So the journey is now complete or at least until the renewals come around. I really had no idea that I would have gone this far in the process about a year and a half ago. But, I learned a lot throughout the process and can finally say that I have both 400-level F5 certifications!
Thoughts on the 402 Exam
The hardest part for these 400-level exams is the lack of practice exams to prepare you for what you might experience when you sit for the real one. I understand why there are not any exams but it does make it tough to browse the internet looking for F5 K articles or write-ups for a lot of the topics on the blueprint. Taking two months to study was probably the best thing for me so I didn’t feel rushed in the normal 30-day timeframe that I did with the 300-level exams. With that being said, the exam was tough and really focused on the cloud space, which I enjoyed.
Journey to the 402
If you’re interested in taking the 402 exam, the below graphic should paint a good picture on the pathway to get there. You will need to pass the 101 and 201 exams to achieve the BIG-IP Certified Administrator certification. Then you’ll be able to take both LTM exams (301a and 301b) and the BIG-IP DNS exam (302). This will give you the certifications in both LTM and BIG-IP DNS. These are definitely achievable to anyone with hands-on experience with the modules and LTM is a pretty common module, if you have any BIG-IPs deployed. I would suggest enjoying the journey and not just focus on the end result. It will not feel so overwhelming that way.
Those Study Materials
Like I did with the 401 exam, I tried to create a document that has all the blueprint objectives and any links I found that might apply to those objectives. Since there are no practice exams, this was the best I came up with. Now, I did not find links for every objective but what I did find helped me a great deal. I have provided a link to my Github repo that has the document and I also put it in the markdown file.
https://github.com/CoolPoole/f5-402-exam
I also wanted to call out the link below that provides some really good links to help with this exam. ArvinF from the F5 SIRT team provided his experience on the exam and his reading list. I would suggest using this as well.
Hopefully, you will find these helpful on your journey!
What’s Next?
I’m not really sure where I want to go from here, specifically. I find myself learning more and more on the security front so maybe that’s where I’ll head? For now, I’m just decompressing from this exam and will figure out what’s next shortly. I’m definitely in no rush.
Thank you for reading!