CCNP Switch Exam

bharvey92

Hi All,

Booked my CCNA Switch exam for 2nd December, any advice or tips to go over again and again before I sit this exam. Gone through the Switch Simplified and Chris Bryant series which I think has covered most of the content I think.... also been labbing in Packet Tracer and my home lab!

Danielh22185

My plan is to sit for mine just before you do. I will definetly share my experience here and in my thread. Good luck to ya!

bharvey92

Cheers man. When's your date? Good luck for your exam, I've followed some of your previous posts regarding your studies.

Danielh22185

bharvey92 wrote: »

Cheers man. When's your date? Good luck for your exam, I've followed some of your previous posts regarding your studies.

Unfortunetly I wasn't able to gather the funds in time to schedule the exam yet. I am hopeful on doing it on the 13th. I'm trying to bug my work to pay for it so I am not out of pocket the $250 right before the holidays. I look forward to hearing of your experience!

bharvey92

Danielh22185 wrote: »

Unfortunetly I wasn't able to gather the funds in time to schedule the exam yet. I am hopeful on doing it on the 13th. I'm trying to bug my work to pay for it so I am not out of pocket the $250 right before the holidays. I look forward to hearing of your experience!

Sorry to hear that bud, expensive time over the xmas period. Good luck for the 13th! If it's a good company you work for and you enjoy your current position definitely bug them! It's a good deal for both you and them.

I sat my Switch today and passed with 879. Lower than my Route exam (which surprised me as Switch is my stronger subject!).

Found the exam tough but fair, exam was mainly High-Availability services, L3 switching and Spanning-Tree. Can't actually remember Wireless featuring much (which I suppose is due to the Cisco Wireless path being introduced).

Onward to TShoot, hopefully wrap up the NP before the cut-off!

Hondabuff

Good to hear that you passed, Congrats! The Switch exam I have been told is the tougher of the 2 to study for. I got approved for Cisco live back at the end on Jan and spent 3.5 months getting ready. Route has been about 2 months. After I sit the Route next week I'm going to try to a 7 day cram to get the T-shoot done before the new year. We are working on our budget for training next year and put in a request for Lammle's CCNA Security 4 day boot camp. I was already told no on the 12 day CCNP boot camp.

Danielh22185

bharvey92 wrote: »

Sorry to hear that bud, expensive time over the xmas period. Good luck for the 13th! If it's a good company you work for and you enjoy your current position definitely bug them! It's a good deal for both you and them.

I sat my Switch today and passed with 879. Lower than my Route exam (which surprised me as Switch is my stronger subject!).

Found the exam tough but fair, exam was mainly High-Availability services, L3 switching and Spanning-Tree. Can't actually remember Wireless featuring much (which I suppose is due to the Cisco Wireless path being introduced).

Onward to TShoot, hopefully wrap up the NP before the cut-off!

Fantastic news! Congrats man! TSHOOT should be a breeze! I also have some good news! My work has agreed to pay for the test if I show them a pass so it's hardcore review mode now! I am going to have to reschedule my exam once more as I have a work x-mas party the night of the 12th so I am going to move it up to that morning. Hopefully will have something to party more about!

bharvey92

Danielh22185 wrote: »

Fantastic news! Congrats man! TSHOOT should be a breeze! I also have some good news! My work has agreed to pay for the test if I show them a pass so it's hardcore review mode now! I am going to have to reschedule my exam once more as I have a work x-mas party the night of the 12th so I am going to move it up to that morning. Hopefully will have something to party more about!

Cheers mate! I have come down with a damn cold so I am taking a few days off before I roll into the TShoot material!

Thant's fantastic news about the test, as I said it is both a good deal for you and you employers! Look forward to hearing your pass! Just remember to lab lab lab and know the basics like configuring Root Primary switches and Active HSRP standby routers etc. Have them down cold and it'll be a breeze!

Danielh22185

bharvey92 wrote: »

Cheers mate! I have come down with a damn cold so I am taking a few days off before I roll into the TShoot material!

Thant's fantastic news about the test, as I said it is both a good deal for you and you employers! Look forward to hearing your pass! Just remember to lab lab lab and know the basics like configuring Root Primary switches and Active HSRP standby routers etc. Have them down cold and it'll be a breeze!

I meant to ask you what study materials you used as well. Yes this next week my wife is going to hate me. I will be living out of my study. Its full emersion mode! I'll have CBT nuggets playing in my ear all day today. I have done labbing as well I ran through the SLM for switch, actually found it quite easy so was going to do some labs from the simplified book as well.

ninjaturtle

Hondabuff wrote: »

Good to hear that you passed, Congrats! The Switch exam I have been told is the tougher of the 2 to study for. I got approved for Cisco live back at the end on Jan and spent 3.5 months getting ready. Route has been about 2 months. After I sit the Route next week I'm going to try to a 7 day cram to get the T-shoot done before the new year. We are working on our budget for training next year and put in a request for Lammle's CCNA Security 4 day boot camp. I was already told no on the 12 day CCNP boot camp.

I'm planning to do a 5 day bootcamp starting Thursday. I was going to do the INE, but can't get off work that long. So I figured I'd make my own bootcamp and just read, read, lab, lab and repeat! I'm shooting to take ROUTE beginning of January, and attempt TSHOOT before the 29th. If not, I'll just let TSHOOT leak into the new version and just study up on the changes.

Some days I have solid study days, and others I have mediocre. I'm hoping my focus is on point this weekend, and I get a lot done. I hate rushing it, but at the same time I still feel like I have to try an attempt before it expires.

Good luck on ROUTE Hondabuff!

Cheers,

bharvey92

Danielh22185 wrote: »

I meant to ask you what study materials you used as well. Yes this next week my wife is going to hate me. I will be living out of my study. Its full emersion mode! I'll have CBT nuggets playing in my ear all day today. I have done labbing as well I ran through the SLM for switch, actually found it quite easy so was going to do some labs from the simplified book as well.

I mainly used C.Bryant Switch guide on Kindle and the Switch Simplified book (also on Kindle). I found that Bryant gave me most of the info I needed and the Simplified (as with Route) was alot of info but went in-depth.

I also used my home lab and Packet tracer for labs. As Hondabuff pointed out on a previous thread Packet Tracer actually covers most of the CCNP:Switch topics eg: HSRP, RPVST+, L3 Switching etc. However I found it useful with topics such as MST to use some practical gear.

Ah, sure your wife will understand only for a week or two! And will pay off eventually. Good luck for your exam man and PM if you need any additional info etc.

Hondabuff

What are you guys using for Tshoot? I started watching the CBT Nuggets on Tshoot but had a hard time staying focused. I have been seeing a few strategies out there for knocking out the Tshoot exam.

Danielh22185

Hondabuff wrote: »

What are you guys using for Tshoot? I started watching the CBT Nuggets on Tshoot but had a hard time staying focused. I have been seeing a few strategies out there for knocking out the Tshoot exam.

Check this out:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3Bo4Pw82G2M

^^ I've heard this is basically all you will ever need. I don't really plan on reading the TSHOOT book for exam prep as I have heard it is good for introducing troubleshooting tactics but not neccessary to use for the explicit exam prep. I plan on going after TSHOOT a couple weeks after the SWITCH pass.

Hondabuff

After looking at the Tshoot demo, It has me second guessing how long of prep time I might need. I'm going to have to learn the topology and more than likely have to build it out in Packet Tracer or GNS3. Trying to work within the construct of the exam window, I was annoyed with the size of the window to work in. Its like looking through a toilet paper tube at the topology. I'm going spend a few days digging through some forums to see how most people are approaching this.

kohr-ah

Tshoot was a super fun exam. Cisco has the entire topology for it posted in their website. Just set it up. See how things flow and just troubleshoot backwards like a normal environment and you'll be fine.

fredrikjj

Hondabuff wrote: »

After looking at the Tshoot demo, It has me second guessing how long of prep time I might need. I'm going to have to learn the topology and more than likely have to build it out in Packet Tracer or GNS3. Trying to work within the construct of the exam window, I was annoyed with the size of the window to work in. Its like looking through a toilet paper tube at the topology. I'm going spend a few days digging through some forums to see how most people are approaching this.

I would schedule 2 weeks and follow this process:

1. Review any material from the other two exams that seems relevant to the topology. This means that you for example could skip most BGP stuff since the topology only has a single eBGP neighbor.

2. NAT and DHCP are on the Tshoot blueprint:

2.5 Troubleshoot a DHCP client and server solution
2.6 Troubleshoot NAT

However, they are not covered in Route and Switch. If you feel like these are weak areas for you, study them. Technically, I guess this is CCNA stuff.

3. Learn the topology. It makes things easier if you know the IP addresses used. Packettracer like you said is probably a solid choice for this since I imagine that the latest version actually supports everything you need.

4. Do the exam demo and read up on how the exam actually works. Never pick an answer that you aren't 100% certain of because the errors aren't that complicated - if all answers are strange, it's likely because you picked the wrong path earlier in the question. Skip tickets that you aren't comfortable with and return later since you are likely to spend very little time on the majority of them, leaving you with plenty of time at the end to tie up any loose ends.

Hondabuff

I watched the Kevin Wallace's Bull's-eye video's last night and It looks a lot less intimidating that I thought. While trolling for videos, someone posted all 14 trouble tickets with how to solve them. Now I have to try and not to peek! Ping, Tracert and Show run was all the commands they were using. I liked Keith's approach and he even mentioned how he talked to the guy who created the lab. Should be fun.

bharvey92

fredrikjj wrote: »

I would schedule 2 weeks and follow this process:

1. Review any material from the other two exams that seems relevant to the topology. This means that you for example could skip most BGP stuff since the topology only has a single eBGP neighbor.

2. NAT and DHCP are on the Tshoot blueprint:

2.5 Troubleshoot a DHCP client and server solution
2.6 Troubleshoot NAT

However, they are not covered in Route and Switch. If you feel like these are weak areas for you, study them. Technically, I guess this is CCNA stuff.

3. Learn the topology. It makes things easier if you know the IP addresses used. Packettracer like you said is probably a solid choice for this since I imagine that the latest version actually supports everything you need.

4. Do the exam demo and read up on how the exam actually works. Never pick an answer that you aren't 100% certain of because the errors aren't that complicated - if all answers are strange, it's likely because you picked the wrong path earlier in the question. Skip tickets that you aren't comfortable with and return later since you are likely to spend very little time on the majority of them, leaving you with plenty of time at the end to tie up any loose ends.

Thanks for the info! I did watch the Kevin Wallace video. However I'm still a bit unsure, can anyone clarify the format of the exam? Eg: is the exam all topology based and answering tickets or are there drag + drop and multiple choice questions to also tackle?

Hondabuff

From what my intel has gathered 13 Trouble tickets with 3 answers each and 3-5 questions and or Drag-n-Drops from a pool of 17.

bharvey92

Hondabuff wrote: »

From what my intel has gathered 13 Trouble tickets with 3 answers each and 3-5 questions and or Drag-n-Drops from a pool of 17.

Oh wow, that does sound a like a pretty cool exam! I will probably go physical and GNS3. However I can imagine that the topology is run mainly on the capabilities on Packet Tracer so I will probably set the topology up in PT to practice.

Hondabuff

Pretty easy to find if you know where to look.

bharvey92

Hondabuff wrote: »

Pretty easy to find if you know where to look.

Nice! Is that custom built in Packet-Tracer? Didn't realise there was some Frame-Relay on the exam! I need to brush up on that as that was hardly (if at all) covered in Route exam.

theodoxa

bharvey92 wrote: »

Nice! Is that custom built in Packet-Tracer? Didn't realise there was some Frame-Relay on the exam! I need to brush up on that as that was hardly (if at all) covered in Route exam.

It isn't explicitly mentioned in the topology, but from the use of Subinterfaces, it would seem very likely that the Point-to-Point links between the 4 routers are really Frame Relay PVCs.