VMware VCP-NV 2023 Certification Exam Syllabus

• Describe the purpose of VMware Virtual Cloud Network and its framework
• Identify the benefits and recognize the use cases for NSX
• Describe how NSX fits into the NSX product portfolio
• Recognize features and the main elements in the NSX Data Center architecture
• Describe NSX policy and centralized policy management
• Describe the NSX management cluster and the management plane
• Identify the functions of control plane components, data plane components, and communication channels

- Demonstrate knowledge of NSX Management Cluster

• Explain the deployment workflows for the NSX infrastructure

- Demonstrate knowledge of the NSX UI

• Distinguish between the Policy and the Manager UI

- Demonstrate knowledge of the data plane

• Describe the functions of transport zones, transport nodes, VDS, and N-VDS
• Explain the relationships among transport nodes, transport zones, VDS, and N-VDS
• Describe NSX Data Center on VDS
• Describe uplink profiles

- Demonstrate knowledge of logical switching

• Describe the functions of NSX Data Center segments
• Recognize different types of segments
• Explain tunneling and the Geneve encapsulation protocol
• Describe the interaction between components in logical switching
• Describe the function of kernel modules and NSX agents installed on ESXi
• Describe the function of the management plane in logical switching
• Describe the function of the control plane in logical switching

- Demonstrate knowledge of logical switching packet forwarding

• Describe the functions of each table used in packet forwarding
• Describe how BUM traffic is managed in switching
• Explain how ARP suppression is achieved

- Demonstrate knowledge of segments and segment profiles

• Define what a segment is
• Describe the purpose of segment profiles
• Identify the functions of the segment profiles in NSX

- Demonstrate knowledge of logical routing

• Explain the function and features of logical routing
• Describe the architecture of NSX two-tier routing
• Differentiate between north-south and east-west routing
• Describe the gateway components
• Recognize the various types of gateway interfaces

- Demonstrate knowledge of NSX Edge and Edge Clusters

• Explain the main functions and features of the NSX Edge node
• Describe the functions of the NSX Edge cluster
• Identify the NSX Edge node form factors and sizing options
• Describe the different NSX Edge node deployment methods

- Demonstrate knowledge of Tier-0 and Tier-1 Gateways

• Describe how to configure a Tier-1 gateway
• Explain how to configure a Tier-0 gateway
• Explain Active/Active Tier-0 and Tier-1 configurations
• Explain multi-tenancy use in a Tier-0 gateway

- Demonstrate knowledge of static and dynamic routing

• Distinguish between static and dynamic routing

- Demonstrate knowledge of ECMP and high availability

• Explain the purpose of ECMP routing
• Identify the active-active and active-standby modes for high availability
• Recognize failure conditions and explain the failover process

- Demonstrate knowledge of logical routing packet walk

• Describe the datapath of single-tier routing
• Explain the datapath of multitier routing

- Demonstrate knowledge of VRF Lite

• Describe VRF Lite
• Explain the benefits of VRF Lite

- Demonstrate knowledge of logical bridging

• Describe the purpose and function of logical bridging
• Distinguish between routing and bridging

- Demonstrate knowledge of NSX segmentation

• Define NSX segmentation
• Recognize use cases for NSX segmentation
• Identify steps to enforce Zero-Trust with NSX segmentation

- Demonstrate knowledge of distributed firewall

• Identify types of firewalls in NSX
• Describe features of distributed firewalls
• Describe the distributed firewall architecture

- Demonstrate knowledge of security in distributed firewall on VDS

• List the distributed firewall on VDS requirements

- Demonstrate knowledge of NSX Gateway Firewall

• Describe the functions of the gateway firewall
• Explain the purpose of a gateway policy
• Describe the gateway firewall architecture

- Demonstrate knowledge of Intrusion Detection and Prevention

• Explain NSX IDS/IPS and its use cases
• Define the NSX IDS/IPS Detection terminology
• Describe the NSX IDS/IPS architecture

- Demonstrate knowledge of NSX Application Platform

• Describe NSX Application Platform and its use cases
• Explain the NSX Application Platform architecture and services

- Demonstrate knowledge of malware prevention

• Identify use cases for malware prevention
• Identify the components in the malware prevention architecture
• Describe the malware prevention packet flows for known and unknown files

- Demonstrate knowledge of NSX Intelligence

• Describe NSX Intelligence and its use cases
• Explain NSX Intelligence system requirements
• Explain NSX Intelligence visualization, recommendation, and network traffic analysis capabilities

- Demonstrate NSX Network Detection and Response

• Describe NSX Network Detection and Response and its use cases
• Explain the architecture of NSX Network Detection and Response in NSX
• Describe the visualization capabilities of NSX Network Detection and Response

- Demonstrate knowledge of NAT and how it is used with NSX

• Explain the role of network address translation (NAT)
• Distinguish between source and destination NAT
• Describe how Reflexive NAT works
• Explain how NAT64 facilitates communication between IPv6 and IPv4 networks
• Describe stateful active-active NAT operation

- Demonstrate knowledge of DHCP and DNS

• Explain how DHCP and DHCP Relay are used for IP address allocation
• Configure DHCP services in NSX
• Describe how to use a DNS forwarder service

- Demonstrate knowledge of NSX Advanced Load Balancer

• Describe NSX Advanced Load Balancer and its use cases
• Explain the NSX Advanced Load Balancer architecture
• Explain the NSX Advanced Load Balancer components and how they manage traffic

- Demonstrate knowledge of IPSec VPN

• Explain how IPSec-based technologies are used to establish VPNs
• Compare policy-based and route-based IPSec VPN
• Describe IPSec VPN requirements in NSX

- Demonstrate knowledge of L2 VPN

• Describe L2 VPN technologies in an NSX
• Identify various supported L2 VPN endpoints

- Demonstrate knowledge of integrating NSX with VMware Identity Manager

• Describe the purpose of VMware Identity Manager
• Identify the benefits of integrating NSX with VMware Identity Manager

- Demonstrate knowledge of integrating NSX with LDAP

• Identify the benefits of integrating NSX with LDAP
• Describe the LDAP authentication architecture

- Demonstrate knowledge of managing users and configuring RBAC

• Identify the different types of users in NSX
• Recognize permissions and roles available in NSX

- Demonstrate knowledge of Federation Architecture, needed prerequisites, Federation Networking, and Federation Security

• Describe Federation and its use cases
• Describe the requirements and limitations of Federation
• Describe the Federation configuration workflow
• Describe the prerequisites for Federation
• Describe the onboarding of Local Manager configurations and workloads
• Describe the stretched networking concepts in Federation
• Explain the supported Tier-0 and Tier-1 stretched topologies
• Explain Layer 2 concepts related to NSX Federation
• Explain the Federation security use cases
• Describe the Federation security components
• Explain the security configuration workflows

- Demonstrate knowledge of DPU-based acceleration for NSX

• Create Transport Zones
• Create IP Pools
• Prepare ESXi Hosts

- Configure segments

• Create segments
• Attach VMs to segments
• Use network topology to validate the logical switching configuration

- Deploy and configure NSX Edge Nodes

• Deploy NSX Edge Nodes
• Configure an Edge Cluster

- Configure the Tier-1 gateway

• Create a Tier-1 gateway
• Connect segments to the Tier-1 gateway
• Use network topology to validate the Tier-1 gateway configuration

- Create and configure a Tier-0 gateway with OSPF

• Create uplink segments
• Create a Tier-0 gateway
• Connect the Tier-0 and Tier-1 gateways
• Use network topology to validate the Tier-0 gateway configuration

- Configure the Tier-0 gateway with BGP

• Create uplink segments
• Create a Tier-0 gateway
• Connect the Tier-0 and Tier-1 gateways
• Use network topology to validate the Tier-0 gateway configuration

- Configure VRF Lite

• Create the uplink trunk segment
• Deploy and configure the VRF gateways
• Deploy and connect the Tier-1 gateways to the VRF gateways
• Create and connect segments to the Tier-1 gateways
• Attach VMs to segments on each VRF
• Review the routing tables in each VRF

- Configure the NSX Distributed Firewall

• Create security group
• Create Distributed Firewall rules 

- Configure the NSX Gateway Firewall

• Configure a gateway firewall rule to block external SSH requests

- Configure Intrusion Detection

• Enable Distributed Intrusion Detection and Prevention
• Download the Intrusion Detection and Prevention signatures
• Create an Intrusion Detection and Prevention profile
• Configure Intrusion Detection rules
• Configure North-South IDS/IPS
• Create a segment and attach a VM
• Analyze Intrusion Detection events
• Modify the IDS/IPS settings to prevent malicious traffic
• Analyze Intrusion Prevention events

- Deploy NSX Application Platform
- Configure malware prevention for East-West and North-South Traffic
- Use NSX Network Detection and Response to detect threats
- Configure Network Address Translation

• Create a Tier-1 gateway for Network Address Translation
• Create a segment
• Attach a VM to NAT segment
• Configure NAT
• Configure NAT route redistribution

- Configure NSX Advanced Load Balancer

• Create segments for the NSX Advanced Load Balancer
• Deploy the NSX Advanced Load Balancer controller
• Access the NSX Advanced Load Balancer UI
• Create a Cloud Connector for NSX
• Configure Service Engine Networks and Routing
• Create a virtual service
• Configure route advertisement and route redistribution for a virtual IP

- Deploy Virtual Private Networks

• Deploy a new NSX Edge Node to support a VPN deployment
• Configure a new Edge Cluster
• Deploy and configure a new Tier-0 gateway and segments for VPN support
• Create an IPSec VPN service
• Create an L2 VPN server and session
• Configure a pre-deployed autonomous Edge as an L2 VPN client

- Manage users and roles

• Add an Active Directory Domain as an identity source
• Assign NSX roles to domain users and validate permissions
• Modify an existing role and validate the role permissions

- Perform operations tasks in a VMware NSX environment (syslog, backup/restore etc.)
- Monitor a VMware NSX implementation

• Identify the default log file locations of NSX components
• Generate Log Bundles
• Use log files to help identify NSX issues

- Identify Tools Available for Troubleshooting Issues
- Troubleshoot Common NSX Issues

• Troubleshoot Common NSX Installation/Configuration Issues
• Troubleshoot Common NSX Component Issues
• Troubleshoot Common Connectivity Issues
• Troubleshoot Common physical infrastructure Issues