F5 301b v1.1 Objectives

Caleb Delbrugge

2024-04-29 2024-07-09 1208 words 6 minutes

These were the official 11.5 objectives but modified by me. They have been cleaned up even removed in some cases.

This objective list I prefer over the current ones that are official.

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Section 1 - Maintain Application and LTM Device Health
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Objective 1.01 Given a scenario, determine the appropriate profile setting modifications.

1.01a - Given a scenario of client or server side buffer issues, packet loss, or congestion, select the appropriate TCP or UDP profile to correct the issue
1.01b - Given a scenario determine when an application would benefit from HTTP Compression and/or Web Acceleration profile

Objective 1.02 Given a subset of an LTM configuration or statistics, determine which objects to remove or consolidate to simplify the LTM configuration

1.02a - Evaluate which iRules can be replaced with a profile or policy setting
1.02b - Evaluate which host virtual servers would be better consolidated into a network virtual server
1.03a - Identify redundant and/or unused objects
1.03b - Identify unnecessary monitoring
1.03c - Interpret configuration and performance statistics
1.03d - Explain the effect of removing functions from the LTM device configuration

Objective 1.04 Given a scenario, determine the appropriate upgrade and recovery steps required to restore functionality to LTM devices

1.04a - Identify the appropriate methods for a clean install
1.04b - Identify the TMSH sys software install options required to install a new version
1.04c - Identify the steps required to upgrade the LTM device such as: license renewal, validation of upgrade path, review release notes, etc.
1.04d - Identify how to copy a config to a previously installed boot location/slot
1.04e - Identify valid rollback steps for a given upgrade scenario

Objective 1.05 Given a scenario, determine the appropriate upgrade steps required to minimize application outages

1.05a - Explain how to upgrade an LTM device from the GUI
1.05b - Describe the effect of performing an upgrade in an environment with device groups and traffic groups
1.05c - Explain how to perform an upgrade in a high availability group

Objective 1.06 Describe the benefits of custom alerting within an LTM environment

1.06a - Describe how to specify the OIDs for alerting
1.06b - Explain how to log different levels of local traffic message logs
1.06c - Explain how to trigger custom alerts for testing purposes
1.07a - List and describe custom alerts: SNMP, email and Remote Syslog
1.07b - Identify the location of custom alert configuration files
1.07c - Identify the available levels for local traffic logging

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Section 2 - Identify and Resolve Application Issues
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Objective 2.01 Determine which iRule to use to resolve an application issue

2.01a - Determine which iRule events and commands to use
2.01b - Given a specific iRule event determine what commands are available

Objective 2.02 Explain the functionality of a simple iRule

2.02a - Interpret information in iRule logs to determine the iRule and iRule events where they occurred
2.02b - Describe the results of iRule errors

Objective 2.03 Given specific traffic and configuration containing a simple iRule determine the result of the iRule on the traffic

2.03a - Use an iRule to resolve application issues related to traffic steering and/or application data

Objective 2.04 Interpret AVR information to identify performance issues or application attacks

2.04a - Explain how to modify profile settings using information from the AVR
2.04b - Explain how to use advanced filters to narrow output data from AVR
2.04c - Identify potential latency increases within an application

Objective 2.05 Interpret AVR information to identify LTM device misconfiguration

2.05a - Explain how to use AVR to trace application traffic
2.05b - Explain how latency trends identify application tier bottlenecks

Objective 2.06 Given a set of headers or traces, determine the root cause of an HTTP/HTTPS application problem

2.06a - Explain how to interpret response codes
2.06b - Explain the function of HTTP headers within different HTTP applications (Cookies, Cache Control, Vary, Content Type & Host)
2.06c - Explain HTTP methods (GET, POST, etc.)
2.06d - Explain how to decode POST data.
2.07a - Investigate the cause of a specific response code
2.07b - Investigate the cause of an SSL Handshake failure
2.07c - Predict the browser caching behavior when application data is received (headers and HTML)

Objective 2.09 Given a direct trace, a trace through the LTM device, and other relevant information, compare the traces to determine a solution to an HTTP/HTTPS application problem

2.09b - Given a failed HTTP request and LTM configuration data determine if the connection is failing due to the LTM configuration

Objective 2.10 Given a scenario, determine which protocol analyzer tool and its options are required to resolve an application issue

2.10a - Identify application issues based on a protocol analyzer trace and determine solution
2.10b - Explain how to follow a conversation from client side and server side traces
2.10c - Explain how SNAT and OneConnect affect protocol analyzer traces
2.10d - Explain how to decrypt SSL traffic for protocol analysis
2.10e - Explain how to recognize the different causes of slow traffic (e.g., drops, RSTs, retransmits, ICMP errors, demotion from CMP)

Objective 2.14 Given a trace, identify monitor issues

2.14a - Explain how to capture and interpret monitor traffic using protocol analyzer
2.14b - Explain how to obtain needed input and output data to create the monitors

Objective 2.15 Given a monitor issue, determine an appropriate solution

2.15a - Determine appropriate monitor and monitor timing based on application and server limitations
2.15b - Describe how to modify monitor settings to resolve monitor problems

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Section 3 - Identify and Resolve LTM Device Issues
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Objective 3.01 Interpret log file messages and/or command line output to identify LTM device issues

3.01a - Interpret log file messages to identify LTM device issues
3.01b - Interpret the qkview heuristic results
3.01c - Identify appropriate methods to troubleshoot NTP
3.01d - Identify license problems based on the log file messages and statistics

Objective 3.02 Identify the appropriate command to use to determine the cause of an LTM device problem

3.02a - Identify hardware problems based on the log file messages and statistics
3.02b - Identify resource exhaustion problems based on the log file messages and statistics
3.02c - Identify connectivity problems based on the log files
3.02d - Determine the appropriate log file to examine to determine the cause of the problem

Objective 3.03 Analyze performance data to identify a resource problem on an LTM device

3.03a - Analyze performance data to identify a resource problem on an LTM device

Objective 3.04 Given a scenario, determine the cause of an LTM device failover

3.04a - Explain the effect of network failover settings on the LTM device
3.04b - Explain the relationship between serial and network failover
3.04c - Differentiate between unicast and multicast network failover modes
3.04d - Identify the cause of failover using logs and statistics

Objective 3.05 Given a scenario, determine the cause of loss of high availability and/or sync failure

3.05a - Explain how the high availability concepts relate to one another
3.05b - Explain the relationship between device trust and device groups
3.05c - Identify the cause of config sync failures
3.05d - Explain the relationship between traffic groups and LTM objects
3.05e - Interpret log messages to determine the cause of high availability issues