Anyone preparing for CCNP Collaboration??

desaironak90

Hello Folks,

Anyone preparing for CCNP Collaboration? I need some tips?

Regards,
Ronak

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pitviper

This place is a ghost town of late lol.

I'll be taking CIPTV2 this fall/winter to upgrade my CCNP:Voice.

Legacy User

pitviper wrote: »

This place is a ghost town of late lol.

I think from this board only like a handful of voice people are left lol.

negru_tudor

dmarcisco wrote: »

I think from this board only like a handful of voice people are left lol.

collaboration's to blame. should have kept these tracks separate

Legacy User

negru_tudor wrote: »

collaboration's to blame. should have kept these tracks separate

I'm kind of torn on the idea of keeping this track separate. I know from a personal standpoint since I was the "voice guy" for some time I did not care for the video aspect as it became to different and is essentially them shoehorning other applications to integrate into CUCM and giving it the responsibility to the voice guys.

With that said I am torn because video is the natural progression after voice so it would make sense why these tracks have merged. The whole voice/video "collaboration" field seems to be evolving at a rapid pace. On top of that Cisco is really pushing Spark where they remove the on premise solutions and host it on there end.

All of these changes are not that big of a deal if you work at an enterprise which does upgrades or moves to new technologies over a long period of time. There is definitely still big money on the Voice side. I was told by a recruiter one time that she cannot find enough voice candidates to fill the need. This is a field you have to keep going with the rapid changes to stay relevant but I for one was not interested in these changes so I moved into the infrastructure side.

pitviper

That's the problem, it's moving too fast, and not a mission critical skill, so it's tough to invest the time. I can't for the life of me get back into CIPTV2 lol

I guess after showing the same executives 100 times how to use the Telepresence remote it kind of wears you down!

aaron0011

I passed it last week. It was extremely difficult. Read SRNDs more than the book. Real world experience with MRA, Expressway, etc. doesn't hurt either.

pitviper

Congrats on the pass

The book seems to be seriously lacking especially in the VCS areas. I've been focusing on the SRND and admin guides. Hard to tell what can and can't be labbed with the default VCS license but it seems to be quite restrictive (we don't use VCS at work - but do use Telepresence w/CUCM).

I'm seriously thinking about taking TSHOOT again to renew my NAs and CCNP:R&S, then make an attempt at CIPTV2 next year (everything expires in March 2017).

Technoracer

I am preparing for CIPTV1. Just started reading the Cisco Press book, and work in the field. Thankfully my company just switched from CBT Nuggets, which does not have any CCNP Collaboration Videos, to StormWind Studios. Would like to see some practice tests out there though.

pitviper

Well, I finally passed CIPTV2 after studying on and off for the better part of 2016 lol Thanks to a friend at a partner I was able to do quite a bit of VCS and collaboration edge lab work – putting in around 50 hours between Thanksgiving and the following weekend. As other have stated, the official Foundation Learning guide will prepare you for maybe 40% of the test.

onewalker

congrats on the pass. With the new year an my CCNP Voice due in June, i'm looking to take CIPTV2 to renew. Unfortunately, in my professional life, we've moved away from Cisco and are focusing on S4B.. so without any hands on experience and only book and SRND (and so on) study, would it be possible to pass or do I need to expand my lab? (Currently it's all router/switch based, no VMs). Secondly, I was wondering what SRNDs people focused on (versions). Locally I'm most familiar with CUCM 10.0, and have that SRND - is the course based on a specific SRND version or would 11 work also?

On a side-note, it's interesting to hear people's opinions on the forced update to Collaboration with the retirement of the Voice track. I too, don't see a lot of people massively embracing video like the surge was for IPT when I got my CCVP in 2008.. shame really, as I liked having the voice track.

aaron0011

pitviper wrote: »

Well, I finally passed CIPTV2 after studying on and off for the better part of 2016 lol Thanks to a friend at a partner I was able to do quite a bit of VCS and collaboration edge lab work – putting in around 50 hours between Thanksgiving and the following weekend. As other have stated, the official Foundation Learning guide will prepare you for maybe 40% of the test.

Congrats and I agree, the book is dog sh*t. I would lab up Expressway in VMware for those that are studying.

onewalker wrote: »

On a side-note, it's interesting to hear people's opinions on the forced update to Collaboration with the retirement of the Voice track. I too, don't see a lot of people massively embracing video like the surge was for IPT when I got my CCVP in 2008.. shame really, as I liked having the voice track.

I agree, Video is boring. I only re-certified because of all of the time I invested in the CCNP Voice and still work on CUCM, CUC, CUPS, etc. on occasion. I'll never do large amounts of Cisco Video work, I don't care how good the money is.

onewalker

aaron0011 wrote: »

Congrats and I agree, the book is dog sh*t. I would lab up Expressway in VMware for those that are studying.

shoot - I guess I better acquire a server and build a lab..

MitM

aaron0011 wrote: »

I agree, Video is boring. I only re-certified because of all of the time I invested in the CCNP Voice and still work on CUCM, CUC, CUPS, etc. on occasion. I'll never do large amounts of Cisco Video work, I don't care how good the money is.

I'm glad there are people out there like you guys studying/working hard for this stuff and are passionate about it. I'm working on deploying CUCM, CUC, CUPS, etc...Honestly, I just can't get into it. Worst part of my job haha

onewalker

MitM wrote: »

I'm glad there are people out there like you guys studying/working hard for this stuff and are passionate about it. I'm working on deploying CUCM, CUC, CUPS, etc...Honestly, I just can't get into it. Worst part of my job haha

CCVP was where I started, took me a whole year to work through each exam on UCM 5.0 - which is kinda why I don't just want to let it lapse, although I use it less and less these days. Still, good to keep it sharp

pitviper

Thanks guys. As aaron0011 said, you *need* hands on time with expressway/collaboration edge technologies.

jazz_01

Hi desaironak90, I am also working on CCNP collaboration and for my preparation, I am using uCertify Complete study guide and keep on watching videos.

negru_tudor

So the rule of thumb for this would be FLG and Expressway / VCS hands-on. I haven't used VCS or Expressway yet (did CIPT2 642-457 back in 2015 but not much video stuff under my belt) and neither did I toy around with ILS. Guess these 3 would be the major focus areas when transitioning from CCNP Voice to Collab?

Any good video courses out there that anyone would recommend? I'm currently 1/3 into my CCNP R&S studies but my NP Voice is going to expire August 2018 so I might have to re-certify seeing how my employer is neck deep in voice stuff nowadays.

ever440

agrred to separate tracks.

Technoracer

Passed CIPTV1, CIPTV2, and CAPPS... Will be taking the CTCOLLAB exam on February 7th.

negru_tudor

Technoracer wrote: »

Passed CIPTV1, CIPTV2, and CAPPS... Will be taking the CTCOLLAB exam on February 7th.

Congratulations & best of luck with CTCOLLAB!

Without breaking the NDA etc, how did you find CIPTV2? Any tips on tackling it? I heard that it's very VCS/Expressway centric??

Technoracer

negru_tudor wrote: »

Congratulations & best of luck with CTCOLLAB!

Without breaking the NDA etc, how did you find CIPTV2? Any tips on tackling it? I heard that it's very VCS/Expressway centric??

Thank You. It is a mixture of VCS/Expressway C & E and CUCM/CUCME. A few questions about SRST, AAR, CAC, Device Mobility, Extension Mobility and Unified Mobility. Also some about CCD, ILS and TEHO. It is good to learn these topics inside and out... If you go by this guideline you can't go wrong: https://learningcontent.cisco.com/cln_storage/text/cln/marketing/exam-topics/300-075-ciptv2.pdf

negru_tudor

Technoracer wrote: »

Thank You. It is a mixture of VCS/Expressway C & E and CUCM/CUCME. A few questions about SRST, AAR, CAC, Device Mobility, Extension Mobility and Unified Mobility. Also some about CCD, ILS and TEHO. It is good to learn these topics inside and out... If you go by this guideline you can't go wrong: https://learningcontent.cisco.com/cln_storage/text/cln/marketing/exam-topics/300-075-ciptv2.pdf

Thank you for the feedback. Guess it's not the devil I was told it was then.

How much did it take to prep for it? Like from when you started officially studying for it until you sat & passed the exam.

I'm currently trying to finish the R&S track (have ROUTE scheduled for the 20th of Feb then I plan on TSHOOT sometime at the end of March) and I need to take the CIPTV2 until August 7th, 2018 to bump the NP Voice up to Collab.

I kinda do a lot of voice daily but don't have too much experience with Expressway. I do have an Expressway-C/E cluster in maintenance which I occasionally do work on for Jabber MRA but nothing *too* deep for now.