Before we get into the NSE8 changes, as always, I’ll start with the time tracker. This week we finished up IPsec and Overlay VPNs and just today began SD-WAN. VPNs was a short phase 2 (of a total 7 phases I have planned) – roughly 3 weeks compared to Phase 1 (Routing) coming in at 6 weeks.
The big change: the NSE8 Core module is an in-person practical exam. I know from my first brief start with FCX that the expert level exam was fully remote in terms of the proctored written and practical exams. I did expect it to stay remote but after this release we can see it is in fact required to be taken in-person. There are not yet details explaining where the exam is taken in terms of local (proctored via a standard local testing center or only at Fortinet offices), however I imagine this will come soon.
The second big update is something I had previous asked our AM about: whether my FCS and FCSS certifications would qualify me for the NSE8 prerequisites. The answer is yes!
Going off of this I’m going to go ahead and cross all 3 pre-reqs off my checklist:
I will of course confirm this with our AM as well, just in case. However, for now it just means I don’t have to spend the time re-taking 2-3 additional exams, which is nice.
The final update is the change in date for the first day to take the NSE8, July 15th. I imagine we’ll see at least 1-2 more big updates like this for the NSE8 before July 15th, so I will continue to keep a very close eye on anything released from Fortinet as well as updates to the NSE8 Pre-Release Guide.
I don’t have any major study updates this week I’ll leave it at that. Thanks for reading and best of luck studying for anybody following along!
NSE8/FCX Certification 
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