Today I took a shot at the VCP6-NV exam. Leading up to the exam I was feeling good. Through my head, I could run through packet flows, the security types. I knew how to put the pieces together and make NSX work. Even could recall those trivia details that after an exam we always just end up googling when building a design.

Let’;s start on the positive, what went right. A large part of my NSX based questions revolved around behaviour and steps. After spending a good amount of time trolling through the packet walks in the Offical Study Guide, these were fine and for the most part I felt comfortable with the product based questions.

What went wrong, I was simply not prepared for the amount of questions on the requirements behavior of the physical network. To be honest, I have not had much experience with data center networking and this a weak point that was strongly felt today. The questions I received required more in-depth knowledge of physical topology and QoS than I prepared for.

My preparation involved blogs, the official study guide, VMware documents linked on the blueprint and of course vBrownBag videos. These materials focused on NSX and I don’;t recall reading much on the physical network.

I general I did find the questions straight forward and not ambiguous. I didn’;t experience complexity derived from butchering the English language.

TL:DR: Failed exam as I lack the knowledge required for DC Networking.

Study resources:

• Official study guide: Really good, explains NSX very well and provides good context. Light hearted in some parts which is a nice break. Coverage is very good.
• VMware Docs: Very detailed in NSX components and functions.
• thesaffageek.co.uk: Check out his list of NSX resources, I’;m not going to list them individually there’;s too many. Gregg has done an awesome job putting this together.
• vBrownBag: We rule!!! Great videos, most have been around for a bit, so when taking the exam pay attention to changes in the version used on video and what you’;re tested on.

Where to:

I didn’;t get the cert, however, I have learned a lot about NSX which was the primary goal of this exercise. I am quite excited about the product I will continue to write and learn about the NSX. I am unsure if I will go hard on learning DC networking and attempt the cert again at this point. I am weighing up the career value of going through this again to get the VCP6-NV or starting the path for the VCAP6-DCV Design and Deploy.

I got a lot of help from other people in the community, too many to shout out by name. So if I bugged you for information and you provided (you know who you are). I can’;t thank you enough.

If you’;re considering taking the VCP6-NV, my big suggestion is not to just learn NSX. I feel that Objective 1 of the Cisco 640-916 exam and Objectives 1.1 – 1.8 of the Cisco 642-887 exam should help.