NGX Certifications

[intehnet]

Anyone here done their NGX certs? or upgrade certs?

what's it like?? share! :)

[corematrix]

Doing them now, i have been on the course and am revising for the exam as we speek. what u wanna no dude. What is your exsperence of Check point?

Matt Manning

[LeNNoX]

corematrix,

what course have you done?
- I'm looking to do the Check Point CCSA/CCSE Fast Track

Have a few years experience working with checkpoint & want to finally get some exams behind me

LeNNoX

[jyctan]

I am also preparing for 915 paper.. So far, I only read the product manuals...Any kind soul care to share with us their learning curve experiences? Thanks..;-)

[bommelmuetze]

Originally Posted by intehnet

Anyone here done their NGX certs? or upgrade certs?

what's it like?? share! :)

It's hard!
- very much VoIP, QoS.

Best Rgds
Bommelmuetze

[jeepee]

Somebody know if it will have a "CCSE Plus" NGX Certification or something like that in a near futur?

[czech12]

I have heard that there will be a CCSE Plus Exam, but I'm not sure when it will be out.

[Lackie]

In NG there are three exams.... CCSA, CCSE, an CCSE+.

In NGX, they took the three exams and split them into two. Some of the content that was in the CCSE exam gets pushed into the exam that has the CCSA material and the rest gets pushed into the CCSE+ material.

I'm going this week for my NGX upgrade course/exam.

[Sergej]

My colleague pass CCSE and CCSA NGX exams after official course. He bring the course-ware. I'm also planning to upgrade my NG certs soon.

My colleague tell me that questions are complete mess, and even the trainer on the courses tell that there are completely fool question. As usual you need to memorize a lot of GUI menus. A lot of VOIP and QoS. Some unbelievable dumb questions about NAT. There was the questions with the same answers as an A and D choices!
Trainer advice to wait for some time, but I cant as I meed to get the update until the end of the year.

[Gavrilo]

I take the NGX course in London next week and will try to post on my experience. I have CP2000 CCSA and NG AI CCSA already but am going to try hard for the CCSA/CCSE in NGX as well.

A good book for NGX I found is Configuring Check Point NGX VPN-1/FireWall-1 by SUNGRESSISBN 1-59749-031-8.

After my course I have a work project to install a SPLAT load balancing Cluster so hope to get good experience for the CCSA/CCSE in NGX

Gavrilo

[patrcikagain]

Hello,

Where did you find the book VPN-1/FireWall-1 by SUNGRESSISBN 1-59749-031-8 ?

thanks

[Gavrilo]

I got the book from Amazon

[Sergej]

Originally Posted by Gavrilo

I got the book from Amazon

Syngress, but not Sungress :)

Personally I did not like Syngress books, but there is no other choices.

[Gavrilo]

Yes the book is Syngress and is actually quite good and close to the course manuals. I plan to take CCSA NGX in a few days time and CCSE early in the new year. The course I took was very compressed as the instructor explained the course material will soon be distributed more evenly across three courses, CCSA, CCSE and CCSE+. At present the CCSA course is two days but really needs to be three as it stands as there is some VPN content which will shift into the CCSE courses.

Can anyone who has taken any of the current exams give me a preview of what areas are covered in the two exams as trying to remember everything in a 400 page plus training manual is going to be some feat.

Regards

Gavrilo

[jsond]

I have been studying for my CCSA for about a month now. Now that the new exam (156-215) is for the NGX I have recently purchased the Syngress configuring NGX book. As was mentioned earlier it seems there are more topics of study for the new CCSA (NGX) than the older one (156-210, NG AI). The other book I have on the CCSA does not include anything on VPN's, VoIP, and QoS despite it being released back in August. I have viewed the objectives for the NGX CCSA cert on checkpoints web site. It does include VPN's and VoIP. Can anyone who has taken the new test confirm that the CCSA NGX includes these additional topics that were not originally included in the CCSA NG AI?

Thanks in advance for any help. My main issue is whether VPN's, VoIP, and QoS are reservered for the CCSE or whether they are now incorporated into the new CCSA NGX.

[amccarth]

you can purchase official CP NGX courseware books for self study, send email to atc@ts.checkpoint.com for a list atc courseware distributors. If you haven't attended an authorized training or aren't certified for NG with App Int, it is probably a good idea to go to the training. You also get a NGX study guide when you go through the training class. New NGX I, II, and accelerated versions of the courseware is coming at the end of the year & exams. If you have the 1.0 version of the cw, you should still be able to attempt the 1.0 version of the exam for a few months after the new release. If you have questions about your exam attempt you can always email certification@ts.checkpoint.com. The new NGX III should be rolling out at the end of January. The exams might be difficult, but take a look at the Cert Mag 2005 Average Annual Salary Report where Check Point certified professionals earn on average $92,650.
http://www.certmag.com/articles/temp...524&zoneid=224

Cheers,
Amy McCarthy

[Gavrilo]

There is a little on VPN but the instructor did not mention anything on VoIP. From my experience with NG AI there was a little on VoIP but mainly to do with configuring SmartDefence.

Just remember Check Point will hammer questions on anything new in NGX because it is new.

Gavrilo

[jlieb32]

I was wondering the same thing. I've completed my ccsa, ccse, ccse+ for NGAI and just took a management 2 class for NGX with the hopes of taking the accelerated exam. I have not been able to find out much info on the exam anywhere yet.

[jsond]

Originally Posted by Gavrilo

There is a little on VPN but the instructor did not mention anything on VoIP. From my experience with NG AI there was a little on VoIP but mainly to do with configuring SmartDefence.

Just remember Check Point will hammer questions on anything new in NGX because it is new.

Gavrilo

Thanks for the info. It is still difficult to know completely which topics are not covered. For example, VPNs might be included a bit but is it site to site only or remote access too. At any rate the following topics I have not even looked at yet as I just am not sure if they are covered:

SecuRemote
SecureClient
Eventia Reporter
VoIP (except the SmartDashboard Options)
SmartLSM

I guess I should just study those regardless but I really want to concentrate only on the topics I am positive are covered.

Originally Posted by jlieb32

I was wondering the same thing. I've completed my ccsa, ccse, ccse+ for NGAI and just took a management 2 class for NGX with the hopes of taking the accelerated exam. I have not been able to find out much info on the exam anywhere yet.

It is a bit difficult to know considering it seems with NGX, there are a few added topics and then you need to know the addtions of NGX that are not in past versions of checkpoint. Here are the objectives for the 156-215 exam that are listed on checkpoint's web site:

# Manage network security with VPN-1 NGX
# Create rules and modify a Security Policy's properties
# Use monitoring tools to track, monitor, and account for all connections logged by Check Point components
# Use private IP-address allocation and unregistered internal addressing schemes, to overcome IP addressing limitations
# Protect organizations from known network attacks and entire categories of emerging or unknown attacks, using SmartDefense
# Distribute content security to Security Gateways, screen URLs and block suspicious Web data, and provide auditing capabilities and detailed reports
# Verify the identity of users logging in to VPN-1 NGX, using VPN-1 NGX authentication schemes
# Implement LDAP and integrate it with VPN-1 NGX SmartCenter Server
# Configure VPNs, using IKE encryption and Check Point's simplified VPN setup
# Back up critical files and directories, for availability and timely recovery of Security Gateways and SmartCenter Servers


From this list it seems VPN's and maybe LDAP are the only new topics but, even still, I have read conflicting info from other sites. But as this is the official list I have tried to stay as close to these topics as possible.

[jlieb32]

I will be taking the NGX Accelerated exam in about 2 hours. I will leave notes on it once I get back. Hopefully it will be with good news (-: