300-115 seriusly feels like INCD2 all over again

wweboy

Hi Everyone,

So after passing my ICND2 last month I took a short break on studying and finally built my lab and started studying the SWITCH material. I'm using CBT Nuggets to take notes and get my feet wet and I've also purchased Chris Bryant's study material because he helped so much in my CCNA study.

Anyway getting a bit off topic. The 300-115 seriously feels like the ICND2 all over again the core topics like STP, VLAN, HSRP, VRRP and GLBP and I'd go even as far as port security. Am I the only one who had this thought? yes we are learning new subjects like private VLANs and TACACS and other good to know topics but it feels like the meat and potatoes are subjects that were heavily focused on the CCNA exam already.

Why are we not learning QOS at this point? QOS makes or breaks a network in my opinion yet it isn't evne covered in the SWITCH exam? now I've only looked into the R&S topics I haven't gone any other routes so maybe something like QOS is in the CCIE or in another CCNP track.

I guess this should just be a really easy test to pass and move on to the route which seems to cover tons and tons of new subjects. Just really disappointed in the SWTICH exam topics.

Thanks for reading.

fredrikjj

The point is to learn things on a deeper level.

fredrikjj

wweboy wrote: »

I guess this should just be a really easy test to pass and move on to the route which seems to cover tons and tons of new subjects.

I personally found it pretty tricky. It's true that it feels like less topics than on the routing exam, but to compensate they've made the questions less straight forward.

theodoxa

I thought the same thing. Some of the topics that are "CCNP SWITCH" (Rapid STP for example) topics...I know I studied when I did my CCNA, but then again Odom also covered Routing Protocol Authentication which is apparently not on the CCNA (covered in CCNP ROUTE) either.

CCNP Topics (NOTE: I took the 2007-2013 CCNA):

• Etherchannel (Added to CCNA in 2013)
• HSRP, VRRP, GLBP (Added to CCNA in 2013)
• Layer 3 Switching (2007-2013 CCNA had None, 2013 CCNA has SVIs. The CCNP is a lot deeper and covered/covers 1st Generation MLS in addition to CEF)
• Multiple STP (MSTP)
• PVST vs. PVST+ (STP was covered, but at least on the 2007-2013 CCNA it was nowhere near as deep as on CCNP SWITCH)
• Spanning-Tree Protections (BPDUGuard, Root Guard, BPDUFilter, UDLD, etc...)
• RADIUS/TACACS+

BTW, AutoQoS used to be on the CCNP SWITCH (2010-2015 version) exam. It was removed when the exam was replaced in January. The amount of QoS was also reduced from the old CCNP: Voice to the new CCNP: Collaboration, which is definitely hard to believe. Perhaps, Cisco wants companies to hire a CCIE to do their QoS as QoS is a covered on the CCIE: R&S.

Wireless was dropped from the CCNA (2013) and CCNP (2015) on their latest revisions and the depth of security topics seems to have shallowed a bit, perhaps indicating Cisco wants people specialized in these fields to be handling Wireless and Security (beyond ACLs and AAA Method Lists).

sucanushie

wweboy wrote: »

Hi Everyone,

So after passing my ICND2 last month I took a short break on studying and finally built my lab and started studying the SWITCH material. I'm using CBT Nuggets to take notes and get my feet wet and I've also purchased Chris Bryant's study material because he helped so much in my CCNA study.

Anyway getting a bit off topic. The 300-115 seriously feels like the ICND2 all over again the core topics like STP, VLAN, HSRP, VRRP and GLBP and I'd go even as far as port security. Am I the only one who had this thought? yes we are learning new subjects like private VLANs and TACACS and other good to know topics but it feels like the meat and potatoes are subjects that were heavily focused on the CCNA exam already.

Why are we not learning QOS at this point? QOS makes or breaks a network in my opinion yet it isn't evne covered in the SWITCH exam? now I've only looked into the R&S topics I haven't gone any other routes so maybe something like QOS is in the CCIE or in another CCNP track.

I guess this should just be a really easy test to pass and move on to the route which seems to cover tons and tons of new subjects. Just really disappointed in the SWTICH exam topics.

Thanks for reading.

I'm not sure QOS makes or breaks any modern networks these days with gig edge switches.

OfWolfAndMan

sucanushie wrote: »

I'm not sure QOS makes or breaks any modern networks these days with gig edge switches.

Depends on the design and size.

@wweboy, Less breadth, more depth... you may think you know everything about spanning tree and FHRP, but the depth is necessary, and there's things you learn when you get more in depth that you wouldn't have known before. InterVLAN routing was not in the CCNA, and I'm for sure you didn't learn Rapid PVST, which is fairly different than the legacy one.SPAN? Stack wise? Or the security configuration for DHCP snooping, ARP inspection and IP source guard? TACACS and RADIUS? Those are very briefly touched in the CCNA if at all (Most of them not), unless you've done the NA security, which I seen you haven't. If you come in with the mindset of "I already know all of this", then you will learn very little.

d4nz1g

OfWolfAndMan wrote: »

If you come in with the mindset of "I already know all of this", then you will learn very little.

And this applies for every single certification/challenge/experience in life.