Finally!!
I have been waiting for this for years.
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So I took a test today, and came away from it pretty annoyed. I failed, which would have surprised me except for two explanatory properties of the test composition: first, WebUI, a component we donāt even use in our environment and which is optional to do all but a few things vs. Console, seemed to figure into many, many questions. Second, Relevance, which is topic Iāve personally specialized in for years to near mastery and more importantly accounts for the majority of my day to day work, was given one, maybe two questions in the whole test. I can understand how important things like the mechanics of setup, interaction between root and relays and web reports, etc. all are so itās fine that Relevance doesnāt make up a huge part of the test, but it irks me how WebUI, an optional element, outweighs it in the balance of the test by an order of magnitude.
I was talking to someone on r/sysadmin about BES because in general Iām an advocate for the platform, and he was saying that HCLās marketing framing is that you donāt really need to learn Relevance and that almost everything youāll need is just going to be off-the-shelf from tasks and fixlets published by HCL. I really hope that thisā¦ spinā¦ didnāt infect the design of the test for certification. In my opinion Relevance is integral (definitely not optional!) to the full use of the platform and should account for more than one or two questions (~3% of the test).
Now Iām aware from decades of direct and indirect involvement with the world of certification tests that these tests can and do evolve and get updated based not only on further platform development but also test-taker feedback. I know only a couple hundred people have taken the test so far, and of course I donāt even know what percentage of those are HCL technical advisors or other employees. My reason for hashing this out in public as opposed to going just backchannel with it is because this is a live test for which people have to pay money, and I want to make sure that people donāt get into it and are blindsided by how a significant portion (Iād guess as much as 15-20% of it) pertains to WebUI exclusive of Console.
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I agree with you, even though we have promoted the usage of WebUI it is still not a full replacement of the console and we havenāt actually spent time learning the implementation and details about it. During the last BigFix Days conference I asked if a exam simulation would be provided and I was pointed to read the whole BigFix documentation instead.
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Hi @Sophia,
Iāll have some things to say as well, but Iām still trying to formulate my thoughts on this. Iām concerned the test didnāt meet your expectations, and do want to let you know that we take your concerns seriously.
I do want to ask specifically, whether you had seen the Exam Guide at https://academy.hcltechsw.com/images/Lc4sMQCcN5uxXmL13gSlsxClNTU3Mjc3NTc4MTc2/HCL-BF-PRO-10_Exam_Guide.pdf ?
I do think weāll refine the test over time, and feedback like this is important.
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Thank you for everyoneās feedback here - this is very much appreciated. This Platform exam is geared towards planning, installing, upgrading, configuring, managing, operating, performance tuning and troubleshooting of BigFix v10: https://hclsoftwareu.hcltechsw.com/bigfix-certified-pro. There is also an exam guide that outlines the exam content with the weightings of each. We highly recommend reviewing this exam guide before preparing for this exam:
We are definitely heavier on the WebUI side as most of our new features/enhancements are added to the WebUI, not the console. The console, however, is still an integral part of BigFix for the management and administration. We will review the questions related to both the WebUI and console.
We do not currently have any exam simulations but do have in plans to offer example exam questions as we remove/recycle them from our exams. Please stay tuned. This is all great feedback that we value. Please contact me directly at kathy.nguyen@hcl.com to provide feedback and have further discussions - I would love to hear from you!
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I saw it at some point, I suppose I just expected there to be at least somewhat more weight on practice and less on theory. This cert as itās currently structured is going to demonstrate that somebody knows how to stand up a BES environment (which I agree is important, but necessary not sufficient) and make sure it stays licensed, but it barely measures at all (in my opinion) the ability of someone to do the actual day to day work that makes up 90% of using the platform.
Kathy emailed me (which Iāll respond to after I get a project done) about how thereās going to be a separate certification for Relevance at some point, which frankly seems inefficient. Relevance is part of the Bigfix platform, it doesnāt, so far as I know, have any application outside of it. So breaking it off seems to make the āBigfix 10 Platformā certification half a cert, focused mainly on implementing a design and barebones maintenance, and youāll have to take a separate cert to demonstrate you really know how to use the platform in the day to day.
One last point on WebUI vs. Console: I fully understand that the platform is moving away from Console towards WebUI, but BigFix v10.x, the subject of this certification, is almost one to one redundant between WebUI and Console. Making it so you have to know WebUI as well or better than Console seems (I have to say through my own bias of an environment that has never used WebUI) unfair. It would make sense for a cert on Bigfix 10.x to be a bit more backwards compatible with how people have mainly been using the platform for a long time, especially given that in the not-distant future there will be both a Bigfix v11 and a different cert for it, which would make sense to lean on WebUI more.
As it is, Iāll go abstractly study WebUI and retake the test, but after that itās wasted effort for me in the foreseeable term as my organization has no plans to start using WebUI.
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The questions you receive during the exam are randomized from a much larger pool of potential questions. For my test, I only remember receiving a couple of WebUI questions, 3-4 relevance related questions, but in general appeared to focus on the platform itself. I guess it is just luck of the draw that I didnāt experience a higher percentage of WebUI questions, as I too do not leverage WebUI in day-to-day operations so would be at a disadvantage.
With the product supporting so many different configurations, a general certification such as this needs to balance a personās knowledge across:
- Root Server and supporting tooling for both Windows and Linux deployments.
- Both Microsoft SQL Server and IBM DB2.
- Troubleshooting, performance tuning, and optimization across a range of deployment sizes.
- Agents on AIX, HP-UX, Linux (multiple distributions and configurations), Mac, Solaris, and Windows.
- Console and WebUI under various operator rights and roles.
- SOAP and REST integration APIs.
- BigFix architectural concepts including components, data flows, networking, and security.
- Relevance and ActionScript language, and the nuances the can trip up their use.
- Many, many more specialties.
With the vast majority of folks not spending their day-to-day activities jumping between multiple different deployments, operating environments, and usage roles, the general nature of the current certification (while I also agree needs improvements) does require the test taker to either have been exposed to this or at the very least thoroughly review all the guides and manuals prior to the exam as a refresher.
While WebUI is not very useful in its current form for large scale deployments or for ones that have been in use longer than WebUI has existed, it is today a core component of the BigFix Platform that thousands of deployments leverage heavily and HCL has decided will be the future of where they put many of the functional improvements to the platform. As such, I can understand the push to include a heavier focus on it.
I would love to see this certification fork from an all-encompassing SME-level exam into several domain-focused certifications such asā¦
- Site Administrator Linux (general admin knowledge but DB2 and Linux server configuration)
- Site Administrator Windows (general admin knowledge but MS SQL and Windows server configuration)
- Relevance
- Console Operator
- WebUI
- Web Reports
- Inventory
- Compliance
- Modern Device Management
Design the exam to allow the student to select which areas they would like to receive questions from and depending upon their demonstrated knowledge in each of those areas they would receive one or more specialization endorsements/certifications. For example, if someone chose both the Linux and Windows Site Administration areas and aced the Windows questions but totally blew it on the Linux questions then they can still receive the Site Administrator Windows endorsement. If they select all the areas and pass, in addition to receiving the individual certification endorsements, they can get a SME certification/endorsement (basically the current certification as written).
@katwin do you think we can get support for adding our certification badges to our badges here in the forums? Or an actual certification certificate or something [physical] beyond a virtual badge offered via a third-party service we have no choice but to register with simply to receive proof we are actually certified (I know I canāt be the only one who dislikes this)?
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Iām glad to have found this discussion.
Iāve not yet taken the certification myself, and am surprised to learn that its emphasis is on āplanning, installing, upgrading, configuring, managing, operating, performance tuning and troubleshooting of BigFix v10ā. I might expect that for an exam that includes the word āAdministrationā, but not one with a title as broad as āBigFix Platform 10 Certificationā.
Regarding WebUI, in this installation the WebUI exists, but is used for only very specific tasks. That WebUI is the UI/UX focus for new features makes sense. But for us, its day-to-day utility remains a growth area.
That said, the BigFix platform and family encompasses a wide range of domains and expertise. Iām very glad that certification has been revived; it has to start somewhere, and I canāt fault the decision for the first exam to focus on installation standup and maintenance.
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Thank you again for all the feedback - we will continue to take this feedback into account as we refine our existing certification exams, as well as during the process of creating new exams.
The persona for the Platform test is for a professional who can deploy BigFix, and in our judgement, WebUI is an important component of the BigFix Platform v10, even if some of our admins may not be using it. New capabilities from BigFix are landing in the WebUI. It may not have been a consideration in the past, but it is now.
Please also understand that we are in discussions around an Administrator exam and a User exam. Weāve had conversations around creating exams from managing workstations/user devices as well as a unique certification for managing servers.
Please stay tuned and appreciate all the support. Again, feel free to email me at Kathy.Nguyen@hcl.com for further discussions!
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Great Idea, Mike! We are actively looking into the badges. Please stay tuned!
So personal opinion, but it should surprise no one considering how I brought this up that I would prefer a comprehensive SME exam as opposed to a dozen tiny compartmentalizations. Either you know the platform or you donāt, and even someone who has a specialized role is diminished if they lack big picture understanding. Moreover, (and I may be projecting the bias of how my own organization operates) I think most organizations who implement Bigfix donāt have a dozen compartmentalized specialists, but rather a few master operators who know the platform holistically, and then a bunch of user operators who interact with it very narrowly and honestly donāt care how it works beyond some rote task they use it to execute.
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I think the current certification is most similar to what was previously called [BigFix] āCertified Deployment Professionalā or [BigFix] āCertified Administratorā. It is focused on a main operator setting up and configuring the BigFix core platform as a whole and doing admin tasks within it.
I also have not taken the current certification, though I definitely meant to by now, but as far as I can tell, it is similar in content to all of the previous certifications I took for v8.2, v9.2, v9.5 while it is not the same as the [BigFix] āCertified Associateā cert that I have for v9.0 which is the more āuser focusedā cert which is not yet available.
I do love Relevance, and I do see what you mean by this, but I do kind of feel like Relevance is more related to custom content development and it is something that both an infra admin can do that has full privs within BigFix, but also something that a user of BigFix can do without the same level of access. We do cover some relevance in the overall BigFix Platform learn a bit of everything course, but the goal isnāt to teach you to write relevance, only to get you familiar with it and I think the same is true of this certification, you should only be aware that relevance exists and have some familiarity with it.
I do think it makes sense to have a certification focused on reading and understanding relevance in depth, but also the expectation that youād be able to write relevance be a separate certification just like it is a separate class. I do personally consider it an essential skill, but it is something advanced that isnāt strictly required to start getting value out of BigFix.
I can see why WebUI is included in the test, but also why that could be frustrating. It might help if the parts that do concern with the WebUI were more generic and had equivalents in the Console so familiarity with either would help, but we do consider the WebUI to be essential at this point since many features are only in the WebUI now.
Thank you for the feedback.
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Sorry if this has been covered and I missed it, but which of the bigifx training courses would relate to this test?
EG HCL BigFix 101?
Any other recommendations for training resources?
Thanks
The 101 course will be the closest to the exam cert but not all is covered. Please be sure to review the exam guide and other resources here: https://hclsoftwareu.hcltechsw.com/bigfix-platform
Thank you!
Like the other person mentioned, I am in BigFix every day, but I am sure I do not use all the features so I want to ensure I cover all the information.
Good that I found this topic 2 months after taking the examā¦ In hindsight, if I did I would have prepared for the exam a lot more (which I didnāt) but I did pass it first time, so I guess all is good.
I do share some of the comments above and while separations of smaller topic are not ideal in my honest opinion and would tend to agree with @Sophia with overall āSMEā certification that should encompass all smaller areas planned, I can see the logic of @jgstewās comment too. It will be useful IF those planned certifications are posted somewhere if for nothing else, then for general guide as to what people should aim for.
One question - certification is specifically listed as v10 and has expiration date (I think it was for 3 years if I remember correctly), what would be plans from there? Would there be ācertification upgradeā (i.e. take partial exam that only covers the differences between what youāve already certified for and what the latest version is) OR would it be full re-certification? I can easily see people backing off āv10 Certā now that v11 is out and overall, why take a bunch of cert exams which I will need to retake every few yearsā¦?
I do love @Mikeās, idea about displaying certification badges both here and in fact anywhere across HCL resources - maybe even in the Support Portal, so if a support L1/L2 sees that you have certification they skip asking you the annoying, extremely low-level questions you seem to get every time you log in a case and actually assume that you know what you are doing enough to have covered those before opening the caseā¦ 