It seems the last few months for me have all been about NSX, a trip to the states with the BSU (truly amazing teaching from Elver & Chris), leading the NSX ICM courses for partners, customers and fellow instructors – it has been a great experience.
With the release of the the VCP-NV exam at VMworld US I thought I would have a go at the cert quite quickly before I head off to VMworld Europe to attend the deep dives.
Without being too specific, the blueprint is well rounded with a mixture of networking concepts, virtualisation concepts and of course the product NSX.
A few Tips from my experience,
1. This is a Network virtualisation exam not just NSX – revise Standard and Distributed switches.
2. Understand how NSX links into the concept of Cloud computing – recent cloud announcements are useful reading material (Openstack, VCAC).
3. Review Traditional networking concepts such as routing, switching, L2, L3, leaf, spine and east/west terms before you schedule otherwise it may be a struggle.
4. Packet Walks and the official documentation are you friend.
5. Review the Hands on lab – its 150% needed!
If you have the opportunity the NSX ICM course is well worth it for the VCP-NSX. The labs and lecture are matched to the blueprint and the exam wasnt too scary. It is personally my faviourte VMware course and Im very happy to be teaching it a few times more until the end of the year.
Personally, I started off my IT career in software testing, moved into sys admin with wintel and found the light with VMware, I have to say NSX and the VCP-NV has helped me in my day job with datacenter networking and even made me interested, something that I thought would never happen. I did previous networking qualifications (Cisco, Checkpoint) because I had to. Now I am hungry for more!
VMworld Europe looks like it will be NSX heavy, and after this experience I can see why! Roll on October!