F5 Networks is distinguished for its broad range of application services that typically focus on multi-cloud security and application delivery. Through their extensive solutions and products, they support businesses in securing and delivering excellent digital experiences in any device or environment.

Getting to Know F5 Certification Program

Grow your profession with the extensive F5 Certified Professionals curriculum. This certification track offers you a career-advancing skillset to polish your command of the most in-demand F5 technologies. In general, their designations follow a progressive outline, which means each qualification gradually builds your knowledge. Overall, there are four major paths that cover a specific set of job roles ― Administrator, Technical Professional, Technical Specialist, and Solution Expert. Thus, it’s easy for you to choose the route that fits your needs and professional background.

Diving Deep into Qualifications on Offer

If you’re interested in pursuing any F5 certification, you’re right on track. Here, we will be accentuating three of their remarkable designations that are worth checking out. The first on the list is the F5 Certified Administrator, BIG-IP, which is a proven qualification of your ability to perform the tasks associated with TMOS-based devices. The next certificate on focus is the F5 Certified Technical Professional. This is given to those who have successfully demonstrated their expertise in selling F5 products while providing relevant F5 solution recommendations. Lastly, we have the F5 Certified Technology Specialist, BIG-IP LTM, a certification part of the technical specialist track that gives emphasis on your capabilities in architecting, setting up, deploying, maintaining, and troubleshooting advanced F5 product features and functions to improve the impact of an Application Delivery Network.

Going over Targeted Audience

As a whole, the F5 certification track is aimed at those who already have an idea of F5 products and solutions. More so, the audience for their certifications is quite broad, catering to various specialists including network engineers, system reliability engineers, software developers, and technical support specialists. Besides, product owners can also make use of this certification program. However, for the certification itself, the vendor specifically creates a set of minimally qualified candidates for each exam. Therefore, you need to evaluate your background thoroughly before pursuing a chosen path.

Understanding More about Affiliated Certification Exams

To better comprehend the certificates listed above, we will be expounding some of its required exams, along with the test formats and other relevant details.

• Exam 101 (Application Delivery Fundamentals)

  If you’re planning to obtain the F5 Certified Administrator, BIG-IP certification you need to start with Exam 101. This functions as the starting point for the entire F5 certification track. The main objective of this test is to prepare you for more advanced certifications by equipping you with a foundational knowledge of the Application Delivery Networks. This allows you to capably handle day-to-day tasks such as logging into a device, troubleshooting typical network issues, working with client-server networking, administering application service ports, and the like.

• Exam 201 (TMOS Administration)

  In connection to the first example, Test 201 serves as the second requirement for the F5 Certified Administrator, BIG-IP certification. This underlines your technical ability to deal with the installation, configuration, and implementation of TMOS-based devices in different application environments. The primary skills highlighted by such an exam commence with troubleshooting basic connectivity & performance issues, and then it carries on with administering system configuration, managing existing application delivery services, and utilizing support resources.

• Exam 301B (BIG-IP LTM Specialist: Maintain and Troubleshoot)

  To earn the F5 Certified Technology Specialist, BIG-IP LTM certification, you have to go through two exams ― 301A and 301B. The second requirement, in particular, points up your mastery in designing, implementing, maintaining, and troubleshooting more intricate features of F5 products. In addition, an exam like this enables you to work with the underlying principles associated with SSL-based VPN as well as symmetric & asymmetric acceleration. It also showcases your proficiency in applying such insights to incorporate BIG-IP LTM into existing and new networks. For the key sections, the actual exam mainly revolves around the troubleshooting of basic virtual server connectivity issues, resolving application concerns, and undertaking LTM device problems.

What concerns the structure, the exam format of most F5 evaluations is pretty much the same. In general, these are all computer-based, with a typical 90-minute evaluation. The exams normally consist of 80 multiple-choice questions (10 of which are considered as beta items, hence unscored). The passing score, on the other hand, is 245 out of a range of 100 to 350. As to the price, these are at $180 each, plus local taxes and fees.

Cracking Career Opportunities

Taking a certification is more than just improving your skills. In fact, it paves the way for you to explore a wide range of job roles. F5 designations, in particular, are created to support your professional journey as well as business objectives. For example, some of the incredible opportunities unlocked by validating your skills via F5 include career advancement, salary increase, job security, and knowledge recognition. For the job positions, these remarkably help professionals in the field of software development, Scrum, technical support, system engineering, and the like. When it comes to yearly compensation, the annual salary for software developers, for example, is $72k per annum whereas Scrum Masters can ask for as much as $89k annually as rendered by Payscale. So, if you want notable growth in your skills and financial worth, don’t think twice and secure an F5 endorsement as soon as possible.

Learning Certification Path

As mentioned earlier, the F5 certification track is progressive. Therefore, higher-level validations are designed to further grow your skills. To easily grasp the certification outline, you can begin with the F5 Certified Administrator, BIG-IP, or the F5 Certified Technical Professional certificates. Then, you may continue by choosing one of the four Certified Technical Specialist validations ― the BIG-IP LTM, BIG-IP DNS, BIG-IP ASM, and BIG-IP APM. Upon completion of these, you may open up the F5 Certified Solution Expert designations with two available paths on offer ― Security and Cloud.