Experience with Adobe-AEM Certification

Recently I had appeared for AEM Certification exam and thought I will share my experience with you all.

How did I register for exam?

I went through the AEM certification site and registered my-self choosing a date - A convenient date when I can make myself completely free.

- There were two options, PSI and Examity. I have chosen one.

- Due to the COVID lock-down, majority of the exams are happening online

Procedures on exam day.

The exam notification email said, I can login to the exam system half an hour before. Since this was the first experience, I logged into the system 1 hour before.

System Checks: The exam site asked me to install a secure browser, once installed they do check system requirements. They do a set of checks like system resources, camera, internet speed, browser used etc.

Check-in Personal Information: Once that is done, I was asked to take a pic of 1) Myself 2) my government issued ID 3) and a video scan of my room by rotating laptop around, including the desk where laptop was placed.

Once those files are checked into the system, I was asked to wait for the scheduled time.

My recommendation here: If you are confident enough about your system, internet etc, login just half an hour before the exam - else you will have to wait a lot.

You can even disconnect and login back, but since camera was on, i did not attempt that.

Waiting for proctor

Now my scheduled time came. I had scheduled exam at 10 AM. But I was still getting message like 'Your exam will start once proctor joins on the scheduled time'. It went on for 10 minutes. I saw an option to chat with the executive. I pinged executive via the chat option. Even to connect the customer care executive - it took some time.

The executive told me , he can reschedule, but the replies were too late, so I was worried about the confirmation.

Check-in Expert Verifying my details:

Fortunately my on screen message changed to - 'Check-in verification expert is analysing details'. So I have asked the chat agent to hold on from rescheduling.

The verification agent(proctor) told to re-take the ID proof photo again - which was not clear according to him. I have done that and re-uploaded.

Starting the exam now:

After waiting for few minutes, My screen changed to "starting with exam". Then the proctor started sending me messages.

Proctor asked to scan the room again. rotating 4 sides of room, (He saw my ID card was on my desk/table - pinged me to remove it) once that was done, the proctor shared the terms and condition and then started the exam.

Notes:
Even though exam was scheduled at a specific time, the exam started quite late after all these procedures. This means, same process is carried out for all persons who are taking exam in parall and this is the reason the proctor may not be able to start our exam on scheduled time. So I personally ask every one who takes the test to have patience and wait till the procedures are completed before taking exam.

My suggestions

- Ensure un-interrupted internet, power connectivity

- Ensure its a peaceful space where no one disturbs you.

I will be providing more tips for the AEM certification via my YouTube channel - Link is provided on right side of the webpage.

Configure the https(SSL) on AEM instance quickly

There are cases where during development we may need to setup https connection in our existing AEM instance.

By following procedure we can have both http and https on same AEM instance. This is very helpful while testing some of the AEM features which require SSL connections.

To start with, we need keys and certificates to configure SSL on AEM. We will use OpenSSL to set up keys and certificates. The method is tested on window, but should work on any other OS seamless way.

How to setup OpenSSL on Windows

• Download OpenSSL from any URL - Ensure its relevant to your OS (including 86 Vs 64 Bit)
• Unzip it.
• Set the classpath

• place the conf file in below path (Else you may get an error that openSSL conf cannot be found)

Now the OpenSSL is configured on your windows

• Using command prompt execute below commands

### Create Private Key
$ openssl genrsa -aes256 -out localhostprivate.key 4096

### Generate Certificate Signing Request using private key
$ openssl req -sha256 -new -key localhostprivate.key -out localhost.csr -subj "/CN=localhost"

### Generate the SSL certificate and sign with the private key, will expire one year from now
$ openssl x509 -req -days 365 -in localhost.csr -signkey localhostprivate.key -out localhost.crt

### Convert Private Key to DER format - SSL wizard requires key to be in DER format
$ openssl pkcs8 -topk8 -inform PEM -outform DER -in localhostprivate.key -out localhostprivate.der -nocrypt

You will have the certificates now in local drive as shown below.

Use the SSL Wizard in AEM

Now login to AEM
http://localhost:4502/aem/start.html

Tools > Security > SSL Configuration

For store credentials provide the Key store and Trust store password. [I have used admin for all, since its a localhost]