This is an older thread - that someone recently responded to, which is why it came up on my radar.
My name is Ray Aslin. I teach the NSE 7 Public cloud course. I do NOT create the exam questions. I am not part of the group that edits the questions directly. That said I have taken every version of the exam for the last few years.
I have some thoughts ang opinions about the exam that could be helpful. Some of the info below is just history of the exam so you have context to what topics are on it now and some of the topics you might see mentioned in this thread that are not on it anymore.
The exam is currently in it's 6.4 revision - which is only based on public cloud topics. It was last updated to the 6.4 version/content in late 2020, early 2021 if I recall correctly (again, I don't edit the exam, but every time a new version comes out - I take it, since I teach the public cloud class I want to be in touch with what's currently tested and of course I want my cert up to date)
Before approximately late in or middle 2020 the exam covered both public and private cloud topics (Private cloud topics: Vmware NSX, Cisco ACI, Nuage Networks, Openstack). This was an incredibly confusing set of topics. We were asking about both public cloud (azure, aws, gcp, casb, cwp) AND private cloud in the same exam. The combination of all of those topics in a single exam made that version very very difficult to pass. You were studying many things that had no direct relationship - that's only my opinion as a person who took the older versions of those exams.
Starting in late 2020 - they began to focus only on the topics that are public cloud related. You can read about them on the exam description here.
https://training.fortinet.com/local/staticpage/view.php?page=nse_7
Look at the exam description section for the public cloud security 6.4 course. Here is a direct link, but the above is helpful if you were unaware we started creating exam description docs some time ago.
https://training.fortinet.com/theme/kifer/pdf/desc/Public_Cloud_6.4_Exam_Description.pdf
I've taken the exam a few times in different versions and obviously I can't help by saying "these are the questions I had..." we all click that NDA agreement during the exam.
However, I would point out certain details in the exam description...look at training resources and "Other Resources"
FortiOS - AWS Cookbook 6.4
FortiOS - Azure Cookbook 6.4
FortiOS - GCP Cookbook 6.4
If you visit the docs page, we are calling most of the cookbooks "admin guides" now, but for the public cloud providers the main page does still call them cook books.
Visit here, and switch to all the guides/cookbooks in the link below for the different cloud providers covered (aws, azure, gcp)
https://docs.fortinet.com/cloud-solutions/aws
While some of the exam questions I took in the most recent exam release in my opinion may directly relate with something we do in a lab or a lecture of the course (or the module videos of the self paced course) in reality there isn't enough lecture time in the day and lab time in the week for all the configurational topics that they could ask about in the exam (or indeed you could bump into in the real world). Pay close attention to those cookbooks for extra study and practice. There are high availability scenarios that a test creator might leverage for questions, or deployment scenarios that reflect what is also being done "in the real world".
I believe the exam document mentions there are 30 questions on the exam, and the list of topics in the document is aws, azure, gcp, forticwp, forticasb. That's a lot of topics in 30 questions, so the exam is still very tough because all the studying you do on gcp won't help you on the aws questions. All the studying you do for aws won't help you with azure. Each cloud provider does things quite differently and achieving high availability in them is similar but different in all of them. The specific capabilities in deploymment for GCP (like custom machine types) are different than aws and azure.
The result is a very challenging NSE level 7 exam.
While I don't write exam questions or review the exam for content as a fortinet instructor I do enjoy the privilege of knowing who to complain to internally, and listening to hear if that team is working on the exam (though I am not privy to the details - that would not be fair since I sit for the exam).
In the last few years I have seen 3 or 4 versions of the exam and each is an improvement over the last. The most recent one released (public cloud 6.4 exam, released around Jan 2021 I think) is the most well suited to the goal of measuring public mastery. It is still EXTREMELY TOUGH. However, at least the questions they are asking are all public cloud related now.
My personal exam prep still involves the course, the course labs but also the cook books a few scenarios of my own practice deployments from what I see there.
There is also some prayer involved, and perhaps chanting softly in the parking lot. However your luck with those may vary.
There are still things in their that I don't know that I agree should be (they come up on my own exam and I think - "I know why you all are asking me this, but this is really crazy hard question") but I suppose if I don't think that they have made it too easy?
I hope the notes about the cookbooks above are helpful. Also if you were not aware of the exam descriptions page I hope that helps too.
thanks, Ray
