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Over the long weekend, I achieved yet another milestone of the certifications/skills on my list for the year and this blog is to put some light on the path/steps I took in preparation and my exam experience to help the wider vCommunity. If you are here, you are either looking to take the exam or are curious about the technology. For me, it was the latter to begin with, as my passion of SDN grows with my background in NSX – which eventually led me to take the exam in the end.
Motivation:
Passing the VMware SD-WAN Foundations 2020 – Exam 5VO-35.19, an individual is understood to have a fundamental understanding of SD-WAN technology and can:
- Present the SD-WAN solution, including its architecture and features.
- Understand customer needs and use cases to product capabilities.
- Provide a high-level demonstration of the VMware SD-WAN™ Orchestrator by VeloCloud®.
Pre-requisites:
Before you begin, it is assumed that you will have the following as a pre-requisite:
- Familiarity with the WAN technologies and connectivity e.g. MPLS, IPsec VPNs, etc.
- Knowledge of Cloud Providers and Services for IaaS/PaaS/SaaS/XaaS
- Understanding of Routing and Virtualization
Preparation:
I started off with the VMware SD-WAN by VeloCloud: Deploy and Manage course which is what I would recommend. However, I wished the instructor had a bit more enthusiasm, but I understand not everyone has the charisma of Tim Burkard. Having said that, the instructor covered quite a lot and the content of the course was pretty good.
The Lab activities provided within the Deploy and Manage course is a big thumbs-up. I found them quite useful and did them a couple of times, intentionally broke the topologies and re-constructed to get a better understanding of the capabilities.
I also found and would recommend going through the following documentation:
- VMware SD-WAN by VeloCloud – Admin Guide
- VMware SD-WAN by VeloCloud – Operator Guide
- VMware SD-WAN by VeloCloud Features & Benefits – Guide
- Dynamic Multipath Optimization (DMPO) Overview – VMware KB 2733094
- VMware SD-WAN Edge Platform Specifications
- VMware SD-WAN by VeloCloud Support document
VMware hands on lab: HOL-2040-01-NET – VMware SD-WAN by VeloCloud – Getting Started is also useful – it has instructions to “test drive” the product and as the name suggests, it is just for Getting Started and not as detailed as the lab provided in the Deploy and Manage course. But I still found it useful as I wanted to test a few capability after my course was completed and before I sat for the exam.
The Exam:
The exam 5VO-35.19 is similar to other Skill and VMware certifications comprising of single and multiple choice questions, based on product features and capabilities and few scenario based solution questions – the Exam Blueprint details the objectives neatly.
The exam has 47 questions and 70 minutes to complete. I must admit a handful of questions were a bit tricky and got me thinking on the answers and I went in deep thoughts i.e. is it the feature or a capability – Not to beak the exam NDA, would recommend going through the documents links (I mentioned above) and you would be alright. 😉
The exam is non-proctored, which means you do not have to go to a PearsonVUE exam centre and can sit the exam remotely, as long you have good reliable internet connection (most of the exams are now remote because of the #lockdown).
Note: Once you make the payment, you can take the exam any time within the next 48 hours.
All in all, I was glad to sit this exam as my curiosity continues to poke me to #keeplearning and making this my 15 Badge (when it arrives) on Acclaim 😊.
You could book/schedule the exam here – Good luck 😉
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