one caveat, as pointed out in the article, is the value of the practice exam diminishes each time you take it as there is only one set of practice exam questions. The more times you take the practice exam, the less the results will reflect your real exam performance. For that reason, we suggest using the practice exam only two (at most three) times; after that, the results will simply tell you how well you know the questions, rather than the material underneath.
