Looking for Citrix Certification plan
tycoonbob
Member Posts: 81 ■■□□□□□□□□
Good morning everyone.
So I work for a consulting firm, and we primarily work around Microsoft technologies. Recently, we obtained partnerships with Citrix and VMware to expand our virtualization offering, and I am going to be the first full on Citrix guy.
As Citrix partners, we get discounted vouchers for Citrix training material, which includes content for the three main CCAs (XS, XD, XA) and possibly content for the CCAA in XA.
In about two weeks I will be testing for my CCENT, then onto Citrix training. What is a good path to go? I have lots of experience and knowledge of virtualization (Hyper-V and vSphere), as well as virtual networking and storage, App-V and Server 2008R2 and 2012 VDI. I have taken Citrix free online SPT for VDI-in-a-Box which is supposed to be 8 hours, and I completed it in 6 hours, passing the final exam 100% (too bad there isn't a certification for it!). What path should I take for studying and testing the three main CCAs? They are each 30 hour classes. I am thinking XenServer, XenDesktop, then XenApp. This would put XenApp freshest on my mind to head into CCAA XenApp. Is that doable?
Also, what are some thoughts about doing the CCA for CAG and Netscaler? Worth it? Should these be done before working on the CCEE?
Thanks!
So I work for a consulting firm, and we primarily work around Microsoft technologies. Recently, we obtained partnerships with Citrix and VMware to expand our virtualization offering, and I am going to be the first full on Citrix guy.
As Citrix partners, we get discounted vouchers for Citrix training material, which includes content for the three main CCAs (XS, XD, XA) and possibly content for the CCAA in XA.
In about two weeks I will be testing for my CCENT, then onto Citrix training. What is a good path to go? I have lots of experience and knowledge of virtualization (Hyper-V and vSphere), as well as virtual networking and storage, App-V and Server 2008R2 and 2012 VDI. I have taken Citrix free online SPT for VDI-in-a-Box which is supposed to be 8 hours, and I completed it in 6 hours, passing the final exam 100% (too bad there isn't a certification for it!). What path should I take for studying and testing the three main CCAs? They are each 30 hour classes. I am thinking XenServer, XenDesktop, then XenApp. This would put XenApp freshest on my mind to head into CCAA XenApp. Is that doable?
Also, what are some thoughts about doing the CCA for CAG and Netscaler? Worth it? Should these be done before working on the CCEE?
Thanks!
Comments
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nvrdunn
Member Posts: 20 ■□□□□□□□□□
I would start with XA since that is the core product. Then I would take care of XS and XD (looks like PVS is in XS and XD). Then move up the chain to CCAA then CCEE. You may want to pickup the CCNA before jumping head first into the Citrix stuff that way you round out the networking side.
Just my 2 cents
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xordis
Member Posts: 25 ■□□□□□□□□□
I am guessing you have no Citrix experience at the moment?
As nvrdunn said, the CCA XenApp is probably the place to start as it is/was the core Citrix product, but if you haven't done any XA then it shouldn't really matter.
The VDI-in-a-Box training you did will cross over with XenDesktop a lot and since you have done the training for it then maybe start with that one.
I would recommend getting a login for CBT nuggets as there XenDesktop (and XenApp) training is really good.
XenDesktop will cover bit of Provisioning server which will help with the XenServer cert as 30/40% of that is Provisioning Server. Not really sure why they did this as XenServer really has nothing to do with Provisioning Services (I have deployed it in several environments over the past 5 years and never once to XenServer). I think it was just to justify the cert and give it some content as there isn't much in XenServer.
I would then go for CCA in XenApp and CCAA XenApp.
For someone who is new to XenApp I think XenDesktop and XenServer will make a lot more sense than XenApp, but you are probably going to be deploying a heap more XenApp installs than XenServer/XenDesktop.