Any materials for real-world scenarios and not oriented for the exams ??

Hello everyone,

A few months ago I passed SWITCH and ROUTE exams thanks to my current job as a 1st line technical support with 2y of experience.
However; if i join a network specialists's conversation, I get lost ! and I'm always wrong !
For instance, as far as i know each router interface should be in a different subnet. But almost all our customers have got cisco routers with multiple interfaces configured in the same subnet !!
This is just an simple example and it isn't my intention to go over the other more complicated stuffs right now.

It turns out that there is a huge gap between theory and practice.

So, I'm wondering if there are any real-world networking materials out there dealing with common scenarios.
I've already got a bunch of home-lab equipment to practice with.

I look forward to hearing from you soon ))

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Comments

fredrikjj

I haven't read it myself, but I've heard good things about this book: https://www.amazon.com/Network-Warrior-Everything-Need-Wasnt/dp/1449387861

Another resource is the Youtube channels of various conferences, e.g. Nanog: https://www.youtube.com/user/TeamNANOG/videos

Ivan Pepeljnak, a very strong veteran network engineer also has a number of great webinars that you could check out: http://www.ipspace.net/Webinars ($299/year).

There are also a number of Cisco Press books that are focused on design and how you use a particular set of protocols, instead of just the implementation details that you see in most books. Some classic examples are "Optimal Routing Design", "BGP Design and Implementation" and "Definitive MPLS Network Designs".

A final point is that if you are really interested in networking you should join some kind of online community where you can ask experienced people questions. It's possible to learn HOW some piece of technology works on your own and there are endless resources to help you with that, but it's hard or impossible to learn "the WHY" by just reading books and labbing.

odysiuos

CCDA/P books seem a good idea to me. Why I haven't thought of this before !!

And I'll definitely join the Cisco Design community for potential questions.

I appreciate you pointing out that ))

ande0255

I think this is a prime reason to get the certification, you sound like my situation only I'm still studying ROUTE like f'ing crazy.

Get in with higher level engineers, we have some Sr Engineers that only touch really complex customer setups, and I just ask them for help reviewing the config and pick their brain while I screen share with them.

I've also learned a **** load from Cisco TAC, I have a copy of Network Warrior I want to get to after CCNP but the only way to learn is in my case, is to watch someone else troubleshoot the issue and note their approaches.

If you even think some thing looks odd, open a TAC sev3 ticket and ask about the config, a low priority email only / easy close ticket for TAC for knowledge should be ok for a config verification.