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
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