A Guide on Certified Jenkins Engineer Exam

jenkins

Jenkins is useful for any DevOps role. It is a CI/CD role that helps in better executing the code.

About the Jenkins Certification

CloudBees Inc.®(1), offers two certifications for Jenkins engineers:

  • The Certified Jenkins Engineer (CJE) exam consists of 60 multiple-choice questions testing knowledge of open-source Jenkins.
  • The Certified CloudBees Jenkins Platform Engineer (CCJPE) exam consists of 90 questions: 60 questions testing knowledge of open-source Jenkins and 30 questions testing knowledge of the CloudBees Jenkins Platform.

This exam is comprised of 4 sections:

  1. Key CI/CD/Jenkins concepts
  2. Jenkins usage
  3. Building Continuous Delivery (CD) Pipelines
  4. CD-as-code best practicesAll questions are based on version 1.625.2 of the Jenkins core.

Unless otherwise specified, all questions are based on an out-of-the-box standard installation of Jenkins, without any additional plugins (“base” Jenkins)

Plugins:

This exam will primarily cover questions about a “base” Jenkins installation, but knowledge of the following plugins will also be covered. Candidates are expected to know the functionality/uses of these plugins but will not be tested on detailed usage:

  • Amazon EC2 Plugin
  • Build Pipeline Plugin
  • CloudBees Docker Build and Publish Plugin
  • CloudBees Folders Plugin
  • Copy Artifact Plugin
  • Credentials Plugin
  • Disk Usage Plugin
  • Docker Plugin
  • Email-ext Plugin
  • Fingerprint Plugin
  • Git Plugin
  • IRC Plugin
  • JUnit Plugin
  • Jabber Plugin
  • Matrix Project Plugin
  • NodeLabel Parameter Plugin
  • Parameterized Trigger Plugin
  • Pipeline Plugin (formerly known as Workflow)
  • Promoted Builds Plugin
  • Radiator View Plugin
  • SMS Notification Plugin
  • Script Security Plugin
  • Skype Plugin

Exam Content

Key CI/CD/Jenkins Concepts

This topic comprises approximately 27% of the exam. Questions cover the following topics:

  • Continuous Delivery/Continuous Integration Concepts

  • Define continuous integration, continuous delivery, continuous deployment
  • Difference between CI and CD
  • Stages of CI and CD
  • Continuous delivery versus continuous deployment• Jobs

What are jobs in Jenkins?

Types of jobs

Scope of jobs

  • Builds

What are builds in Jenkins?

What are build steps, triggers, artifacts, and repositories?

Build tools configuration

  • Source Code Management

What are source code management systems and how are they used?

  • Cloud-based SCMs
  • Jenkins changelogs
  • Incremental updates v clean check out
  • Checking in code
  • Infrastructure-as-Code
  • Branch and Merge Strategies

Testing

Benefits of testing with Jenkins

Define unit test, smoke test, acceptance test, automated verification/functional tests

  • Notifications

Types of notifications in Jenkins

Importance of notifications

  • Distributed Builds

What are distributed builds?

Functions of masters and slaves

  • Plugins

What are plugins?

What is the plugin manager?

  • Jenkins Rest API

How to interact with it

Why use it?

  • Security

Authentication versus authorization

Matrix security

Definition of auditing, credentials, and other key security concepts•

  • Fingerprints

What are fingerprints?

How do fingerprints work?

  • Artifacts

How to use artifacts in Jenkins

Storing artifacts

  • Configuration Management (Tools such as Chef, Puppet, etc.)

Elements of software configuration management

Change management policies

Importance of software configuration management

  • Using 3rd party tools

How to use 3rd party tools with Jenkins

  1. Jenkins usage (features and functionality)

This topic comprises approximately 34% of the exam. Questions cover the following topics:

  • Jobs

Organizing jobs in Jenkins

Parameterized jobs

Usage of Freestyle/Pipeline/Matrix/Maven/Literate

  • Builds

Setting up build steps and triggers

Configuring build tools

Running scripts as part of build steps

  • Source Code Management

Polling source code management

Creating hooks

Including version control tags and version information•

Testing

Testing for code coverage

Test reports in Jenkins

Displaying test results

Integrating with test automation tools

Breaking builds

  • Notifications

Setup and usage

Email notifications, instant messaging, build radiators

Alarming on notifications

  • Distributed Builds

Setting up and running builds in parallel

Setting up and using SSH slaves, JNLP slaves, cloud slaves

Monitoring nodes

  • Plugins

Setting up and using Plugin Manager

Finding and configuring required plugins

  • CI/CD

Using Pipeline (formerly known as Workflow)

Integrating automated deployment

Release management process

Pipeline stage behavior

Jenkins Rest API

Using REST API to trigger jobs remotely, access job status, create/delete jobs

  • Security

Setting up and using security realms

User database, project security, Matrix security

Setting up and using auditing

Setting up and using credentials

  • Fingerprints

Fingerprinting jobs shared or copied between jobs

  • Artifacts

Copying artifacts

Using artifacts in Jenkins

Artifact retention policy

  • Alerts

Making basic updates to jobs and build scripts

Troubleshooting specific problems from build and test failure alerts

  1. Building Continuous Delivery (CD) Pipelines

This topic comprises approximately 23% of the exam. Questions cover the following topics:

  • Pipeline Concepts

Value stream mapping for CD pipelines

Why create a pipeline?

Gates within a CD pipeline

How to protect centralized pipelines when multiple groups use same tools

Definition of binary reuse, automated deployment, multiple environments

Elements of your ideal CI/CD pipeline – tools

Key concepts in building scripts (including security/password, environment information, etc.)

  • Upstreams and downstreams

Triggering jobs from other jobs

Setting up the Parameterized Trigger plugin

Upstream/downstream jobs

  • Triggering

Triggering Jenkins on code changes

Difference between push and pull

When to use push vs pull

  • Pipeline (formerly known as Workflow)

Benefits of Pipeline vs linked jobs

Functionalities offered by Pipeline

How to use Pipeline

Pipeline stage concurrency

  • Visualization

Options to visualize jobs’ relationships

When to use various options for visualizing jobs’ relationships

Information offered by a build pipeline view

How to set up build pipeline visualization

  • Folders

How to control access to items in Jenkins with folders

Referencing jobs in folders

  • Parameters

Setting up test automation in Jenkins against an uploaded executable

Passing parameters between jobs

Identifying parameters and how to use them: file parameter, string parameter°Jenkins CLI parameters

  • Promotions

Promotion of a job

Why promote jobs?

How to use the Promoted Builds plugin

  • CD Metrics

KPIs/metrics for CI/CD

Determining how many builds failed, succeeded

Determining how long a build takes

Determining how often code is checked-in

How to use metrics/KPIs

  • Notifications

How to radiate information on CD pipelines to teams

  1. CD-as-Code Best Practices

This topic comprises approximately 16% of the exam. Questions cover the following topics:

  • Distributed builds architecture
  • Fungible (replaceable) slaves
  • Master-slave connectors and protocol
  • Tool installations on slaves
  • Cloud slaves
  • Containerization
  • Traceability
  • High availability
  • Automatic repository builds

Salary for Certified Jenkins Engineer

A mid-career Development Operations (DevOps) Engineer with 5-9 years of experience earns an average total compensation of $99,621. The range for DevOps engineers with CJE certification is $64000 and $134000

Where to Find Online Resources for the Certification

CloudBees and Jenkins portals offer the practice exam and the training required. In addition to that, Linux Academy and Udemy also offer the certification.

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