Citrix CCAA 1Y0-A22 XenApp 6.5 Advanced Admin Exam Review and Study Guide

Posted on 24th November 2013 by Alex Galbraith | Permalink Comments Off on Citrix CCAA 1Y0-A22 XenApp 6.5 Advanced Admin Exam Review and Study Guide

I originally said I wasn’t going to bother with the CCAA exam, but sometimes a whim just takes you and you have to give it a go (especially after reading this post by Hersey Cartwright)! 2 Days after my CCA exam I had a spare evening so crammed a bit, and took the exam the next lunch time. To be honest I found it no harder than the CCA and more enjoyable as you actually did some lab sims.

As a native English speaker you get 210 minutes (and an extra 30 if English is not your first language). This seemed more than generous to me when actually implementing the exam. As per the official guide, the passing score is a fairly standard 65% and the exams consist of 46 questions including 4 simulations. Obviously I can’t go into any more detail than is published by Citrix, but I will try to give a couple of suggestions as to how to approach the exam.

For the simulations I suggest you write the numbers 1,2,3,4 at the top of the page, then once you complete each sim, mark it off. This will ensure you can manage your time effectively and keep track of where you are. Ensure you give yourself at least 10-15 mins per sim question and if it takes you more than 20, move on to the next question to avoid wasting time when you could pick up points easier later on. You can always come back and partial points can be awarded as long as you complete the critical elements! The simulator environment is explained in detail in the official exam prep guide listed below. Unfortunately the sim demo in the official guide (http://citrixtraining.com/456_demo2/) does not appear to exist any more. I assume to encourage you to do the XD7 exams instead! 🙂

AppCenter
My biggest tip for the sims is to read the questions very carefully (even several times over – you have enough time!) and make sure you only do exactly what the question asks. It is possible to do more than required, but this may end up penalising you.

One thing that is a bit annoying about the sim is that the clock is not displayed (other than that of the virtual server) because the sim takes up the screen. Considering Pearson Vue make you remove your watch before entering the exam, I think this is a tad mean!… you can still alt-tab to the main window to see your remaining time though, so bear this in mind.

There really aren’t many additional resources over those I have already mentioned in my CCA 1Y0-A20 XenApp 6.5 Exam Review and Study Guide as it goes above and beyond the CCA requirements, however I did come across one or two additional resources worth checking out:

  • Official Exam Prep Guide – A gold mine of information here. I wish I had noticed the CCA version too before I took that exam! I suggest you go through each of the items listed in the exam requirements and ensure you know how to implement them. Test them in your lab to make sure you have it down!
  • Instant EdgeSight for XenApp – You need to have at least a basic understanding of the EdgeSight product for the exam. Interesting as it isnt covered in any of the typical XenApp courses. PacktPub to the rescue! Don’t forget to use your voucher code (if it is still working) for 40% off any PacktPub books. – bawdanu
    At time of writing you also get 50% of any second book purchase, so why not check out and see if you can find anything else of use, such as the books mentioned in my previous post on the CCA.

If you’ve already successfully passed the CCA, then I suggest don’t even think about it… book the CCAA and just get it done. You already have the skills!

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Citrix CCA 1Y0-A20 XenApp 6.5 Exam Review and Study Guide

Posted on 11th November 2013 by Alex Galbraith | Permalink Comments Off on Citrix CCA 1Y0-A20 XenApp 6.5 Exam Review and Study Guide

As I am doing quite a bit of Citrix design at the moment I thought it would be worthwhile doing the CCA for XenAppA 6.5 as a minimum. I sat the exam last week and am happy to say I passed reasonably comfortably. Unfortunately due to the release of XenDesktop7, my certification is immediately deemed as legacy! The designs I’m working on are all pretty much 6.5 based, so it seemed the most sensible to do.

I was not originally going to worry about the CCAA (A22) exam but after the CCA exam I thought it was worth giving it a go too. The list below was made for the CCA but covers virtually all the required CCAA content too; I have a follow up post coming for the differences and some exam tips later this week. Note: The CCAA equates to only a CCA in the new XD7 exam paths (CCA/CCP/CCE) anyway, but in my case I just took it for the challenge more than anything. The one other advantage with the older certs is (as I understand it) they don’t expire like the new ones, every 36 months!

Exam Review
Obviously I cant go into any detail on the exam itself but as per the official guide, it is 90 minutes long for native English speakers and consists of 68 questions with a slightly odd 61% pass mark required.

In comparison to other vendor exams I found it very interesting that you are surveyed in quite a bit of detail before and after the exam. This definitely shows Citrix are keen to listen to their customers. Whether they act on that feedback however, I couldn’t comment? For me, I would have liked to see some simulation questions, which I think genuinely test an individuals knowledge of the product, over the standard multiple choice style. These are included in the more advanced CCAA exams though.

In terms of difficulty, I would probably equate the XenApp 6.5 CCA exam as being on a par with an intro to mid level Microsoft MCP/MCTS, so definitely very achievable, even if you haven’t spent a huge amount of time using the product. Timing for the exam seemed very reasonable and at no point did I feel under pressure by the clock.

Prep Materials
I have listed my prep materials below for anyone else fool-hardy enough to follow me down the “legacy” cert path. I would say the materials below should be more than enough for you to pass both the CCA and CCAA should you so choose.  I probably “over-studied” for the CCA, however the exam was more of a by-product to wanting to dig into the material in detail in the first place as opposed to the key driver!

  • PluralSight aka TrainSignal Courses
    Thanks to the very kind folks at PluralSight / TrainSignal, as a VMware vExpert, I am very fortunate enough to have access to all of their content and courses for free this year. Even without this I would still be very happy to pay the $50 a month (without any contract commitment!) to access the huge catalogue of courses available.
    I tend to do my studying in phases, where I do several exams in the space of a few months, then take a break for a while. Being able to dip in and out of the training material with only a month commitment is really great, and at only a pound a day (if you live in the UK) its not going to break the bank, even if you are paying for it entirely yourself!
    Bada bing, bada boom! Elias Khnaser presents all of the Citrix courses on PluralSight. He is a great teacher, who gives plenty of real world examples and has a good speaking style which is at the right pace and pitch.
    The main XenApp material was based on 6.0 with a 2 hour update course to 6.5 bolted on the end. This is fair enough as its pointless re-recording a whole course for a “point” update, however there were a significant number of changes between the versions so you should bear this in mind. Ideally setup your lab in advance of the course, so you can see the differences as you follow along.

    • Citrix XenApp 6: Installation and Getting Started
      Very good rounded intro to the world of Citrix and XenApp. A great first toe in the water.
    • Citrix XenApp 6: Policies, Applications, and Printing
      This is where is gets interesting, and the true power of policy-based management comes through. The sheer number of policies is enough to make your head spin. I don’t think at this stage you need to know every single one, however you should try to get an appreciation for what you can achieve with the policies, as opposed to learning each individual setting by heart.
    • Citrix XenApp 6: Security and Advanced Administration
      Things get very interesting now with a large part of the content dedicated to NetScaler configuration. It only scratches the surface in terms of what you can do with a NetScaler but this is certainly great content. Elias also gives some great tips on the troubleshooting process for XenApp which are especially useful for the CCAA as well as tips for exam prep (if that’s your ultimate aim).
      If you want to go further, Citrix run some NetScaler Master Class webinars online once a month or so its always worth popping along to one of them and you can raise any questsion you might have at the end. The old ones are available on demand too.
    • Citrix XenApp 6.5
      A fairly brief overview of the key differences with XenApp 6.5. One or two features were not covered, but generally this should be enough to understand the differences and pass the A22 exam. It’s worth augmenting this with the XenApp 6.5 Release Notes.
    • Best Practices for Running XenApp / XenDesktop on vSphere
      In an ideal world, the only other thing I would have liked to see from this course was a little bit more architecture focus, and some rules of thumb on things like storage design. Yes, every application is different and you should always aim to implement a PoC where possible, but you need to have some idea on a baseline from where to start.
    • Citrix Provisioning Services 6.1
      If I had time I would have also like to go through this course too, but this is absolutely not required for the XenApp CCA but good to know and understand.
  • Once I finished the video courses, the next key sources of information I used were a number of PacktPub ebooks. I say ebooks specifically because they are generally cheaper than the paper versions and as most technologies are generally out of date in a couple of years, do I really need 2 kgs of dead tree choking up my bookshelf? Instead I can have an electronic copy, which I can share across all my devices for anywhere access, and I save a bit of space in my man cave for the next Terry Pratchett masterpiece! PacktPub ebooks are also DRM free and can be auto-sent to your Kindle account.
    At time of writing you cab get 40% off all orders from PacktPub with the voucher code “bawdanu” and you always get 50% off every second ebook (buy one get one half price). Bargain!

    • Getting Started with Citrix XenApp 6.5 by Guillermo Musumeci
      Although this book covers most of the same content as the TrainSignal course, there are still some really good ideas and tips, and one or two things not covered. It also helped to solidify and confirm the knowledge I gained from the video training.
    • Citrix XenApp Performance Essentials by Luca Dentella
      Quite a few good architectural suggestions and tips in this book. Great value; even more so if you get it under the 50% off deal!
  • Home Lab
    My number one tip for learning Citrix or any other technology is lab it, lab it, lab it! There is no substitute for hands on experience with a product to both help solidify understanding and help identify the more niggly issues you tend to find with any technology.
    I spun up a 6 virtual server lab in my NanoLab to make it as close to a real design as possible. Obviously you could collapse this all the way down into 3 VMs (DC, XA & NetScaler) if you wanted to. My setup included:

    • 1x Domain controller (1 vCPU, 2GB RAM)
      Running the Citrix license server role (which I used a 90 day Citrix eval license for). This also doubled up as the profile server for roaming profiles and redirected folders.
    • 1x DB Server (1 vCPU, 2GB RAM)
      This was running SQL Express only, but I wanted it on a separate VM to be more like a production environment.
    • 1x Web Interface Server (1 vCPU, 2GB RAM)
    • 1x NetScaler Gateway appliance (2vCPU, 2GB RAM) for testing secure access (which is a little tricky to setup!).
    • 2x XenApp Workers (1vCPU, 2GB RAM each)
      At least 2 is best so you can test using multiple Worker Groups, comparative policies etc.
  • The last item on the list is one I somehow managed to miss, even though I’m usually pretty thorough with these things. The Official A20 Exam Prep Guide. It contains a load of links to great prep content as well as ten example questions to give you a feel for the what the exam will be like. Must read item!

If you are currently working with Citrix products and are as yet undecided as to whether to take the exam or not, I would definitely say go for it! Remember… Nobody ever missed out on an interview for being certified! 🙂

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UK VMUG – 21st November 2013

Posted on 29th October 2013 by Alex Galbraith | Permalink Comments Off on UK VMUG – 21st November 2013

Just a quick reminder about the upcoming UK VMUG at the National Motorcycle Museum, Coventry Road Bickenhill, Solihull, B92 0EJ on 21st November (kicking off the night before with the Veeam vCurry for those in the area – registration required I believe).

For those of you who haven’t previously attended, a VMUG is a great place to:

  • Meet and swap ideas with other virtualisation professionals in the community. A great opportunity to put real faces to all those twitterati with whom you have had many conversations with over time, but aren’t quite sure what they actually look like (especially if they’re particularly selective about which photos they use)! 🙂
  • See some great presentations from other community members. Some of my most memorable have been things like the community discussion after the announcement of vCHS, network virtualisation from Greg Ferro (one of the best tech presentations I’ve been fortunate enough to attend, anywhere!), and Scott Lowe’s inspiring closing keynote on learning at last years event.
  • See some very interesting vendor presentation. Usually there are a variety so its a good way to keep up on the latest developments. Also they help pay for the events, so love em or hate em, the vendors make it possible!

The agenda is available here:
UK VMUG Agenda – 21st Nov 2013

I’m most looking forward to Knowledge Exchange by Duncan Epping (last years one was very interesting) and VMware Virtual SAN – All You Wanted to Know by Cormac Hogan. Unfortunately they’re both scheduled at the same time, so will have to make a call on the day! 🙁

Greg Ferro is also a great speaker, so his closing keynote is one to stay for.

Of the other sessions, I think the following look very interesting:

  • Securing VMware Virtual Environments, Sam McGeown
  • Introduction to Overlay Networking, Greg Ferro
  • NSX Technical, VMware – Scott Lowe
  • Data In; Data Out – vCHS, VMware – Mike Laverick

As always the quality and choice means I will ultimately end up missing some sessions due to not being able to be in two places at once. An enviable position when you think about it!

However you look at it, VMUGs are great FREE events organised in their spare time by some very generous people (Jane Rimmer, Alaric Davies, Stuart Thompson, Simon Gallagher & Martyn Storey). If you can get the time out of the office, and make it to the venue I promise you won’t be disappointed!

Register for UK VMUG here, get the latest news by following @LonVMUG on Twitter and don’t forget to join in the conversation throughout the day using the hashtag #ukvmug

If you see me at the UK VMUG or (if I make it) the vCurry night before, don’t hesitate to come and say hi; you cant miss me, I’m 6’7″!

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The Self Study Era

Posted on 13th October 2013 by Alex Galbraith | Permalink Comments Off on The Self Study Era

I was prompted to write this article after the release of the new VMware Certified Associate (VCA) exam.

One of the most interesting and and best things about the VCP programme is the barrier to entry. Unfortunately in this age of brain dumps, it is all to easy to be a “paper MCSE”, having simply memorised all the answers to a load of exams and passed them without actually knowing the subject matter. Individuals like this usually become unstuck pretty quickly, and it makes a bit of a mockery of the whole process.

In this age of austerity, doom and gloom, employers won’t or don’t want to pay for professional training, which means this barrier can be pretty high! Gone are the days where companies may have the budget to send people on multiple training courses per year. I was extremely lucky at the start of my career to get the opportunity to attend all the courses for my MCSE (about 8 IIRC!) in the space of a couple of years! At many companies today, employees are lucky if they are sent on a single one in that time.

Fortunately it’s not as bad as it sounds, because gone are the days where there used to be only the official course books or in-person training available. Thanks to the wonders of the interweb, today we have many many more resources available to us, including:

  • Many free online community-generated resources. It never fails to impress me how people are willing to give up their free time to generate this content and help complete strangers improve their knowledge and skills.
  • Inexpensive virtualisation at home using VMware Workstation, GNS3, etc allowing you to virtualise and create an entire lab for whatever it is you’re studying. For most technology you can get away with as little as 8-16GB RAM in an old PC, as long as it has a CPU with VT-X extensions you’re golden! This for me is the best way to learn any product – lab it, lab it, lab it!
  • Free online labs from many vendors such as VMware’s http://www.projectnee.com/HOL and Microsoft’s http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/virtuallabs/ so even if you cant afford to have a home lab yourself, you can still get your hands on the tech.
  • If you work for a vendor partner you can often get access to their “Partner University” content for free.
  • Free practice exams from many of the vendors on their learning pages.

If your employer has minimal budgets for training, there is no point moping about it. Invest in yourself (be it financially or in time) and meet them half way.  Embrace the fact that you have joined one of the fastest moving industries in the world, show some initiative and study in your own time!

VMware Certified AssociateSo how does this relate specifically to the VCA I hear you ask? Well if I were starting my career again from scratch, the first thing I would be doing is passing the VMware Certified Associate exam of my choice, based on the free VCA training from VMware, and all of the free resources above. If you pull your finger out, you can even get 50% off the VCA exam for a limited time.

Once you have this one in the bag, then is the time to approach your employer and ask for them to fund your VCP course. They will know you’re serious as you have invested your own time, effort and money (for the exam), and they should already be starting to see the benefits in your additional skills.

At that point, considering the time and effort you have put into your development, if your employer isn’t willing or able to match that investment by paying for either exams or further training / materials, then maybe they’re not the right employer for you. Take your newly learned skills and put them to good use! 🙂

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