Metrics are used by the most successful organizations to monitor and analyze the performance of their infrastructure and applications. The Prometheus monitoring platform is one of the most well-known time series databases (TSDB) available today. To enhance and demonstrates the knowledge of observability & Monitoring, Linux Foundation has introduced a certification exam i.e. Prometheus Certified Associate (PCA). The Prometheus Certified Associate (PCA) exam validates an engineer’s fundamental understanding of observability and proficiency with Prometheus, open-source systems monitoring and alerting toolkit.
In this blog, we are going to cover:
- What is Prometheus Certified Associate (PCA) Exam?
- Why Prometheus Certified Associate (PCA) Certification?
- Basic Exam Information
- Pre-requisites for the Exam
- The weightage of the domains
- How to Register for the Exam?
- The PCA Exam Checklist
- Exam Day Tips
What is Prometheus Certified Associate (PCA) Exam?
The Prometheus Certified Associate (PCA) is a pre-professional certification designed for an engineer or application developer with observability and monitoring interests. Ideal candidates will have completed Prometheus-specific training or Cloud Engineer bootcamps, as well as Kubernetes certifications such as KCNA, CKA, or CKAD.
Are you new to Kubernetes? Check out our blog on Kubernetes to know in detail.
Why Prometheus Certified Associate (PCA) Certification?
A certified PCA will confirm fundamental knowledge for building or scraping observability data in the application stack, whether cloud native or not. The PCA exam is designed to prepare candidates to work with the fundamentals of Prometheus data monitoring, metrics, alerts, and dashboards.
The PCA demonstrates a candidate’s knowledge of Prometheus best practices for monitoring cloud-native applications and infrastructure. A PCA digital credential certifies that the candidate understands how to use observability data to improve application performance, troubleshoot system implementations, and feed data into other systems.
Basic Exam Information
- Certification Name: Prometheus Certified Associate (PCA)
- Exam Duration: 90 minutes
- Type of Questions: Multiple-choice questions
- Passing score: 75% or higher to earn the certification
- Exam Cost: $250
- Result: Will be emailed within 24 hours from the time that the exam is completed.
- Certificate Validity: 3 Years
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Includes 12-Month Exam Eligibility - One Retake
Pre-requisites for the Exam
Although the PCA certification exam is a pre-professional certification designed for an engineer or application developer with observability and monitoring interests. needs no prior certifications, it requires some basic Linux commands.
The weightage of the domains
Observability Concepts-18%
- Metrics
- Understand logs and events
- Tracing and Spans
- Push vs Pull
- Service Discovery
- Basics of SLOs, SLAs, and SLIs
Prometheus Fundamentals-20%
- System Architecture
- Configuration and Scraping
- Understanding Prometheus Limitations
- Data Model and Labels
- Exposition Format
PromQL-28%
- Selecting Data
- Rates and Derivatives
- Aggregating over time
- Aggregating over dimensions
- Binary operators
- Histograms
- Timestamp Metrics
Instrumentation and Exporters-16%
- Client Libraries
- Instrumentation
- Exporters
- Structuring and naming metrics
Alerting & Dashboarding-18%
- Dashboarding basics
- Configuring Alerting rules
- Understand and Use Alertmanager
- Alerting basics (when, what, and why)
How to Register for the Exam?
It is very simple to register for a PCA Certification exam; registration costs $250 USD. According to The Linux Foundation’s official Retake policy, for certification exams purchased directly from The Linux Foundation and not marked as SINGLE-ATTEMPT or SINGLE, one free retake per exam purchase will be granted if a passing score is not achieved and the Candidate has not been deemed ineligible for certification or retake.
The free retake must be completed within 12 months of the original exam purchase date unless otherwise specified in the exam order.
To register for the PCA exam, click here
The PCA Exam Checklist
The good news is that the PCA exam is entirely MCQ. It’s a proctored online exam. The Candidate Handbook is your definitive source for exam information. So make sure to thoroughly read it.
- You need a steady internet connection.
- The Exam environment is remote-proctored, which means that you will have to have a webcam so that the proctor can monitor you throughout the exam.
- You would need a webcam and a microphone which are required by the proctor.
- Candidates should run the PSI Online System Security Check to verify that their machine meets the technical requirements for taking a proctored exam.
- The online proctored exam is taken, using the PSI Secure Browser (a web browser created to guarantee a secure exam delivery over a virtual connection).
- The secure browser download/installation will be when you Select “Launch exam” from the PSI Dashboard or can be downloaded in advance during the Online Proctoring System Check
- You would need a government-issued ID or a passport.
- The duration of the exam is 90 minutes.
- The pass mark is 75%.
- You have one free retake in case you don’t pass on your first try.
- Time Management, is the key its is very important to be careful and to pace yourself on the questions so as not to get stuck on one question for too long.
Exam Day Tips
There are a few noteworthy points to be made before D-Day! Here are a few examples:
- The examiner will ask you to clean your desk completely before the exam and will also ask to see the entire room, including under the desk. Remove any electronics from the desk and ensure that no one enters the room during the examination.
- Before the exam, candidates will be asked to remove any non-decor items.
- The environment must be well-lit so that the proctor can see the candidate’s face, hands, and surrounding work area. Behind the examinee, there are no bright lights or windows.
- During the examination, the candidate must remain within the frame of the camera.
- You have 90 minutes to complete the exam; if you get stuck, skip that question for now and come back to it later.
- Last but not least, BEST OF LUCK, ROOTING FOR YOU!!!
Related/References
- Visit our YouTube channel “K21Academy”
- Prometheus Monitoring: Features, Components, Architecture, and Metrics
- Kubernetes Monitoring: Prometheus Kubernetes & Grafana Overview
- Certified Kubernetes Administrator (CKA) Certification Exam
- (CKA) Certification: Step By Step Activity Guides/Hands-On Lab Exercise & Learning Path
- Certified Kubernetes Application Developer (CKAD) Certification Exam
- (CKAD) Certification: Step By Step Activity Guides/Hands-On Lab Exercise & Learning Path
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