Passed my PCNSA yesterday but need advice

[Emma_Martin]

Hi guys, I passed my PCNSA last night and I’m very happy. Just for some background I have my CCNA and over a years experience on an IT service desk.

I did struggle studying for the PCNSA because I have no PAN experience and I really struggled setting up a lab on a VM. No tutorial online was a straight forward guide on how to do it. Furthermore, the OVA file on PA’s support portal wouldn’t download for me and the site was down.

I ended up printing out pictures of the GUI and making notes etc. I read the study guide 5 times along with some of the information on PAN Beacon site and their practice exam. There were definitely a few questions on the real exam that I had no idea the answer, so I’d imagine I just barely hit the pass mark.

I want to continue my learning and eventually go onto getting the PCNSE, however, this is just not possible without labbing or experience. Do any of you have a straight forward guide to setting up a lab or would you recommend me buying a PAN firewall second hand, and if so, which one?

Any help is much appreciated, thank you!

[J.Riegelnegg844451]

Hello,

Very impressive that you were able to pass the PCNSA without the hands-on experience. When I was studying for it, I had images for both a firewall VM and a Panorama VM that I built in EVE-NG. Setting up EVE-NG takes some work, but the PAN images for it are out there if you look hard enough. You'll have limited functionality, but at least you'll be able to click around the menus and pass some traffic through the firewall. As you mentioned, you can also find a used firewall on Ebay. It won't be up-to-date on software, but at least you can set it up in your lab and use it for testing.