The Hitchhikers guide to Citrix CCEE and CCIA certfication – Part 3 (updated February 2013)
Get CCEE certified in 4-5 months and CCIA certified in 6 months
See part 1 for the full training schedule and recommendations for studying!
Month 3/next three weeks: CCA XenDesktop
Apply study rule #1 and #2 from Part1:
Study rule 1#: Book the exam before you start studying, this will make sure that you have a deadline to work to. Do not reschedule the exam unless absolutely necessary, use the time pressure that you might experience to put more effort into studying.
Study rule 2#: Once you get studying and you pass the 1st exam/module then continue with studying for the other required exams/models right away. If you take a break between the exams that is longer than 1-2 two weeks it will take you more effort to get used to studying and you will forget what you learned from the previous exams.
Study XenDesktop 5
The exam for XenDesktop 5 is the most recent XenDesktop exam currently available. The most recent version of XenDesktop is 5.6 FP1 and this version has more features then the version that was used for the exam.
The XenDesktop exam will require some knowledge about XenServer, Provisioning server and XenApp
- Book exam 1Y0-A19 (XenDesktop 5)
- Read the 1Y0-A19 enablement guide carefully and make sure you have sufficient knowledge about all the topics listed in the guide, documents and articles listed in the guide have been used during exam development.
- Use the free 1Y0-A19 study guide on Citrixxperience.com
- Watch the XenDesktop 5 Overview video series
- Watch the XenDesktop Masterclass video series
- Read ” Collection of XenDesktop 5 Documents, KB Articles, Whitepapers etc” in the Citrix blogs
- Purchase Citrix online e-learning for XenDesktop course CXD-202-2W for Citrix XenDesktop Administration if you need more training.
- Use Citrix eDocs and Citrix white papers for more in-depth information or to find answers.
- XenDesktop 5.5 is the most recent version but most of the guides and whitepapers currently available will be based on XenDesktop 5
- Build a virtual test farm with the following components or download and install the XenDesktop 5 PoC kit (Citrix Partners only, MyCitrix logon required)
– XenServer 5.6+ (with newer XenServer versions beware of new features that will not be in the exam) Some client based hypervisors like WMware Workstation will allow to run VMware vSphere or XenServer virtualized in a VM)
– Citrix XenDeskop 5 on Server 2008 R2 (with newer XenDesktop versions beware of new features that will not be in the exam)
– Citrix Provisioning server 5.6 SP1 on Server 2008(R2) (with newer PVS versions beware of new features that will not be in the exam)
– Windows 7 VM to use as a VDI or master template for MCS/PVS
– If you have the hardware to install a Citrix XenServer then it is recommended to install Citrix XenServer to host all the components required for this setup. Use both Machine Creation Service (MCS) and Provisioning Server (PVS) deployment methods so you understand both of them.
– XenDesktop will require a license server with (evaluation) licenses. You can sign up for a free trail with 10 users here
– Have a look at the XenDesktop Design Handbook to understand how to design XenDesktop for production environments:
Part 4 / Month 4 will describe how to study for Citrix XenApp Advanced.
You can find part 4 here
You can find part 2 here
you can find part 1 here
