New Relic Verified Foundation

NVF · ● Active · Entry · New Relic

Exam facts

Vendor source — New Relic Certification Program ↗

Official exam guide — New Relic Verified Foundation (NVF) Exam Guide ↗

Exam page — Full-Stack Observability Exam ↗

About

The New Relic Verified Foundation (NVF) is an entry-level certification for professionals new to observability or the New Relic platform. It validates foundational knowledge of modern observability concepts, the New Relic platform UI, telemetry data types, and agent configuration. No prerequisites are required. Launched in 2024 as part of New Relic's foundation-to-professional certification track, the NVF is not proctored and is available for free through New Relic University.

Domain context — Observability & APM

Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and observability focus on monitoring, visualizing, and analyzing the health, performance, and behavior of software applications and their infrastructure in real time. Modern observability spans metrics, logs, traces, events, and user experience data across distributed cloud-native systems.

Read full deep dive — New Relic Ecosystem → (ecosystem document not yet created)

Topics covered

Based on the official exam guide, the NVF exam assesses knowledge across these core areas:

• Observability fundamentals — Core concepts: monitoring vs. observability, telemetry data types (metrics, logs, traces, events).
• New Relic platform overview — UI navigation, account structure, dashboards, and workloads.
• Data ingestion and agents — Installing and configuring APM, Infrastructure, Browser, Mobile, and Synthetics agents.
• NRQL (New Relic Query Language) — Basic query syntax, data exploration, and analysis.
• Alerts and notifications — Setting up alert policies, conditions, and incident workflows.
• Dashboards and visualizations — Creating, customizing, and sharing dashboards.
• Full-stack monitoring — Understanding end-to-end observability across applications, infrastructure, logs, and user experience.

Source: Official exam guide ↗

Common skills at Observability & APM · Entry

• Telemetry data collection — Understanding metrics, logs, traces, and events; configuring data sources.
• Platform UI proficiency — Navigating observability platforms, running queries, creating dashboards.
• Agent deployment — Installing and configuring monitoring agents for applications and infrastructure.
• Alert configuration — Setting up basic alerting policies, thresholds, and notification channels.
• Incident response basics — Understanding alert workflows, severity levels, and triage processes.
• Query syntax — Writing simple queries to explore and visualize telemetry data.

Recommended courses at Observability & APM · Entry

Practice exams

Books

No dedicated books for the NVF certification exist at this time. New Relic's official training materials via New Relic University are the primary resource. General observability and monitoring best practices books may provide supplementary context but do not specifically target this exam.

Typical job titles at Observability & APM · Entry

Observability Engineer · SRE (Site Reliability Engineer) · DevOps Engineer (Observability focus) · Cloud Infrastructure Engineer · Performance Engineer · Monitoring Specialist · Reliability Technician

(Job titles drawn from current job-board postings that list observability and monitoring as required skills.)

Salary

Salary note: Observability engineer roles are emerging and often sit at the intersection of SRE, DevOps, and Infrastructure Engineering. Salary ranges vary significantly by company size, specialization, and geography. Entry-level roles in this field typically require foundational knowledge of monitoring, observability platforms, and incident response.

Skills validated

• New Relic platform navigation and configuration — Agent installation, dashboard creation, alert setup.
• NRQL query fundamentals — Writing basic queries to retrieve and analyze observability data.
• Telemetry data types — Understanding metrics, logs, traces, events, and when to use each.
• APM / Infrastructure / Browser / Mobile agent deployment — Configuring data sources for comprehensive monitoring.
• Workloads and service mapping — Using New Relic's grouping and visualization features.
• Alert and incident workflows — Setting up policies, conditions, and notification channels.

Related certifications

• Stacks with: New Relic Certified APM Practitioner Associate (APA) (file not yet created)
• Prerequisite for: New Relic Certified Professional-level certifications (Performance Engineer, Infrastructure, Full-Stack Observability Practitioner)
• Replaces: N/A (first certification in the foundation track, launched 2024)
• Equivalents at this level: Datadog Fundamentals, Splunk Fundamentals Certified User (SFCU), Elastic Fundamentals (ecosystem comparison documents not yet created)
• Vendor overview: New Relic Vendor Overview (vendor document not yet created)

Sources

• New Relic Certification Program Guide
• New Relic Verified Foundation (NVF) Exam Guide
• Full-Stack Observability Exam
• New Relic University
• New Relic University FAQ
• New Relic Certifications Overview
• Glassdoor Observability Engineer Salaries
• PayScale SRE Salary South Africa
• Class Central New Relic Courses

Last verified: 2026-05-01

*Parent ecosystem: New Relic Ecosystem (document not yet created)

*Parent domain: Observability & APM (domain document not yet created)

*Vendor overview: New Relic Vendor Overview (vendor document not yet created)