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citrix · 09:38 PM

Tips For Preparing For Citrix 256 Exam

If you pass this exam you will become a “Citrix Certified Administrator” for information about citrix certifications go to http://citrix.com/English/SS/education/certifications.asp?ntref=hp_nav_US

The pass mark for this test is 67% I got 79% when I took this exam. To book this exam you will need to register at http://securereg3.prometric.com/Welcome.aspx search the site for a testing centre near you. When you turn up to the exam make sure you have two forms of ID.

I found this exam pretty easy, but that’s because I have 6 years experience administering citrix and 1 year with Presentation Server 4.0. I would say that having hands on experience is the best way to prepare for the exam. But you have to be careful as some of the answers are based on “Citrix Best Practices” and not “Real Life Solutions” I believe I got a question of two wrong because of this.

First thing to do is look at the categories of the exam and what % they have for the overall score. The Citrix Presentation Server 4.0: Administration exam (256) is divided into eleven (11) sections. Each section of the exam is weighted as follows, totalling 100%:

-Applied and Architectural Concepts for Presentation Server 7%
-Installing and Managing Citrix Presentation Server 10%
-Configuring Farm Settings 10%
-Configuring ICA Sessions 7%
-Configuring Policies 10%
-Publishing Applications and Content 8%
-Deploying Applications 8%
-Managing Loads in a Presentation Server Environment 7%
-Configuring Printing 14%
-Enabling Web Access to Published Applications and Content 10%
-Securing Access to Published Applications and Content 9%

The exam will contain 73 questions, Native English speakers will have 90 minutes to complete the exam while non native English speakers will have 120 minutes. I took my time over all the questions and managed to finish with 25 minutes to spare, So don’t panic about the time, there is more than enough.

I would recommend starting by going through some test questions, This will give you a feel for the type of questions that you will be asked at the exam. Try out http://www.citrixxperience.com/ they have a free online trial which is pretty good. Stay away from braindumps as a lot of time they are wrong and you are de-valuing everyone else’s certification by using them.

Reading the administrators guide is a must, you will learn a lot here. Take special attention to the following sections, Architectural concepts, Farm/ICA settings. I personally think you are better learning the other sections by installing PS4 and having a play around, For example create a few policy’s and apply them to users / groups.

There are a lot of questions on printing, Remember the following. A universal print driver is used when clients have lots of different drivers and management of the drivers is not required, for example they are not printing colour or require native drivers. But remember if they do need a certain driver installed on the citrix server, then you will need to configure the citrix policy to “Use universal driver when native driver is unavailable” Basically that is all to it. If you have any questions post them at www.citrixguide.com

Before I took the exam I was lucky enough to go on a training course, If you can afford it do it. It was very useful and I learned a lot about “Citrix best practices” I also told the instructor that I was going to take the citrix cca exam and he was able to give me a lot of very good pointers.

Good luck and let us know how you got on and what you thought of the exam. If you need any more help or have a comment on this document then please let me know at www.citrixguide.com