VCP-NV Cleared

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 wasn’t 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!