Last week Friday after a few weeks of studying I sat the VCP6-NV (2V0-642) exam. I decided to do the track as I wanted to update my knowledge around NSX and it was also something I realised i wasn’t as strong in as I probably should be after my unsuccessful VCDX-CMA defence last year October.

The exam is based on NSX 6.2, comprises of 77 multiple choice questions and is 120 minutes long. The resources I personally used for the exam were:

• The vBrownbag podcasts we did a few years back on the original VCP-NV. Even though they are on the older version it gives a really good amount of base knowledge.
  • Objective 1
  • Objective 2
  • Objective 3
  • Objective 4
  • Objective 5
  • Objective 6
  • Objective 7
  • Objective 8

• The Pluralsight course by Jason Nash were brilliant in covering NSX basics and more advanced topics:
  • VMware NSX for vSphere Introduction and Installation
  • VMware NSX for vSphere: Network Services
• The VCP6-NV Official Cert Guide was an amazing resource and goes into great detail about so many topics. I read this on my trains back and forth each week between Zürich and Bern and I would highly recommend the book even though it covers the 641 exam.
• Lab time. I spent a fair amount of time playing around and learning in an EMC vLab as well as numerous VMware Hands on Labs getting my understanding of the differing components and interdependencies. I know the exam isn’t hands on like the VCIX but to get my head around some of the concepts, building.modifying and deleting portions helped me understand some of the main features of NSX and has hopefully laid a good groundwork for a possible future VCIX-NV attempt.

The exam was fair in the questions it asked, finished all the questions and reviews with about 45 minutes to spare and I passed with a respectable score. The exam is certainly achievable if you do the above resources and understand them. For me the mix os the book by Elver, the videos by Jason and my hands on practice worked really nicely as I feel each one filled a gap the other left and also my attention span for reading books deep in technical details isn’t my strongest attribute.

What has passing the exam done for my career?

Knowing NSX as I mentioned in the beginning was important for me to understand the whole SDDC ecosystem, strengthen it for my VCDX-CMA and be able to advise my customers on the correct solutions as well as have the ability to review NSX designs by NSX SME’s. It has already proved beneficial in discussions with customers and has also saved me in a troubleshooting issue where I would have probably spent much much longer trying to fix an issue.

For those looking to take the exam, good luck.

Gregg