F5-302 study guide
F5-302 · Work through your exam, one topic at a time.
F5-302 is a BIG-IP administrator certification exam offered by F5, aimed at network, security, and platform engineers who deploy and operate BIG-IP Application Delivery Controllers in production. It suits candidates who already understand load balancing concepts and want formal recognition of hands-on TMOS skills, and it is often taken by people supporting application delivery, web security, and DNS services in enterprise or service-provider environments. The F5-302 study guide has 7 sections and about 2,647 words.
01Traffic Management
The Traffic Management domain tests how BIG-IP decides where a connection goes and how it is shaped from client to pool member. Expect questions on virtual-server matching, profiles, load-balancing methods, persistence, source address translation, and health monitors.
396 words, about 2 min02Local Traffic Manager
This domain covers the LTM object model and the configuration decisions an administrator makes: nodes, pool members, virtual servers, profiles, monitors, SNAT pools, VLANs, self IPs, and route domains. Questions often ask which object owns a behavior or what happens when objects conflict.
407 words, about 2 min03Application Security
The Application Security domain tests BIG-IP ASM: how a security policy is attached to a virtual server, how requests are inspected, and how learning, staging, and enforcement interact. Expect questions on attack signatures, parameters, cookies, XML/JSON profiles, bot defense, and logging.
363 words, about 2 min04Access Policy Manager
This domain covers APM access profiles, access policies, authentication, authorization, SSO, and endpoint inspection. Questions typically ask what happens during a user session and which policy item produces a given result.
376 words, about 2 min05DNS and Global Traffic Manager
This domain tests GTM, now BIG-IP DNS: listeners, wide IPs, pools, pool members, load-balancing methods, iQuery, sync groups, and DNS express. Questions focus on how a DNS query is resolved to a member and how health and topology change the answer.
379 words, about 2 min06Analytics and Monitoring
This domain covers AVR analytics, statistics, alerts, SNMP, syslog, and health monitors. Questions ask which tool reports a given metric and how to turn raw data into an actionable alert.
353 words, about 2 min07Troubleshooting
This domain tests a structured approach to BIG-IP faults: isolate the layer, gather evidence, and change one variable at a time. Expect questions on logs, packet capture, qkview, monitor state, and configuration sync.
373 words, about 2 min