Additional Study Resources and my Game Plan

 Following on from my previous post, I also have some other resources I can use for the NSE8.

CBTNuggets

CBTNuggets have recently started releasing some courses authored by Keith Barker which are pretty decent. Keith has an engaging manner and brings his vast experience from other vendors to the training which helps make the courses excellent at giving you skills for real world deployments and not just for exam prep.

I wouldn't recommend using the CBTNuggets course on its own to pass any exams as they miss information that is in the training.fortinet.com courses, and the parts missed always seem to end up in the exams. However when combined with the Fortinet training they really work well to uplift your real world skillset.

Another benefit of CBTNuggets courses is that you can stream them at 2 x speed, so as a general rule based off my previous experience I know I can get through the lecture content plus do associated labbing in the roughly total stated video time.

 

The total time for the CBTNuggets courses is 70 hours, so adding that to the training.fortinet.com content times I'm looking at about 300 hours of structured training. If I keep to my existing study schedule I would be ready to sit the lab in the middle of May 2023.


Where to from here?

First step on my personal journey is to finish off my NSE6. Prior to deciding to go for the NSE8 proper, I had already been working through the NSE6 and had passed 3 out of 4 of the required exams (In my case, these were the FortiSwitch, FortiWeb and Azure Cloud exams). The final exam what I have been working toward completing is the Secure Wireless exam.

I've already failed this one twice by not respecting it enough and rushing attempts - I've got a pretty decent grounding in wireless technologies having done a LOT of work with Cisco, Aruba and Ekahau in the past, and I run Fortinet wireless in my home environment. What I hadn't taken into account was that Fortinet have their own way of achieving some industry standard outcomes and as such Im missing the Fortinet specific answer of some of the questions in the exam. I've already been reviewing the course work and doing a fair bit of labbing toward my third attempt at the Secure Wireless exam, and Im going to target sitting it again in 8 days.

From there I'm going to work through the training.fortinet.com courses and Ill take an attempt at the NSE8 written in the middle of December.
I'm not expecting to pass it necessarily, but Ill be looking to use that as a guide on what areas I need to most focus my studies on.

Keeping to a best case timetable from there I will be sitting the lab exam around the 22nd of May 2023

There's a lot of study in my future, but Ill be looking to apply the things I learn to the work I'm doing day to day which should help solidify things. Fortunately I enjoy labbing on Fortinet equipment so Im looking forward to a lot of the work coming up.


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