AEM 6.0 Architect Certification Tips

I took up Adobe Experience Manager (AEM) 6.0 Architect certification (9A0-385) recently. I thought to jot down a few pointers for my fellow enthusiasts aspiring for passing this exam. You may find this post useful. Please post your question as a comment if you have one. All the best.

QUESTIONS & TIMING

The time allotted for this exam is 90 mins. If you’re a non-native of English, you would be getting an additional 30 mins to complete this exam. As am from India and non-native to English, I got 120 mins to complete 53 questions. So, approx. 2 mins per question.

TYPE OF QUESTIONS

Questions are mostly scenario-based. I felt that the experience in a breadth of AEM and a few analytical skills certainly help to get them right. Do prepare for a few weeks without looking for any shortcuts. It would help your AEM career. The depth of the subject as a developer may not be required for clearing this exam. Most of the questions were of single answer type. A few questions esp. on templates requires you to answer based on the exhibits (screen snaps) shown.

KEY PREPARATION TOPICS

• Importing content from the external system – Explore various options such as poll importer, eCommerce product importing, POST servlet, Content packages (best for large content per adobe doc), live feed integration, etc.
• Integration with external systems such as eCommerce PIM, Offer creation system, etc.
• Serving the web pages created by the external system from AEM.
• About adobe products such as Dynamic Tag Management (DTM), Analytics, Target, and Campaign.
• Dispatcher – Dispatcher.any, permission sensitive caching, dispatcher cache invalidation, etc.
• Dispatcher server selections – IIS / Apache and how in the context of a phased migration to AEM.
• Deployment options for author / publish and impact on parameters such as performance and failover – TarMK (farm), MongoMK (cluster).
• Clientlibs and how it helps in improving load time (performance).
• Queries – Performance, how to hide certain results and all the nuances.
• Performance of author machines – Concurrent workflow, Limiting parallel jobs, Disable asset synchronization service, etc.
• Identifying a number of templates given the pages.
• Basics of AEM forms esp. the deployment setup of processing node when a form is submitted.
• AEM apps – Content sync, phone gap, etc.
• Online backup – stages, options, etc.
• David’s content model – ACL, Uniquely identifying nodes (mix:referancable), etc.
• Sightly basics.
• Multiple languages for dialog – Language nodes, translators, etc.
• AEM translation framework.
• Security – SAML, LDAP, Custom login module, Authentication handler, 2-factor authentication, clickjacking, CSRF, XSS, firewall rules, DOS attack, ACL groups/users, etc.
• Account management activities – Password reset, etc.
• Tagging – The best way to model the tag structure.
• AEM replication.
• WCM Components – Geolocation support, OOTB components, Column component, extending components, etc.
• Ecommerce – product data importing, price information, e-commerce API, etc.
• UGC / Communities – Moderation, forum support, messaging support, adobe social, social logins, etc.
• Site hierarchy – MSM, live copy, blueprint, live-action, roll out config, language copy, translation workflow, etc.
• Solution architecture – Conceptual Vs Logical Vs Dataflow Vs Physical
• CDN.

PREPARATION MATERIALS – FEW LINKS.

• Certification guide from adobe should be the starting point
• Materials available in docs.adobe.com is the ultimate source for preparation.
• Read all the best practices.
• MSM,  Live copy synchronization.
• Security – Checklist, LDAP, SAML.
• Dispatcher
• Workflows, workflow steps.
• OOTB components – List.
• AEM forms – Link.

SOME MORE NOTES

Factors influencing site content structure.

• Which location content has been authored.
• Which language content has been authored
• Use the W3C ISO standard for language and country codes. For example, en_us, hi_in. If country and language are split. The country should come first.
• For regions, use region masters (only if required, otherwise use language master)
• Between top-level authoring and country sites, there shall not be more than 3 levels.
• Create language masters if the language is shared by more than one country
• MSM supports only one language. Use MSM + Language copy for the best results.
• ACL
• Browsing
• SEO

MSM – best practice.

• Reduce customization for upgradeability, performance.
• Establish governance. Minimize authority for local content producers
• Use blueprints to leverage the full MSM blueprint.
• On modify trigger on blueprint will have authoring performance issues.
• Rollout config order of preference. Page > Blueprint > Parent of the page > Branch of the page > System default.
• Memorize stuff in this http://docs.adobe.com/docs/en/aem/6-0/administer/sites/multi-site-manager/msm-sync.html#Synchronisation%20Actions

Ecommerce related

• AEM supports hybris, agility pim, ibm web sphere, elastic path, magenta, in the river (in dev), jcr based – Sample implementation.
• AEM works very tightly with the commerce engine.
• Connector provided for specific commerce engines
• APIs are generic.

WAY I APPROACHED THE QUESTIONS

• Read the question and paraphrase in mind.
• Attach importance to every single word in the question.
• Shorter questions are a trap. Be extra cautious.
• Use the elimination method on answers and choose the answer.
• Validate the answer connecting it to the question and move on to the next question.
• Utilize the full exam time available.

Source: http://www.computepatterns.com/233/aem-6-0-architect-certification-tips/