Passed CCSA R65

Well I passed (barely!) this afternoon.
Test was fairly hard for me, as checkpoint firewalls are only a small part of my job. I would think if you are someone who has done many installations, troubleshooting, etc, this would be pretty easy for you. Rulebase questions were easy for me, but the monitor and smart defense are things I never use, so it was some guessing on a few.
Sorry if this is NDA break, but one thing that was cool was you can go back and review questions. Nice break from the Cisco exams
I took a 5 day CCSA/CCSE course, which included all the labs in the courseware. There were a few topics we only briefly touched on that actually had lots of coverage on the exam (for example VoIP, QoS, etc), so watch out for that.
Test was fairly hard for me, as checkpoint firewalls are only a small part of my job. I would think if you are someone who has done many installations, troubleshooting, etc, this would be pretty easy for you. Rulebase questions were easy for me, but the monitor and smart defense are things I never use, so it was some guessing on a few.
Sorry if this is NDA break, but one thing that was cool was you can go back and review questions. Nice break from the Cisco exams

I took a 5 day CCSA/CCSE course, which included all the labs in the courseware. There were a few topics we only briefly touched on that actually had lots of coverage on the exam (for example VoIP, QoS, etc), so watch out for that.
Comments
Congrats!
Well done. Even if you have experience, you may not use many of the features Checkpoint has to offer. In many cases like with routers and switches it's set it and forget it and you mainly simply end up adding more objects and rules to the rulebase with the occasional new VPN requirement. Other than checking logs to troubleshoot failing connections that's about it for many firewall admins, so the course you did is very helpful. Who knows what may come up on exam day!
And the CCIE is next! No other distractions. I am currently working out a deal with work to go to one of INE's bootcamps, then I have to start looking at the written again next.