VyOS Certified Network Engineer

This morning before work I sat for (and passed) my attempt at the newly-minted
VyOS Certified Network Engineer certification. Mostly this post is just to let folks know that the certification is out there and encourage them to take it, but also I want to compare it to another certification I recently passed, the AWS Certified Solutions Architect Associate.

I've liked VyOS (and its predecessor Vyatta Core) for a long time. It's always my first choice when I want to test a new BGP or OSPF scenario or set up an IPsec VPN. Its compelling value proposition to me is that it turns Debian Linux into a network appliance with a Juniper-like CLI. Or to put it another way, VyOS is to routing as Cumulus Linux is to switching - a router that makes sense to both network engineers and Linux geeks.

The certification is different from most others I've done, being 100% practical. There are no written examination requirements, no multiple-choice questions. It presents a practical scenario with a number of broken configurations, which need to be fixed in order to pass the certification. (I've been told this is how the Red Hat Certified Engineer test is structured as well, though I haven't experienced it first-hand.) It uses a browser-based VNC client to hook up to a dedicated training/certification scenario platform (find all the details in their blog announcing the certification).

The announcement claimed:

We tried to avoid obscure options so that an experienced VyOS user and network admin can pass it without preparing specially for that certification, but it still requires a pretty broad experience.

I think the exam stands up pretty well to that claim. To prepare, I read through the blueprint, made sure I could get at least 90% of the sample questions right without additional study, labbed up a BGP + IPsec/VTI scenario between my home network and AWS (learning a little about compatibility between IKEv1 and IKEv2 along the way!), and then booked the exam. Experienced network and Linux admins should find the certification relatively straightforward, and easily achievable within the two hours finish time allotted.

I had a couple of administrative difficulties (mostly due to my time zone being a long way from theirs) and a couple of very minor technical gotchas in the exam. (I never realised I was so dependent upon Ctrl-W when it comes to VyOS command-line editing, and this doesn't work in a browser-based emulator.) The VyOS team were very apologetic about the administrative dramas, but honestly they were not really even an inconvenience. Typos and errors and failed technology are quite common in certification exams, but because the VCNE exam is based on actual VyOS running in a VM, there's not a lot of text to get wrong, and you don't get the level of quirkiness that simulations offer.

Contrast this with the AWS Certified Solutions Architect - Associate, which is a traditional multiple-choice exam administered by Pearson. I studied it from a paper book (I've never really learned well from the video training that many people swear by) for about 3 months off & on, and although I passed well, I never felt that it tested my knowledge in the right ways. And the multiple-choice format has given rise to the whole question-dumping industry which lurks in the shadows of many vendor certification studies.

On the negative side for the VyOS exam, there was no IPv6, which I think is a serious gap in any network-oriented certification nowadays. I also found the IPsec problem a little on the easy side. It's hard for me to judge, but I think that the difficulty might be on the low end of intermediate level, which is where this certification is aimed.

Overall I think the VyOS CNE exam was my most pleasant certification experience yet, and one which demonstrates skills which actually matter in real life. I'm really glad to see Sentrium getting enough traction in the marketplace that a certification platform is commercially viable, and I'm keen to keep going with the certifications they offer.

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