What Candidates Should Know About Palo Alto Networks NGFW-Engineer Exam Topics
Summary: Selene Hart provided a detailed overview of the Palo Alto Networks NGFW-Engineer exam, which is part of the company's Network Security certification track. This exam requires in-person attendance at Pearson VUE test centers and covers three main domains: PAN-OS Networking Configuration, PAN-OS Device Setting Configuration, and Integration and Automation. The discussion emphasized the need for hands-on experience with Palo Alto NGFW products and a familiarity with automation tools. Recommended study resources include the Beacon portal and specific instructor-led courses offered by Palo Alto Networks.
What Candidates Should Know About Palo Alto Networks NGFW-Engineer Exam Topics
The Palo Alto Networks Certified Next-Generation Firewall Engineer exam, usually shortened to NGFW-Engineer, is the Specialist level exam in the Network Security track of the company's role-based certification program. It is the exam most people who held the old PCNSE are moving to, since that credential was retired in 2025 and there is no bridge exam to carry you across. The exam is delivered in person at Pearson VUE test centers, and Palo Alto Networks no longer offers a remote testing option. Total seat time is 90 minutes, the questions are a mix of multiple choice and multiple select, and the exam is offered only in English, though candidates testing in non-English speaking countries get an extra 30 minutes by default. The fee is 250 US dollars and the certification stays valid for two years. Palo Alto Networks recommends two to three years in an IT security role, with at least two of those years spent on its NGFW products, and suggests holding the Network Security Professional or Network Security Analyst certification first, although neither is required. One detail that surprises some candidates is that the datasheet lists basic knowledge of scripting languages like Python and PowerShell as an expected skill, which reflects how much of the exam now touches automation.
The blueprint has three domains, and the first is PAN-OS Networking Configuration at 40 percent of the score. It starts with interfaces, and you need to know how to configure Layer 2, Layer 3, virtual wire, tunnel, aggregate Ethernet, and management interfaces, and how each one changes the way traffic moves through the firewall. Zones follow, then high availability, which covers active/passive and active/active pairs along with link and path monitoring. The routing section goes beyond static routes into dynamic routing protocols, redistribution and routing policies, route monitoring, and the Advanced Routing Engine, so you should be comfortable with how the newer logical router model differs from the legacy virtual router. GlobalProtect gets its own set of objectives covering portals, gateways, authentication, and split tunneling. The domain closes with tunnels, meaning IPSec, GRE, and quantum-resistant cryptography, which is a newer addition that reflects the post-quantum options added to PAN-OS. If you have been building and troubleshooting site-to-site and remote access connectivity on these firewalls for a while, most of this will be familiar, but the routing engine and quantum-resistant topics are worth extra reading because they are newer than what older study material covers.
The second domain, PAN-OS Device Setting Configuration, also carries 40 percent, and it is where the exam gets into the parts of the firewall that sit outside the data plane. You are expected to implement authentication roles, profiles, and sequences, and to configure virtual systems, including their interfaces and zones, virtual routers, logical routers, and how routing and security work between one VSYS and another. Logging is a full section on its own, covering the Strata Logging Service, log forwarding, and log collectors and collector groups. PAN-OS software updates are listed as a separate task, so know the upgrade path rules and how updates behave in an HA pair. Certificates take up a lot of this domain, from PKI integration and certificate-based authentication to SSL/TLS service profiles, certificate profiles, and decryption, where you need to understand forward trust and forward untrust certificates and when a subordinate CA is the right choice. User-ID is covered for both on-premises deployments and the Cloud Identity Engine, including group mapping and directory sync, user-to-IP mapping and user context, and redistribution across segments. The last item in this domain is configuring web proxy on PAN-OS, which is a relatively recent feature and one that many long-time administrators have never had to set up.
The third domain is Integration and Automation at 20 percent, and although it is the smallest, it covers the widest range of products. You should be able to describe installing each deployment option, meaning PA-Series hardware, VM-Series, CN-Series for containers, Cloud NGFW, and AI Runtime Security. The domain also covers using APIs to automate deployment, managing third-party services that deploy firewalls such as Kubernetes, hypervisors, cloud service providers, Terraform, and Ansible, and using Panorama for on-premises centralized management, including templates, device groups, and pre- and post-rulesets. It finishes with building Application Command Center dashboards and custom reports. For preparation, the two configuration domains make up 80 percent of the score, so most of your lab time belongs there, but do not skip the automation domain, because it is the area where experienced firewall administrators most often have gaps. Palo Alto Networks points to the free digital learning path on its Beacon portal along with two instructor-led courses, EDU-210 Firewall Essentials: Configuration and Management and Panorama: NGFW Management. If you do not pass, the score report breaks down your results by domain, which is useful for a retake, but keep in mind the mandatory waiting periods of 15 days after a first failure, 30 days after a second, and 90 days after a third.
Recommended Exam Study Resources
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