MA0-100 Certified product specialist - EPO

[Former Member]

Hi guys,

So I am in a group of people who now must obtain the certificate mentioned above. I have adminstered and ePO server and worked closely with ePO and its products for 3+ years but based on the practice quesions available in the guide, https://www.mcafee.com/us/resources/misc/ms-epo-certified-product-specialist-guide.pdf, I need more study material to feel confident I will pass this exam.

I went to https://mcafee.netexam.com/catalog.html#center-panel:main-ui-training to take the self-paced ePO course. I took and completed the course and yet 0% of that training covered any of the practice questions available in the guide. There has to be a better study guide than the expensive in person training. I thought next to review the ePO Product guide but even that doesnt cover subjects in the practice questions.

What should I study? I need help!

[Former Member]

Am I missing something on this question?:

4. What task can be configured to copy the contents of one distributed repository into another?

a. Firewall Rule

b. Firewall Group

c. Firewall Options

d. Firewall Catalogs

[Former Member]

You're not missing anything. I'm not sure those are the correct answers for that question. I'll reach out to the training team to see if they can correct (or clarify) this error. 

[Former Member]

I am STILL looking for help on this. I took the test the other day and failed. That is because The self-paced course you can pay for on Net Exam didnt help at all. None of it covered what the test covered. Is McAfee going to come out with a study guide? Something to help people actually pass instead of just throw money at them. What do you study? I really need help guys.

[Former Member]

The ePO Product Guide is probably the best study source. It's what I used to pass the exam when I took it.

[bodysoda]

I'm see you have worked 3 + years. Make sure you look through all topics on EPO 5.3.0 version (not older). Get hands on knowledge all the topics mentioned on the McAfee ePolicy Orchestrator (ePO) Certification Candidate Guide.

Exams question will cover all the topics mentioned on the guide (Server maintenance, policy management, Mcafee Agent, Server installation and configuration, system Tree, queries and reports).

Get some practice on creating server tasks from queries and memories the sub task (exam questions do trick you :))

 Chapter number are referred to on the EPO 5.3 Prodcut guide.

Exam Topics Server Installation and Configuration
Installation (e.g., defaults, ports, components, protocols, encryption, excluding wizard installation) (Section A -Page 295) Web console (e.g., browser versions, navigating the UI, cut and paste features, organizing browser) (Chapter 2) User accounts (chapter 5) Permissions sets (chapter 5) Registered servers (chapter 7)	Automatic responses (Chapter 22)  ePO repositories (e.g., master, distributed, source, fallback, SuperAgent) (Chapter 6)  Agent Handlers (e.g., installation and rules) (chapter 😎  Server settings (Chapter 2- Page 20)
Server Maintenance and Troubleshooting
Server maintenance, utilities, and server tasks  SQL maintenance (Chapter 19)  Log files	Recovery (chapter 24)  Performance monitoring  Health checks
Product and Policy Management (Chapter 16)
Managing policies (e.g., duplicating, assigning, creating, deleting, exporting, policy catalog) Agent/SuperAgent policies (Chapter 6 – Page 71) Configuration of product policies Installing extensions (Chapter 15 – Page 181)	Product maintenance Policy assignment rules (Page 196) Comparisons (e.g., policy and tasks) (Page204) Client tasks (e.g., creating, scheduling, applying, inheritance) (Chapter 17 – Page 209)  Product deployment (Chapter 14 – Page 168)
System Tree (Chapter 9)
Creating the System Tree (Chapter 9)  Populating and Sorting the System Tree (Chapter 9)  Rogue Systems Detection	Tags (e.g., tagging on client tasks/properties/system presorting/reports, tag grouping) (Chapter 10)  System information (Page 11)
Queries and Reports (Chapter 21)
Creating queries (Chapter 21 – Page 247)  Generating reports (Chapter 21 – Page 253)  Dashboards/monitors (Chapter 20)	Audit logs (Chapter 5 – Page 45) Event analysis (e.g., threat events, purging, threat analysis) (Chapter 19- Page 228)

[Aj-richer · Accepted solution]

Unfortunatley there are no books or study guides available.  It took me 3 attempts to pass and in the end resulted to reading and re-reading the ePO Product guide and best practise guides.

All the information your require are in those guides.  

No one is going to be able to memorise all 500+ pages but now you have taken your first exam you should have an idea of the sections you did worse in.

Refer to the product guide on these sections and hopefully they will help.

[Former Member]

I just wanted to thank everyone who jumped in with answers to my query. It is extremely frustating that McAfee would put out exams without developing study guides. I think reading product guides is the wrong answer and hopefully McAfee will soon learn from this, or someone with time on their hands who wants to make a quick buck will create a guide.

With that being said I think the product guide is the way to go. I am most focused on the sections I did most poorly in, Install of ePO, and hoping for the best.

I do have one follow up question if anyone cares to answer.

The differenece between Agent Handlers and SADRs? I thought I understtood the difference as a Handler pushed policy, PAR, and Site Lists and SADRs pushed updated products to Managed Clients. But in reading the product guide this morning it seems the Agent Handler can also push products. From the product guide, "The handler provides updated sitelists, policies, and policy assignment rules, just as the McAfee ePO server does. The handler also caches the contents of the Master Repository, so that agents can pull product update packages, DATs, and other needed information."

So why would anyone want a SADR vice an Agent Handler?

[Aj-richer]

I would say the best use of a SADR if for a small branch office somewhere where it doesn't need the full utilisation of an AH.  I think it is personal preference to be honest.

I have recently decommisioned all of our SADR which we had set up (before i took over) and replaced with an AH.  With that being said you are not able to deploy to all machines depending on Firewalls in place.

If my users are sitting at home behind their personal firewalls it is very rare that the home routers would allow Port 80 and HTTPS traffic inbound, only normally outbound by default. 

The only way i have managed to get around this is to make sure patches are in the current branch and running "Update Security" from the client endpoint which then pulls and installs the patches.

I am yet to find a way to initiate this same task from ePO side.

Maybe with the SADR you are able to do this?

[Former Member]

Guys, I  passed! really it is the product guide and really having the hands on knowledge for the SQL database and what not. I didnt pass by much and am 99% sure the SQL questions got me since I have no real experience there.