F5 101 Exam Study Guide

Passed my 101 exam today, here some material that I used to accomplished my exam, actually you can get a blueprint of the exam material here.

Section 1: OSI

The first section of the exam concentrates on some basic networking concepts, working up the OSI model from the bottom, you need to know detail of the protocol and services present on each layer.

Objective 1.01 Explain, compare, and contrast the OSI layers

• OSI Model Wiki

Objective 1.02 Explain protocols and technologies specific to the data link layer

• ARP
• ARP on F5
• MAC Address
• Broadcast Domain
• VLANs
• Link Aggregation Wiki
• BigIPLink Aggregation

Objective 1.03 - Explain protocols and apply technologies specific to the network layer

• Routing on F5
• TCP/IP Overview
• IP Addressing & Subnetting
• Routing Protocols
• IP Packet Fragmentation
• IP TTL (Time to Live)

Objective 1.04 - Explain the features and functionality of protocols and technologies specific to the transport layer

• MTU / MSS
• TCP Functionality
• TCP Connection Setup by Virtual Server Type
• TCP Profile Settings (Tunables)
• UDP Functionality
• UDP Profile Settings (Tunables)
• TCPDUMP on F5

Objective 1.05 - Explain the features and functionality of protocols and technologies specific to the application layer

• Application Layer Traffic Managment on F5
• HTTP Functionality
• HTTP Status Codes
• HTTP Headers
• F5 HTTP White Paper
• DNS Functionality
• DNS Record Types
• SIP Functionality
• F5 SIP White Paper
• FTP Functionality
• SMTP Functionality
• HTTP Cookies
• My Name is URL

 Section 2 - F5 Solutions and Technology

In this section, we get into the actual F5 Solutions.

Objective 2.01 - Articulate the role of F5 products

• Access Policy Manager (APM)
• Application Security Manager (ASM)
• Local Traffic Manager (LTM)
• Global Traffic Manager (GTM)
• Enterprise Manager (EM)
• WAN Optimization Manager (WOM)
• Web Accelerator
• Big IP AAM
• F5 White Papers
• F5 Datasheets

Objective 2.02 - Explain the purpose, use and advantages of iRules

• iRule Wiki (Requires Devcentral Login)

Objective 2.03 - Explain the purpose, use and advantages of iApps

• iApp Wiki (Requires Devcentral Login)

Objective 2.04 - Explain the purpose, use and advantages of iControl 

• iControl Wiki (Requires Devcentral Login)

Objective 2.05 - Explain the purpose of and use cases for full proxy and packet forwarding / packet based architectures

• Full Proxy Architecture (Lori MacVittie rules!)
• Packet-Based vs Full Proxy
• SNAT
• Auto Last Hop
• Virtual Server Type

Objective 2.06 - Explain the advantages and configurations of high availability (HA)

• F5 HA Basics
• Config Sync
• Big IP HA Features
• Mirroring
• VLAN Failsafe

Section 3 - Load Balancing Essentials

Objective 3.01 - Discuss the purpose of, use cases for, and key considerations related to load balancing

• Load Balancing Wiki
• Load Balancing 101
• Load Balancing Algorithms (Devcentral)
• More on Load Balancing Algorithms
• Another Load Balancing Algorithm Article
• Yet Another Load Balancing Algorithm Article
• Persistence 

Objective 3.02 - Differentiate between a client and a server

•  Client / Server on Wiki

Section 4 - Security

Objective 4.01 - Compare and contrast positive and negative security models

• Positive Security Model
• Positive vs Negative Security

Objective 4.02 - Explain the purpose and cryptographic services

• Cryptography
• SSL Certificates (Devcentral)
• Certificate Chains
• Public-Key Cryptography
• Symmetric vs Asymmetric Encryption
• Client SSL Profiles
• Server SSL Profiles
• SSLDUMP Utility

Objective 4.03 - Describe the purpose and advantages of authentication

• F5 Authentication 101
• AAA
• Single Sign On
• Multi-factor Authentication

Objective 4.04 - Describe the purpose, advantages and use cases of IPsec and SSL VPN

• SSL VPN
• IPsec VPN
• IPSEC vs SSL VPN

Section 5 - Application Delivery Platforms

Objective 5.01 - Describe the purpose, advantages, use cases, and challenges associated with hardware-based application delivery platforms and virtual machines

• Virtualization
• Virtualization Platforms

Objective 5.02 - Describe the purpose of the various types of advanced acceleration techniques

• Application Performance Optimization
• TCP Optimization
• Oneconnect
• Caching
• Compression
• Pipelining
• Acceleration 101
• Acceleration 102 

So there you have it. I hope this material could help you to pass the F5 Application Delivery Fundamental Exam.