In 2015 I achieved my Palo Alto Certified Network Security Engineer (PCNSE) certification, and I renewed it in 2019 and 2021.
Last week I attemped to renew but failed the exam.
While I review my weak areas and prepare for another attempt it’s important to highlight that when we’re celebrating our wins it sometimes seem like they’re effortless and easy, and that everything succeeds on the first attempt.
That’s not always the case.
My calculated score was ~71.49%, and I work quite a lot with Palo Alto Networks products, so I figured that I’m not that far off.
Therefore I decided to make an attempt at the Palo Alto Network Security Administrator (PCNSA), since some of the topics overlap and I believe I have enough on-the-job experience to realistically make that attempt.
And I passed! 🥳🥳
My first win of the week.
Within the happiness of passing the exam, I thought that since I recently passed the PSE Associate for Cortex XDR that I would make a go at the PSE Professional XDR, and scheduled it for the following day.
To get me back to the ground, I failed that exam.
It wasn’t similar to the PCNSE attempt, and I didn’t calculate my score as I know that I need more hands-on experience with XSOAR before trying again.
Moving on, picking up the study guide and blueprint for the PSE Strata Professional, which is more in line with the PCNSA, I felt like I’m pretty confident with the blueprint material, started reading through the study guide and other related material, and scheduled an exam for end-of-day Friday.
Just around 17:00 I walked out of the meeting room we had prepared for taking on-line exams, with another pass! 🥳🥳
A great way to end the week!
I know my weak areas for PCNSE and PSE Cortex Professional, and I hope to make a successful attempt at those exam in the coming weeks and months.