CCNP Humble Beginnings

Trashman

shyguyIT wrote: »

Is the How to Master CCNP Route book updated to the current version of the test? I was looking at the hardcover but in the description it says it was published in 2013.

I'm using the old one just to kick off studying and refresh things from CCNA.
Just moved out from Juniper Networks and the OSPF world since I passed my exam last week, so need to refresh EIGRP a bit.

So it seems to be a good book to start off with before jumping on the FLG / OCG books.

The website states "100% up-to-date for the CCNP V2.0 ROUTE 300-101 exam." and on Amazon it is added "Edition: 2015th".

How to Master CCNP ROUTE - GNS3vault
Amazon

siggnation

I felt burned out last week and this weekend, so I didn't get much to studying. I feel confident with Redistribution and Policy Routing/Path Control.

Moving into BGP feels very foreign to me, a beast i've never encountered. So far, I'm understanding it is a an extremely complex configuration, mostly used by ISPs and very large enterprises.

The TCP session must establish first, and then the BGP neighborship may establish thereafter. At the present, i'm trying to understand the attributes and later the configuration.

joetest

siggnation wrote: »

I felt burned out last week and this weekend, so I didn't get much to studying. I feel confident with Redistribution and Policy Routing/Path Control.

Moving into BGP feels very foreign to me, a beast i've never encountered. So far, I'm understanding it is a an extremely complex configuration, mostly used by ISPs and very large enterprises.

The TCP session must establish first, and then the BGP neighborship may establish thereafter. At the present, i'm trying to understand the attributes and later the configuration.

You reading both the Route simplified and routing tcp/ip?

siggnation

Indeed joe...

I am sticking with Routing TCP vol I and II mostly, while incorporating Route Simplified's chapter summaries and to get a second perspective on wording/understanding. This has worked well for me. INE helping me with BGP also.

siggnation

I cleared Route today! What a beast of an exam. Interesting enough, my weakest area was Layer 2 Technologies.

Guess we know where to go from here... onward to SWITCH studies.

joetest

Cool
So what resources did you end up using?

The hard part is over.. switch should be easy compared to route

siggnation

joetest wrote: »

Cool
So what resources did you end up using?

The hard part is over.. switch should be easy compared to route

So I've heard, Joe... We'll see.

The ROUTE: Simplified series provided detailed information and afterwards I read bits of the OCG by Kevin Wallace. He was able to fill in additional information regarding the newer exams 300-x I also bought Chris Bryant's CCNP all-in-one 2015 video courses for like $10? I can't remember, but he and Udemy are always throwing out good deals on his courses--very informative and you can lab along with him.

I used GNS3 for all of my labbing, it was plenty.

thatguy67

Congrats! Very cool accomplishment.

Simrid

Good job.

siggnation

Thanks guys.

Here we are starting SWITCH in earnest. Boy was I surprised when I saw SWITCH's exam objectives at 1.75 pages vs. ROUTE's 5-6 pages. This could be misleading as I imagine there are plenty of sub categories to explore. In addition, labbing may be difficult due to owning only 1 L3 switch.

Anyone out there that has had success implementing virtual switching to GNS3 and the like?

MrBrian

Just take lots of time to read and lab.. and let it soak!! Don't rush it.. August 2011 I had just finished my CCNA, and wasn't working, so with tons of motivation I started studying 8 hours a day for about 1.5 months.. I've never learned more in that duration in my life. The 8 hours per day tapered off, but continued with at least 4 hour days for awhile.. Anyways, it took me 2 years to fully knock out all 3 exams to obtain the NP.. and I was really taking my time(but had a lot of it that first year).

I can easily recall how some topics were so foreign, and it really took repetition and trusting the process and things really started to click as long as I put the time in. You can do it.

siggnation

Solid, Brian.

Thanks for your support and good advice. Taking the Switch topics in slowly, ensuring I have the fundamentals down now before I venture into VLANs.

siggnation

SWITCH Update:

Rescheduled the exam a week earlier due to the first testing center getting "deauthorized" to proctor/administer the exam.

Sat today and failed with a 780, so I'm pretty gutted.

I thought I was doing well, some questions ify, but hey, that's how it goes right? I wish they would provide more detail on which specific area requires improvement, etc.

On L2 Services: 88%
Infra Security: 92%
Infrastructure Services: something like a 65-70% i think

Any advice is welcome. Clearly i need it.

In addition, would anyone happen to know the soonest you can schedule a re-take?

Thanks.

koz24

Sorry to hear that. 5 calendar days is how long you have to wait to re-take.

siggnation

Thanks koz.

Update on my actual category scores as I found the paper:

L2 Technologies: 80%

Infrastructure Security: 92%

Infrastructure Services: 75%

Hmm...

koz24

Category scores don't look all that bad to be honest. My guess is you lost a lot of points on the sims.

siggnation

koz24 wrote: »

Category scores don't look all that bad to be honest. My guess is you lost a lot of points on the sims.

Very possible.

I wanted to ask to those that have taken this exam. It seems to me some wording in the exam was poorly written or unclear. On a certain simulation i felt they omitted a task, so I configured extra. Would they dock points for "over configuration?"

koz24

siggnation wrote: »

Very possible.

I wanted to ask to those that have taken this exam. It seems to me some wording in the exam was poorly written or unclear. On a certain simulation i felt they omitted a task, so I configured extra. Would they dock points for "over configuration?"

Good question, I am not sure. I got an 854 on the exam so I may not be the best person to ask. The issue I had was with "no" on the exam. I entered some commands that I later tried to back out on and it wouldn't delete them, so I lost a lot of points there for sure. Be careful with that!

siggnation

Double or nothin' ... SWITCH re-take scheduled for Jan. 30th.

Let's do it.

Danielh22185

koz24 wrote: »

Good question, I am not sure. I got an 854 on the exam so I may not be the best person to ask. The issue I had was with "no" on the exam. I entered some commands that I later tried to back out on and it wouldn't delete them, so I lost a lot of points there for sure. Be careful with that!

I have had the same experiences and thus why now I plan out what I need to configure on the white board before I do it. I have found I have really screwed myself on time trying to correct config the sim may not allow you to do.

siggnation wrote: »

Double or nothin' ... SWITCH re-take scheduled for Jan. 30th.

Let's do it.

Good luck to ya man! And wow I didn't realize how cheap the Chris Bryant Stuff is, I guess i'll snag it up for my final review. Can't hurt.

I look forward to seeing your test results!

Zomboidicus

siggnation wrote: »

Thanks koz.

Update on my actual category scores as I found the paper:

L2 Technologies: 80%

Infrastructure Security: 92%

Infrastructure Services: 75%

Hmm...

I'm pretty bad at math so I could be wrong, but I think the percentage comes out to this if my math is correct;

Topics % Exam Content
Layer 2 Technologies 65%
Infrastructure Security 20%
Infrastructure Services 15%

80% 0f 65% = 52%
92% of 20% = 18.4%
75% of 15% = 11.25%
Total = 81.65%

Passing score = 790 out of 900
Passing score in percentage = 87.7%


But it looks like you should have no issue if you mainly work on L2 Technologies, do a quick review on Infra. security, and work little bit on the Infra. services.

siggnation

Zomboidicus wrote: »

I'm pretty bad at math so I could be wrong, but I think the percentage comes out to this if my math is correct;

Topics % Exam Content
Layer 2 Technologies 65%
Infrastructure Security 20%
Infrastructure Services 15%

80% 0f 65% = 52%
92% of 20% = 18.4%
75% of 15% = 11.25%
Total = 81.65%

Passing score = 790 out of 900
Passing score in percentage = 87.7%


But it looks like you should have no issue if you mainly work on L2 Technologies, do a quick review on Infra. security, and work little bit on the Infra. services.

Those numbers make sense--thanks. I'm close.

So close, in fact, I decided to reschedule the exam a week early for tomorrow at 2pm PST.

I feel like I polished up my weak points and another week or so may burn me out. So let's bring home the cheddar this time!

siggnation

Guys and Gals--

Happy to report that I PASSED! I knocked it out of the park this time around, really brushed up on what I thought were my weak points.

We're on to T-Shoot.

siggnation

Ok, i want to finish this, so T-Shoot has been booked for Friday the 12th.

koz24

Congrats and good luck in TSHOOT. What are you doing to get ready for TSHOOT?

Zomboidicus

siggnation wrote: »

Guys and Gals--

Happy to report that I PASSED! I knocked it out of the park this time around, really brushed up on what I thought were my weak points.

We're on to T-Shoot.

Congrats!

siggnation

koz24 wrote: »

Congrats and good luck in TSHOOT. What are you doing to get ready for TSHOOT?

I have been watching the T-Shoot Exam Hands-on with Keith Barker. Also, I'm studying more of my route notes because i took that one over a month or two ago. I imagine looking at the T-shoot topology and writing down possible fault scenarios will help keep me fresh.

I've heard of people drawing the T-shoot toplogy over and over until they were able to memorize. So maybe I can try that.

koz24

siggnation wrote: »

I have been watching the T-Shoot Exam Hands-on with Keith Barker. Also, I'm studying more of my route notes because i took that one over a month or two ago. I imagine looking at the T-shoot topology and writing down possible fault scenarios will help keep me fresh.

I've heard of people drawing the T-shoot toplogy over and over until they were able to memorize. So maybe I can try that.

Do you have IOU or VIRL? You can just build the topology yourself, I think it will help to commit to memory better that way and you can do a quick review of how to set up Portchannels, OSPF, EIGRP,RIPng, DHCP, NAT, Redistribution, BGP, the Tunnel, etc. It's really a simple exam if you aren't rusty with labbing and are familiar with the topology.

siggnation

I don't have either. Having IOU would be nice to work with.

I have the CsR1000v and tried to boot that in EsXi without success. I keep getting an error about it unable to work in a 64-bit environment and virtualization issues, regardless that the settings are enabled on my Intel processor for vt, etc.

I'm feeling really good and prepared, so I rescheduled T-shoot for tomorrow, noon PST.

koz24

Good luck man!

Check out unetlab. It supports IOU and a bunch of other stuff as well. Quite a pain in the neck to set up but once you do it's pretty nice.