Certified OpenStack Administrator Exam Book

If You Pass...

Upon completion of a passing grade, you will receive your certificate. Laminate, frame, or pin it to your home office wall or work cubicle!  It’s proof that you have met all the requirements to become an official OpenStack Administrator.  The certification is valid for three years from the pass date so don't forget to renew!

In addition to the certification, a COA badge will appear next to your name in the OpenStack Foundation Member Directory.

Step 1 - Study!

Practice. Practice. Practice. Use this book and the included OpenStack All-in-One Virtual Appliance as a resource as you begin your Certified OpenStack Administrator journey. If you still find yourself struggling with the concepts and objectives in this book, you can always refer to the Official OpenStack Documentation or even seek out a live training class at the OpenStack Training Marketplace.

Step 2 - Purchase!

Once you feel that you’re ready to conquer the exam, head to the Official Certified OpenStack Administrator Homepage and click on Get Started. After signing in, you will be directed to checkout to purchase your exam. The OpenStack Foundation accepts all major credit cards and as of April 2017, costs $300.00 USD but is subject to change so keep an eye out on the website. You can also get a FREE retake within 12 months of the original exam purchase date if you do not pass on the first attempt.

Step 3 - COA Portal Page

Once your order is processed, you will receive an email with access to the COA Portal. Think of the portal as your personal COA website where you can download your exam receipt and keep track of your certification efforts. Once you take the exam, you can come back to the COA Portal to check your exam status, exam score, and even download certificates and badges for displaying on business cards or websites!

Step 4 - Hardware Compatibility Check

The COA exam can be taken from your personal laptop or desktop but you must ensure that your system meets the exam’s minimum system requirements. A link on the COA Portal page will present you with the Compatibility Check Tool which will run a series of tests to ensure you meet the requirements. It will also assist you in downloading a Chrome plugin for taking the exam. At this time, you must use the Chrome or Chromium browser and have access to reliable internet, a webcam, and microphone. Here is a current list of requirements:

Step 5 - Identification

You must be at least 18 years old and have proper identification to take the exam!

Any of the following pieces of identification are acceptable:

• Passport
• Government-issued driver's license or permit
• National identity card
• State or province-issued identity card

Step 6 - Schedule the Exam

I personally recommend scheduling your exam a few months ahead of time to give yourself a realistic goal. Click on the Schedule Exam link on the COA Portal to be directed and automatically logged into the Exam Proctor Partner website. Once logged into the site, type OpenStack Foundation in the search box and select the COA exam. You will then choose from available dates and times. The latest possible exam date you can schedule will be 30 days out from the current date. Once you have scheduled it, you can cancel or reschedule up to 24 hours before the start time of the exam.

Step 7 - Take the Exam!

Your day has arrived! You've used this book and have practiced day and night to master all of the covered objectives! It's finally time to take the exam!

One of the most important factors determining your success on the exam is the location. You cannot be in a crowded place! This means no coffee shops, work desks, or football games! The testing location policy is very strict, so please consider taking the exam from home or perhaps a private room in the office.

Log into the COA Portal fifteen minutes before your scheduled exam time. You should now see a Take Exam link which will connect to the Exam Proctor Partner website so you can connect to the testing environment.

Once in the exam environment, an Exam Proctor chat window will appear and assist you with starting your exam. You must allow sharing of your entire operating system screen (this includes all applications), webcam, and microphone. t’s time to begin! You have two and a half hours to complete all exam objectives. You're almost on your way to becoming a Certified OpenStack Administrator!

About the Exam Environment

The exam expects its test-takers to be proficient in interacting with OpenStack via the Horizon dashboard and command-line interface. Here is a visual representation of the exam console as outlined in the COA Candidate Handbook:

The exam console is embedded into the browser. It is composed of two primary parts: The Content Panel and the Dashboard/Terminal Panel.

The Content Panel is the section that displays the exam timer and objectives. As per the COA Handbook, exam objectives can only be navigated linearly. You can use the next and back button to move to each objective.

The Dashboard/Terminal Panel gives you full access to an OpenStack environment. Chapter 2 of this book will assist you with getting your practice OpenStack environment environment up and running so you can work through all the objectives.

You are not permitted to browse websites, email, or notes during the exam but you are free to access the Official OpenStack Documentation. This can be a major waste of time on the exam and shouldn’t be necessary after working through the exam objectives in this book. You can also easily copy and paste from the objective window into the Horizon dashboard or terminal.

If you struggle with a question, move on! Hit the next button and try the next objective. You can always come back and tackle it before time is up.

The exam is scored automatically within 24 hours and you should receive the results via email within 72 hours after exam completion. At this time, the results will be made available on the COA Portal. Please review the Professional Code of Conduct on the OpenStack Foundation Certification Handbook.

The Exam Objectives

Let's now take a look at the objectives you will be responsible for performing on the exam. As of March 2017, these are all the exam objectives published on the Official COA website. These objectives will test your competence and proficiency in the domains listed below. These domains cover multiple core OpenStack services as well as general OpenStack troubleshooting. Together, all of these domains make up 100% of the exam.

Getting To know OpenStack - 3% - Chapter 1

• Understand the components that make up the cloud
• Use the OpenStack API/CLI

Keystone - Identity management - 12% - Chapter 3

• Manage Keystone catalogue services and endpoints
• Manage/Create domains, groups, projects, users, and roles
• Create roles for the environment
• Manage the identity service
• Verify operation of the Identity service

Glance - Image management - 10% - Chapter 4

• Deploy a new image to an OpenStack instance
• Manage image types and backends
• Manage images (e.g. add, update, remove)
• Verify operation of the Image Service

Nova - Compute - 15% - Chapter 5

• Manage flavors
• Manage compute instance actions (e.g. launch, shutdown, terminate)
• Manage Nova user keypairs
• Launch a new instance
• Shutdown an Instance
• Terminate Instance
• Configure an Instance with a Floating IP address
• Manage project security group rules
• Assign security group to Instance
• Assign floating IP address to Instance
• Detach floating IP address from Instance
• Manage Nova host consoles (rdp, spice, tty)
• Access an Instance using a keypair
• Manage instance snapshots
• Manage Nova compute servers
• Manage quotas
• Get Nova stats (hosts, services, tenants
• Verify operation of the Compute service

Neutron - Networking - 16% - Chapter 6

• Manage network resources (e.g., routers, subnets)
• Create external networks
• Create project networks
• Create project routers
• Manage network services for a virtual environment
• Manage project security group rules
• Manage quotas
• Verify operation of network service
• Manage network interfaces on compute instances
• Troubleshoot network issues for a tenant network (enter namespace, run tcpdump, etc)

Cinder - Block Storage - 10% - Chapter 7

• Manage volume
• Create volume group for block storage
• Create a new Block Storage Volume and mount it to a Nova Instance
• Manage quotas
• Manage volumes quotas
• Manage volumes backups
• Backup and restore volumes
• Manage volume snapshots (e.g, take, list, recover)
• Verify that block storage can perform snapshotting function
• Snapshot volume
• Manage volumes encryption
• Set up storage pools
• Monitor reserve capacity of block storage devices
• Analyze discrepancies in reported volume sizes

Swift - Object Storage - 10% - Chapter 8

• Manage access to object storage
• Manage expiring objects
• Manage storage policies
• Monitor space available for object store
• Verify operation of Object Storage
• Manage permissions on a container in object storage

Heat - Orchestration - 8% - Chapter 9

• Launch a stack using a Heat/Orchestration template (e.g., storage, network, and compute
• Use Heat/Orchestration CLI and Dashboard
• Verify Heat/Orchestration stack is working
• Verify operation of Heat/Orchestration
• Create a Heat/Orchestration template that matches a specific scenario
• Update a stack
• Obtain detailed information about a stack

Horizon - Dashboard - 3% - Chapters 3 through 9

• Verify operation of the Dashboard

Troubleshooting - 13% - Chapter 10

• Analyze log files
• Backup the database(s) used by an OpenStack instance
• Centralize and analyze logs (e.g.,/var/log/COMPONENT_NAME, Database Server, Messaging Server, Web Server, syslog)
• Analyze database servers
• Analyze Host/Guest OS and Instance status
• Analyze messaging servers
• Analyze metadata servers
• Analyze network status (physical & virtual)
• Analyze storage status (local, block & object)
• Manage OpenStack Services
• Diagnose service incidents
• Digest OpenStack environment (Controller, Compute, Storage and Network nodes)
• Direct logging files through centralized logging system
• Backup and restore an OpenStack instance
• Troubleshoot network performance