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I recently passed the Professional NSX-T Data Center 2.4 (2V0-41.19) exam and in this short post I would like to share my experience with the exam and some recommendations for preparing for the exam.
About the exam
As with all VMware exams there is an excellent exam guide available. That guide should be the first thing you study. It contains all the information you need to plan your preparation.
Some things from the current exam guide (it’s subject to change):
- 70 questions
- 100 minutes (plus additional time for non-native English speakers)
- Passing score 300
70 questions to be answered within 100 minutes. With good preparation this is fair. Time was not an issue for me during this exam. I did receive extra time being a non-native English speaker, but 100 minutes would’ve been enough.
- 6 months experience installing, configuring, managing, and troubleshooting NSX-T 2.4 solutions
- 6 months hands-on experience with Linux and KVM
- 1 year of experience working in IT and with VMware vSphere and its command line
This candidate profile looks reasonable to me. I recommend that you have a good look at NSX-T on Linux and KVM. VMware is serious about running NSX-T on these platforms.
Preparing for the exam
Everyone has their own preferred way of preparing for an exam. Also, different exams require different ways of preparing. The following is what helped me pass 2V0-41.19.
Working with NSX-T
I was lucky enough to be part of several PSO engagements that involved NSX-T. Actually, my last project was a complete NSX-T implementation where I participated from the design phase all the way to the day 2 operations.
Thanks to this kind of real-life exposure to NSX-T I developed a pretty solid understanding of the product and its components which in turn was very beneficial in preparing for an exam like this.
Studying the NSX-T 2.4 documentation
Over and over again. Which I was kind of forced to do for my work anyway.
The official NSX-T documentation contained much (but not all) of the theory I needed to master. I knew it more or less by heart ahead of the exam.
Playing with NSX-T
This exam tests once’s theoretical knowledge on pretty much all of the solutions within NSX-T. For me building, breaking and trying out things in an NSX-T lab environment was a great way to learn the product.
So if you have the possibility to install an NSX-T lab environment I strongly recommend you do that.
If setting up your own NSX-T lab is not an option you can always have a look at one of the VMware NSX-T hands-on labs. Especially HOL-1926-01-NET is a good one to play around with.
Attending the VMware NSX-T Data Center: Install, Configure, Manage [v2.4] course
This course is the recommended course for the exam. It’s also one of the four courses you can choose from in case you want to become certified (VCP-NV 2019) on passing this exam.
This course is one of the better VMware courses I’ve attended. I also want to give a lot of credit to teacher Adrian Vizoso. A subject matter expert with the ability to explain relatively complex matter in an easy to understand way.
The course goes through a lot of theory, but also contains plenty of labs. So you will gain hands on experience with the different NSX-T solutions.
Perhaps I wasn’t exactly new to NSX-T at the time I attended this course, but about half of the attendees were. By the end of the course they had developed a good basic understanding of the platform and definitely felt better prepared for the exam.
Summary
The Professional NSX-T Data Center 2.4 exam is by no means an easy exam. Even though I felt well prepared it was actually a bit harder than I expected.
That being said, with good preparation and hands-on experience you should be able to pass this exam without too much trouble.
I wish you good luck with the studies and the exam itself!
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