Want to know how some guy from Nepal ended up with an FCX? Great, please continue reading.

Introduction

Hello, I’m Salon Raj Joshi, and I’m currently working at Fortinet Australia as a Technical Account Manager. I have around six years of experience working with Fortinet network security solutions.

My journey with Fortinet technologies started in 2020, while working with a Fortinet partner in my home country Nepal. Since January 2022, I’ve been part of the Fortinet India TAC team in Bangalore. Over the years, I have gathered extensive expertise in configuring, troubleshooting, and optimizing solutions such as FortiGate, FortiSASE, FortiAuthenticator, FortiManager, FortiAnalyzer, and other Fortinet technologies.

One of my proudest achievements has been earning the FCX, or NSE8 certification, a goal I have worked toward since I began my career with Fortinet technologies.

Apart from work, I love traveling, exploring new places, and playing cricket.

Why I Chose to Pursue the FCX Certification

In today’s fast-growing world of cybersecurity, technical certification serves as marks of skill, dedication, and continuous learning. From tons of certifications available throughout different cybersecurity vendors, the Fortinet Certified Expert (FCX) certification truly stands out, especially as the demand for skilled cybersecurity professionals continues to rise. FCX certification opens doors to multiple opportunities worldwide as it acknowledges your advanced skill in Fortinet solutions and cybersecurity. Achieving FCX certification proves that you have mastered the whole of Fortinet security solutions as the exam covers multiple wide range of Fortinet products and not only FortiGate, FortiManager or FortiAnalyzer. To be FCX certified you need to be top of FortiGate, FortiMail, EMS, FortiSwitch, FortiAnalyzer, FortiManager, FortiWeb, FortiADC and the list keeps going further. Obtaining this certification puts you on the list of top cybersecurity elite experts.

My journey with Fortinet Solution

My introduction with Fortinet products started with FortiGate 30E during my early days while performing HQIP (Hardware Quick Inspection Package) testing. During my initial days as a beginner with Fortinet solutions I found it very fascinating on how by just connecting a PC behind a FortiGate firewall makes the whole traffic secure. Over time, I gained hands-on experience across various Fortinet technologies, including FortiManager, FortiAnalyzer, FortiAuthenticator, FortiClient EMS, FortiSwitch, FortiAP, and FortiMail. Working as a Fortinet Partner organization further allowed me to engage in multiple Fortinet projects and from there my love for Fortinet solutions started.

When I started as TAC Engineer in Fortinet in 2022 in Bangalore, India I had the opportunity to work more closely with Fortinet Solutions and gained more hands-on experience through regular TAC ticket handling and through Fortinet lab access. I used to handle 5 tickets a day with 5 different issues that really helped me enhanced my skills in Fortinet.

From the very first day I stepped into the Fortinet office, I made myself a promise that I would one day earn the prestigious FCX certification. Working at Fortinet has helped me recognize the importance of the FCX certification for engineers as it not only enhances individual technical knowledge but boost one’s career. Honestly my life did change a lot in positive ways since I became FCX certified.

Preparation for Written Exam

The first pathway towards FCX was to fulfill the pre-requisites and that was to clear FCX Written exam – NSE8_812 version. Since I was already working as a FortiGate TAC  engineer I had deep expertise on the core product of the Fortinet Security Fabric – the FortiGate firewall.

As a TAC engineer, I usually handle FortiGate, FortiAuthenticator, FortiSASE and FortiProxy, but since I had also worked for Fortinet Partner organization where I was engaged on multiple Fortinet projects I was also already skilled in FortiManager, FortiAnalyzer, FortiMail, FortiClient EMS, FortiAP, FortiSwitches. With years of hands-on and real-world practice of Fortinet products, it helped my preparation for written exam.
To stay on right track, I prepared an excel sheet to keep track of my time and progress of each topic included in written exam which helped me stay on schedule and identify any room for improvement or if any topic needed more time to study.

After nearly five months of consistent self-study, tech talks, and going through Fortinet admin guides for each product, I took the written exam in September and passed it with a good score. However, the real test, the lab exam was still pending.

Preparation for Lab Exam

After clearing the written exam, I shifted my focus on the lab exam NSE8_870.I began by setting up a dedicated study plan that included regular practice sessions in the Fortinet lab environments. Since I’m working for Fortinet I setup all the VMs of all the included products in the lab exam and practiced daily – performing different configuration and troubleshooting tasks. I revisited product documentation, practiced different HA, routing, VPN scenarios, etc and even recreated issues I had seen in real TAC cases to sharpen my skills. The lab exam consists of 2 sessions on the same day. The first session is based on configuration whereas the second session is based on troubleshooting. More information about the lab exam, can be found on the Fortinet website (https://training.fortinet.com/local/staticpage/view.php?page=fcx_cybersecurity).

I took a total of 1.5 years to prepare for the lab and attempted the exam in March 2025. During those 1.5 years I practiced daily at least 2 hrs on different troubleshooting scenarios. As a TAC engineer who handles 3-5 tickets daily it was easy for me to break down scenarios and work it out in lab. The more I had hands-on on multiple product the more I got confident on taking the exam. I went through each admin guide and the available course in NSE training institute of all the products involved in the lab exam and performed the lab tasks for most of the topics so that I get some understanding about the configuration and the functionality. I completed the courses available in the NSE training institute for all the NSE certification with the help of lab guide which gave me practical knowledge of most of the products as the lab exam is not about just MCQ (multiple choice questions) but solving real world scenarios for which practical understanding of Fortinet solutions is mandatory. As part of the Fortinet TAC team, we focus on being experts on specific products, but I gained authorization from my manager to attend multiple tech talk sessions conducted by different TAC teams for other Fortinet products which really helped me to get an understanding on multiple products. Also to note down, mostly I utilized my study time outside my working hours as working as TAC engineer, I hardly get time to study in office hours and usually gets engaged with TAC cases. I used to come home around 9PM as my shift was finished at 8:30PM and after finishing up dinner I usually start studying at 10PM and spent around at least 1-2 hours daily.

After finishing my preparation, I joined the NSE 8 Immersion session, which gave me a good sense of what to expect in the real exam. It really helped me understand the exam pace and taught me how to manage my time more effectively during the lab.

During exam

Now the day came which I was waiting for March 22, 2025. The exam started at 10AM but till the time it took to end the exam it was already near to 9PM as it took almost 30 minutes for the check-in process, and there was a lunch break between the first and second sessions, the whole exam day felt quite long. I woke up early around 8 a.m., had my breakfast, and went for a short walk to clear my mind. I had slept feeling quite nervous, and being someone who tends to overthink, I wanted to start the day as calmly as possible. I used single screen excluding the laptop screen as I only had one monitor in my home, but the exam allows you to use 2 screens. The first session started around 10:30AM and it was more of configuration and included 15 different tasks. Most of the task was somehow related to the other task, say if one of the tasks was to setup HA between the FortiGate another task included sending logs to FortiAnalyzer from both the device in HA cluster (using ha-direct enable), so unless the HA is not setup and both primary and secondary devices are not up the other task of sending logs from both devices in cluster will not work. We do get access of CLI handbook, cookbook and admin guide of all the products but again if you started referring those guides one by one you will not be able to finish all 15 tasks in time. As per my experience the question is not that tough, but it was more about time management and how well you known each Fortinet Solution. My first session went well and felt confident in my answers for 14 of the 15 questions. I stumbled a bit on the 15th question, which was about deploying SD-WAN through FortiManager. It took me some time, but I managed to finish the first session with around 45 minutes remaining on the clock.

So, after finishing the first session I was happy as it went well, and I was confident for second session. I had my lunch and again went through check-in process and started my second session which was more of troubleshooting part. Please note that the configuration of all the task done on first session won’t be accessible in second session and the topology and task will be different. Configuration task was straight forward, you do what is asked for but while troubleshooting and fixing broken network we need to go ahead and start taking sniffer, debugs on multiple devices in the topology which makes it more time consuming. Unlike real-world scenarios where customers describe their issues, in the lab exam there’s no direct explanation or indication of the problem. You must read and interpret each question on your own, understand the requirement within the time limit, and make it work. I was able to complete the second session with just 2 mins on the clock. Based on my experience, I found the second session slightly more difficult than the first, especially since the allotted time was only 4 hours compared to 5 hours for the first session and troubleshooting session will take time as it just not about collecting the logs, it’s about reading the logs and understanding the logs to pin-point out the exact issue. Once the exam was completed, there was an anxious wait of about seven days until I received the results from Fortinet that said Congratulations.

The moment I saw the result, I felt an immense sense of happiness and gave myself a pat on the shoulder, saying, “Yeah, Salon, you did it!” I was thrilled because I had invested a lot of personal time into achieving the FCX and had sacrificed many other things to become who I am today.

Advice to anyone preparing for FCX certification

If you feel the exam is tough due to the number of products involved, don’t worry. Even I started with just FortiGate and had only one certification, NSE4 back in 2020. To successfully clear the FCX exam, it’s important to begin with a strong understanding of FortiGate and gain solid knowledge of FortiManager, FortiAnalyzer, FortiClient EMS, and FortiAuthenticator. Make sure your preparation goes beyond configuration and deployment and you should have hands-on troubleshooting experience. Additionally, it is also important to have at least some hands-on and theoretical knowledge of other products such as FortiMail, FortiWeb, FortiADC, and FortiSwitch, etc.

Before appearing for the exam, I had good understanding of multiple Fortinet product which I learned across my journey with Fortinet and I first studied and clear most of the NSE certification before appearing for the final FCX.

I had below certification before appearing for FCX.

🔹 Fortinet Certified Solution Specialist (FCSS): – Network Security

 – NSE 7 Enterprise Firewall

  – NSE 7 SD-WAN

  – NSE 7 Network Security Support Engineer

🔹 Fortinet Certified Solution Specialist (FCSS): – Zero Touch Access

🔹 Fortinet Certified Solution Specialist (FCSS): – Secure Access Service Edge

🔹 Fortinet Certified Solution Specialist (FCSS): – Public Cloud Security

🔹Fortinet Certified Professional (FCP):- Network Security

  – NSE 4 FortiOS

  – NSE 5 FortiAnalyzer

  – NSE 5 FortiManager

  – NSE 6 FortiAuthenticator

🔹 Fortinet Certified Professional (FCP): – Public Cloud Security

By the time I appeared for the FCX exam, I had cleared most of the NSE certifications, which gave me deeper insights into many of the Fortinet products and my suggestion to any candidate appearing for FCX exam is to first attempt and clear as much as NSE certification FCP,FCSS before appearing the FCX as that will create a proper pathway towards FCX.

Final Notes

Achieving the FCX certification has been one of the most rewarding milestones in my career. It has really helped me grow in my Fortinet Journey from TAC L1 to TAC L2 and currently I’m working as Technical Account Manager in Fortinet Australia. For anyone preparing for FCX, my advice is simple: start with what you know, build gradually, focus on hands-on experience, and don’t underestimate troubleshooting. With dedication and consistent effort, the journey is challenging but achievable.

If you would like to find out more about me or connect with me, check out my LinkedIn Profile: https://www.linkedin.com/in/salonjoshi68/