F5CAB5 is the fith and the last of the five exams required to achieve the F5 Certified Administrator (F5-CA).
This exam validates your ability to:
- Read CPU / Memory / Disk / interfaces stats and check what is off
- Choose the right diagnostic (capture, stats, logs) for a performance issue
- Trace why Load Balancing isn’t distributing as expected (persistence, limits, health checks)
- Find misconfigured objects (Virtual Server, profile conflict)
This exam goes beyond object creation and configuration. It validates your ability to troubleshoot a live issue, diagnose the root cause on the F5 Big-IP (VIP, pool, monitor, profile), and apply the correct fix to restore expected behaviour.
Details of the exam
- Duration : 30 minutes
- Number of questions : about 30
- Cost : $50 USD
Study
Use the courses below to prepare for the F5CAB5 exam.
Each lesson is mapped to the exam objectives, allowing you to study at your own pace and focus on the areas that matter most.
Blueprint
Below is the official blueprint for the F5CAB5 exam, along with related articles and resources on ADC-labs to help you prepare thoroughly. Each line of the blueprint links to a dedicated article so you can study step by step and track your progress. Note that some articles cover many blueprint item at once.
| Code | Blueprint Item | Related Articles |
|---|---|---|
| F5CAB5.01 Determine resource utilization | Distinguish between control plane and data plane resources | |
| Identify CPU statistics per virtual server | ||
| Interpret Statistics for interfaces | Interface, trunk, vlan and Self-IP | |
| Determine Disk utilization and Memory utilization | ||
| F5CAB5.02 Identify network level performance issues | Identify when a packet capture is needed within the context of a performance issue | |
| Interpret availability status of interfaces | Interface, trunk, vlan and Self-IP | |
| Identify when drops are occurring | Interface, trunk, vlan and Self-IP | |
| Identify Speed and Duplex | Interface, trunk, vlan and Self-IP | |
| Distinguish TCP profiles (optimized profiles) | ||
| F5CAB5.03 Identify the reason load balancing is not working as expected | Consider persistence, priority group activation, rate/connection limits | Persistence profile Priority Group Activation Connection and Rate limit |
| Identify misconfigurations (incorrect health checks, action on service down, etc.) | ||
| Identify current availability status | LTM Objects Status | |
| F5CAB5.04 Identify the reason a virtual server is not working as expected | Identify the current availability status of the virtual server | LTM Objects Status |
| Identify conflicting/misconfigured profiles | F5 Big-IP Profiles: Dependencies and Inheritance | |
| Identify misconfigured IP address and/or Port | ||
| F5CAB5.05 Identify the reason a pool is not working as expected | Identify the reason a pool member has been marked down by health monitors | Configure and Verify Health Monitor |
| Identify a pool member not in the active priority group | Priority Group Activation | |
| Identify the current configured state of the pool/pool member | LTM Objects Status | |
| Identify the current availability status of the pool/pool member | LTM Objects Status | |
| F5CAB5.06 Given a scenario, review basic stats to confirm functionality | Interpret traffic object statistics | |
| Interpret network configuration statistics | Interface, trunk, vlan and Self-IP | |
| F5CAB5.07 Given a scenario, interpret traffic flow | Explain application client-server communication | |
| Interpret traffic graphs (Interpret SNMP results) |