SNPA

Can anyone give me a feel for what to expect on the SNPA exam? Basically, I've passed SND (somewhat easy) and IPS (somewhat hard) and am looking to see if anyone has taken these 2 exams as well as the SNPA exam so that you can compare them in terms of difficulty.

Thanks

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Comments

determinedgerman

Hey Daviduga,

Sorry that I can't help you out with the SNPA exam. I have not taken the exam yet. I took the 642-501 SECUR and I am studying right now for the IPS 642-532 exam. I would appreciate it if you can give me some pointers about that exam.

Thanks,

Mike

daviduga

The IPS exam took me the entire time to finish - which surprised me. There were a small handfull of simulations that took some time to figure out. There was a lot of CLI commands that were needed to perform certain tasks so make sure you are comfortable navigating around there as well as the new GUI. I've been playing with Cisco IDS for about 1.5 years now but the Cisco IPS 5.x was new to me as of December 2005 - so I really should've waited to take the IPS exam until I was more comfortable with the new GUI and set of commands. (I did pass however!!!). I used the CCSP IPS Exam Certification Guide which has a CD. I also used the CCSP Flash Cards book (both books are Cisco Press).

usman_a

am not sure about the IPS but i have done the SNPA and am working on the SND next. Over all the SNPA is 7/8 on the rickter scale. You get two sims to do, few drag and drops and question or two on ASDM.

I used the Cisco press book SNAP and VPN all in book and had my hands on a Pix515 with version 6.0 IOS. If you wanna pass (which i assume you do) know your CLI inside out and how to perform tests to make sure what you configured is right and how its meant to work. The questions are pretty much straight forward the Cisco press covers everything you need to know minus the crap. Mind you I did read the old book and the new one back to back.

I also used the old SIM from the official Cisco press book to get me into the exam mode (and it helped), and took about 6 weeks of work to pass.

When you get in the exam, don’t over think it take it easy forget the clock and work on one goal at a time.

Good luck

btw: any tips on SND would be great