What was the HP0-Y32 exam?
HP0-Y32 was “Designing & Troubleshooting Open Standards Networks,” an exam within HP ASE - Network Infrastructure V11 in HP’s ExpertONE program. The certification also involved exams HP0-Y31 and HP0-Y43. The exam name itself carried HP’s competitive positioning at the time: open standards networking, in explicit contrast to proprietary vendor architectures. The exam is retired.
The Name Was the Marketing
Most certification exam names are descriptive. This one was an argument.
“Open Standards Networks” was not a neutral technical label. It was HP’s positioning against Cisco, whose networking dominance rested substantially on proprietary protocols and a proprietary certification ecosystem. HP’s counter-pitch was that its networking portfolio, substantially built on the 3Com and H3C acquisitions, ran on open standards, and that customers could therefore avoid lock-in.
You can see the same strategy elsewhere in HP’s networking certifications. HP2-Z30, the FlexNetwork Fundamentals exam, existed specifically as an upgrade path for engineers already holding Cisco CCNA, CCNP, CCDA, or CCDP credentials, or Juniper JNCIS, or 3Com and H3C certifications. HP was not primarily trying to certify newcomers; it was trying to convert engineers already certified by competitors.
For anyone holding HP0-Y32, that context is worth understanding, because it explains what the credential signalled. It was aimed at engineers who understood networking generally and needed to demonstrate competence in a specific vendor’s implementation of standards-based networking.
What the Exam Covered
The exam name identifies two distinct skills, and the pairing is deliberate.
Designing standards-based networks means selecting and combining protocols that are not vendor-specific: spanning tree variants, OSPF and BGP for routing, VLAN and trunking standards, link aggregation, and quality-of-service mechanisms. The design challenge in a standards-based environment is interoperability, because you cannot assume a single vendor’s implementation across the estate.
Troubleshooting is the harder half, and the more revealing thing to certify. Design can be studied from documentation. Troubleshooting requires understanding what protocols actually do when they fail, and it is why HP’s exams in this family described scenario-based questions presenting a particular environment or problem rather than testing recall.
HP’s ASE - Network Infrastructure V11 certification, which this exam fed, was the architect-tier networking credential in the ExpertONE structure. The related Master ASE - Network Infrastructure V11 credential sat above it and involved exams HP0-Y36 and HP0-Y37, both of which HPE has since confirmed as inactive and no longer acquirable.
What Open Standards Networking Knowledge Is Worth Today
This is the retired HP credential whose subject matter aged best, and the reason is in the name.
Standards-based protocol knowledge does not expire. OSPF is still OSPF. BGP is still BGP, and arguably more important now than in 2013, given its role in cloud and internet-scale routing. Spanning tree, VLANs, link aggregation, and QoS mechanisms all still work the way they worked. An engineer who genuinely learned to design and troubleshoot standards-based networks holds knowledge that transfers to any vendor’s equipment, which was precisely HP’s pitch.
Troubleshooting method transfers completely. The discipline of isolating a fault by layer, reading protocol state rather than guessing, and forming a hypothesis before changing configuration is vendor-independent and does not date.
The vendor-specific layer did not survive. HP’s networking portfolio went to Hewlett Packard Enterprise in the 1 November 2015 company split and changed substantially afterward, including through later networking acquisitions. HP-specific CLI syntax, product families, and management tooling from that era are of limited current use.
The bigger change is architectural. Network design has shifted considerably toward overlay networks, software-defined networking, cloud networking constructs, and automation. An engineer whose knowledge stopped in 2013 knows the underlay well and may not know the overlay, or the API-driven configuration model that replaced per-device CLI work. That is a real gap, but it sits on top of a foundation that remains sound.
How to Present It
Name the credential and be accurate about the tier: “HP ASE - Network Infrastructure V11 (exam HP0-Y32), retired.”
More importantly, if you hold this, you very likely hold or held vendor-neutral or competitor networking credentials as well, given how HP positioned this family. Those may carry more weight with a reader who does not know HP’s networking program, which is most readers outside that ecosystem.
The strongest presentation for a networking background is usually the work: the networks you designed, their scale, the protocols in play, and the problems you resolved. Troubleshooting stories in particular demonstrate capability in a way no exam code does.
Where This Path Leads Now
If your work stayed in networking, the practical question is which ecosystem you are in now. The standards knowledge from this exam applies to any of them. What you would need to add is the modern layer: overlay and software-defined networking, network automation, and cloud networking constructs such as virtual private clouds, transit routing, and security groups.
If you moved toward cloud infrastructure, your networking foundation is a genuine advantage and an under-appreciated one. A great deal of cloud troubleshooting is networking troubleshooting wearing different terminology, and engineers without that background frequently struggle with routing, subnetting, and connectivity issues that a network engineer resolves quickly.
If you remain in HPE environments, HPE runs current ASE and Master ASE tracks, though no conversion or credit exists from a V11-era credential. Verify current tracks and exam codes directly with HPE, since its certification pages are dynamically generated and change.
Frequently Asked Questions
Can I still take HP0-Y32? No. The exam is retired and no longer available.
What certification did it count toward? HP ASE - Network Infrastructure V11, which also involved exams HP0-Y31 and HP0-Y43.
What did “Open Standards Networks” mean? It reflected HP’s competitive positioning: networking built on vendor-neutral standards rather than proprietary protocols, pitched in explicit contrast to Cisco’s proprietary ecosystem.
What was the Master ASE equivalent? HP Master ASE - Network Infrastructure V11, involving exams HP0-Y36 and HP0-Y37. HPE has confirmed both of those exams are inactive and can no longer be acquired.
When did HP0-Y32 retire? No authoritative retirement date is published for this specific exam. HPE does not maintain a public retired-exams list, and HP’s original exam pages are no longer online.
Is the knowledge still useful? The standards-based portion is, substantially. OSPF, BGP, spanning tree, VLANs, link aggregation and QoS all still work as they did, and troubleshooting method is vendor-independent. HP-specific product and CLI knowledge is not.
References
HP. ExpertONE Certification Datacard: HP ASE - Network Infrastructure V11. Archived 2015. (Primary source naming exam HP0-Y32 as Designing & Troubleshooting Open Standards Networks, alongside exams HP0-Y31 and HP0-Y43 within the certification requirements)
HP. ExpertONE Certification Datacard: HP Master ASE - Network Infrastructure V11. Archived 2015. (Primary source establishing the Master ASE networking tier and its exams HP0-Y36 and HP0-Y37)
HP. ExpertONE Exam Datacard: HP2-Z30, HP FlexNetwork Fundamentals. Archived October 2015. https://web.archive.org/web/20151017200737/http://h10120.www1.hp.com/expertone/datacard/Exam/HP2-Z30 (Primary source for HP’s cross-vendor networking upgrade strategy, listing Cisco, Juniper, 3Com and H3C certifications as accepted prerequisites, and for the scenario-based exam style used in this family)
Hewlett Packard Enterprise. HPE Certification and Learning. https://certification-learning.hpe.com/ (Current HPE ASE and Master ASE tracks)