(3V0-643)- VMware Certified Advanced Professional 6-Network Virtualization Deployment Exam :

3V0-643 is the exam code for the VMware Certified Advanced Professional 6 – Network Virtualization Deployment Exam. I recently passed this exam and thought I’d write a short blog post about it.

About the exam

The exam preparation guide for this exam contains the following description:
” The 3VO-643 exam tests candidates on their skills and abilities in implementation of a VMware NSX solution, including deployment, administration, optimization, and troubleshooting.”

As you might have guessed, this is a lab-based exam. Meaning you connect to a remote lab environment and work your way through a number of scenarios. You will be doing actual deployment, administration, optimization, and troubleshooting of a live VMware NSX platform.

Exam prerequisites

There is no course requirement for VCAP6-NV. That being said, to achieve the VCAP6-NV certification you must hold a valid VCP6-NV certification which does have a course requirement.

VMware recommends candidates to take the VMware NSX: Troubleshooting and Operations [V6.2] course as a preparation for this exam. I did the NSX version 6.4 of that course and although the course itself was very valuable, I can not say that it was really relevant as preparation for the 3V0-643 exam.

Another VMware recommendation is that the candidate should have two years of experience deploying NSX. Experience is a good thing of course. I would say this depends very much on how much and in which way you work with NSX in your day-to-day job role. My two cents:

• You can skip the recommended course, but be sure you know your NSX including basic NSX troubleshooting.
• Experience with deploying and managing all components of NSX is a must. Remember that you can gain experience in a lab environment as well.

Exam preparation

If you’ve ever been doing a VMware Hands-on Lab, the exam’s interface will be familiar to you. The controls, menus, and layout of the exam interface are very similar if not identical to the ones in the hands-on lab environment. I recommend doing a couple of NSX hands-on labs just to get used to the interface. HOLs VMware’s free, high quality labs that offer a convenient way for you to try out all kind of VMware tech and solutions. So check them out.

As always with VMware exams, the exam blueprint is your friend. It clearly states what areas of NSX (all) and scenarios you should prepare for. For 3V0-643 I would say the exam blueprint is spot on. On the exam I was faced with questions and scenarios linked to all of the objectives in the exam blueprint.

An important thing to keep in mind is that at the time of this writing the 3V0-643 lab environment is still based on vSphere 6.0 and NSX version 6.2. You should take this into account as you prepare for the exam.

• Do your hands-on training in a NSX 6.2 environment. Build a nested lab with vSphere 6.0/NSX 6.2 if necessary. There are differences between the 6.2 and 6.4 UIs. If you’re not familiar with the 6.2 way of doing things you end up spending a lot of precious time navigating around in the (slow) vCenter UI trying to find things.
• Study the NSX version 6.2 official documentation. It’s not meaningful to study anything else than version 6.2 documentation for this exam.
• Study and practice all the objectives that are listed in the exam blueprint. Make sure you are comfortable accomplishing all of the objectives before you consider taking this exam.

What to expect?

23 questions/scenarios to be completed within 205 minutes. All of this in an outdated and slow vSphere 6.0/NSX 6.2 remote lab environment. It wasn’t the most exciting experience to be honest. The scenarios and problems you need to solve on the other hand were realistic and quite fun.  It’s a mixture of  tasks and objectives. One scenario you’ll complete with a couple of mouse clicks or commands, while the next will take you more than 30 minutes to complete.

• Time is an issue. In my experience 205 minutes is not a lot of time. You easily end up with time pressure. You should be able to accomplish the objectives relatively fast. There is not much time for clicking around, finding your way, or thinking for that matter. Knowing beforehand how to accomplish objectives is key.
• Time is not an issue. Don’t get stuck. You can skip questions and come back to them later if there’s time left. Correctly answered questions add to your score. Focus on that instead of getting stuck trying to answer a question and running out of time. This is especially true when you’re early on in the exam. Also, know that you can pass this exam even when you run out of time.