SDF, or Software Delivery Foundation, is the brand new certification from Harness that is intended for software delivery practitioners with at least 1-2 years of experience and about 2-3 months of Harness experience. The certification lets you demonstrate your knowledge of basic software delivery concepts.

I passed my cert last month, and this blog can be a good fit for how you can excel in your certification attempt as well!

Who needs the Certification?

If you’re interviewing with Harness, then this will be one of the rounds which will help you to understand the breadth of Harness products on which you will be working, so this certification acts as an important knowledge base for those who want to work on Harness products or use them.

Moreover, if you were already an employee before the certificate launch, this certification gives you a look into all the other awesome harness products that your team can complement and helps you understand other modules that Harness offers.

Also, if you’re the curious kind and always love upskilling yourself this certification will be very helpful to grade yourself and learn new technologies.

What is the Harness Software Delivery Foundation?

The certification program is designed to ensure that Hanress’s customers, partners, and employees have the skills and knowledge necessary to be successful with Harness. These goals put the certification in a hard category, and it will take you some time to prepare if you’re starting to learn the product from scratch.

The exam is designed for software delivery practitioners, costs $150 with a validity of one year, and consists of four domains:

Domain 1: Software Delivery Fundamentals

Domain 2: Harness Second Generation Architecture

Domain 3: Security

Domain 4: Account Level Information

Passing Criteria

To pass the exam you need to get at least 42 out of 60 questions correct so covering all the domains is essential! In the exam, there’s no negative marking and you get 65 questions, which you need to complete in 90 minutes. 5 of the 65 questions don’t carry any marks and are seeded.

For seeded questions, whether you attend them or not, you don’t get any marks from that. They are just added to maintain the quality and later decide if they want to keep it or not. You, as a candidate, will have no idea which is seeded among those 65. :)

Prerequisites:

The prerequisites as mentioned on the website are:

• Basic computer skills
• Basic networking skills
• Basic computer security knowledge
• Fundamental understanding of the Linux Operating System and the capability to configure and deploy workloads using command-line interfaces
• Fundamental understanding of and experience configuring and deploying workloads
• Fundamental understanding of containers and the capability to configure and deploy workloads using command-line interfaces
• Fundamental understanding of container runtimes
• Fundamental understanding of DevOps practices and methodologies

In my experience, having all of the prerequisites isn’t necessary but learning them before starting the preparation can save you a lot of time and energy.

Preparation Strategy

Harness has a guide that you can use as a checklist to prepare for the exam! Covering all of the modules isn’t necessary if you have previous knowledge of the product, but if this is your first time, I highly recommend checking all of the content on the list: https://university.harness.io/exam-prep-sdf/1191834

Don’t miss the courses from Harness University as they are very important to clear your basics and some direct questions from the content can appear in your certification attempt.

However, to excel, the list won’t be enough and you need to focus on some specific areas as well. The areas are:

Understanding Pricing and what one plan offers on top of another for all the different modules: https://harness.io/pricing?module=cd#

Understanding the Drone License and its limitations: https://docs.drone.io/enterprise/

Organizations and Projects Overview with*_ Resources Across Scopes_*: https://docs.harness.io/article/7fibxie636-projects-and-organizations

Delegate in details with architecture: https://docs.harness.io/article/h9tkwmkrm7-delegate-installation

https://docs.harness.io/article/2k7lnc7lvl-delegates-overview

https://docs.harness.io/article/lwynqsgxt9-delegate-requirements-and-limitations

FAQs for all the modules: https://docs.harness.io/article/320domdle1-harness-security-faqs

SaaS authentication: https://docs.harness.io/article/gdob5gvyco-authentication-overview

The best way to learn about the certification will be to follow the tutorials and try out the steps, which will help you to remember the process and options. Memorizing all the combinations will be hard.

If you get time, going through all the documentation can be very handy as it will help you understand the bigger picture of the whole platform, and that’s what the certification aims towards and increases the chances of you getting a good score.

Shiny Credly Badge:

Once you sit for the exam and pass, you get the shiny badge that you can brag about on social media! 🥳🥳🥳

Some Tips:

All the best for your certification, and remember the following tips to have a good experience:

1. Schedule your exam at least 72 hours in advance, giving yourself time to schedule a proctor. Read this Guide for more details on desk setup, scheduling and planning: https://university.harness.io/live-sdf/1268412
2. Make sure that you are using the current version of Chrome and have downloaded the ProctorU Chrome extension available at http://bit.ly/proctoruchrome.
3. Keep your ID handy and make sure your desk is clean
4. Use your personal laptop and not the one issued by your organization.
5. Consider all the alternatives before settling on one. Some may be misleading.
6. If there are any questions that are difficult for you, flag them and schedule time to review them at the end.

To learn more about the certification program, make sure to subscribe to the harness-community YT channel and to follow on GitHub for more updates on the exam! 🤩