70-411 by year-end

stunnedsoup

Hey folks,

My goal a few months ago was to have the 411 done by the end of the year. Well, life happened and studying took the backseat until recently. It will be about 5 weeks (~1 month) from the time I recently started studying hard again to my planned exam dates at the end of this month.

I'm over halfway through the MOAC for the 70-411 and have been labbing along the way. What's good is that some of the material is review since I do it daily at work. But, some stuff is new to me (NPS, DirectAccess, NAP).

My goal is to...
1. Finish the MOAC w/ labbing this week (week of 12/4)...
2. Watch CBT Nuggets 70-411 w/ Garth Shulte (looking forward to it!) next week (week of 12/11)...
3. Practice w/ MeasureUp exams while labbing that same week (week of 12/11 to most of 12/1...
4. 1st Attempt right before Christmas
5. 2nd Attempt right after Christmas (if needed...most likely)

I've seen some mixed reviews where some people took 2 weeks and some took 4 months (w/ 2 months being the mean) to pass this beast. It all depends on level of experience and amount of daily/weekly time spent studying. I think my 5 week frame is very tough but doable. I'm down to try it and grind it out. I'll try to keep this updated. Any tips appreciated...wish me luck!!

srocky26

It's definitely possible to do in a month if you've used the features at work. Definitely know NPS, DirectAccess, and NAP inside and out. I had a lot of questions on all three on both of my attempts. Good luck.

blargoe

I'm trying to do the same thing. I do not use any of the VPN features in Windows, and am having trouble getting the time to lab it up and go over everything with a fine toothed comb. Until I can spend more time hands-on, I definitely will not be taking the test.

I think I'm good on the rest of the blueprint.

Cisco Inferno

srocky26 wrote: »

It's definitely possible to do in a month if you've used the features at work. Definitely know NPS, DirectAccess, and NAP inside and out. I had a lot of questions on all three on both of my attempts. Good luck.

This is quite accurate!

stunnedsoup

Thanks for the replies, guys! I'm almost done w/ the MOAC now. NPS and DirectAccess made my head spin as there's just a lot to configure and know. I'm going to spend extra time on these topics w/ labbing and watching Garth Shulte and Greg Shields.

poolmanjim

stunnedsoup wrote: »

Thanks for the replies, guys! I'm almost done w/ the MOAC now. NPS and DirectAccess made my head spin as there's just a lot to configure and know. I'm going to spend extra time on these topics w/ labbing and watching Garth Shulte and Greg Shields.

Those are a couple of the more challenging topics on the 411 and unfortunately a large chunk of that section.

For NPS:
Labbing it will help a lot. Make sure you know the difference between Connection Request Policies and Network Policies, which settings appear in which one (e.g. You need to limit connections between 8AM and 5PM, which do you need to configure first), and how they interact with each other. Make sure you know how NAP plays in there and how all that works together to make that work.

For DirectAccess:
DA is tricky, and annoying. My company actually uses DirectAccess and they all looked at me like I was a wizard when I was talking about labbing it one weekend.

1. Create 2 VM networks: Your Main Site network and your Internet network. Give your main site a private IP (192.168.0.0/24) and give your Internet network a public IP (I used the DoD space 7.0.0.0) [https://whois.arin.net/rest/net/NET-7-0-0-0-1/pft?s=7.0.0.0]. DirectAccess really likes a public network to work and that will allow you to use it.

2. Deploy DirectAccess using the quick method first and figure out how to make that work. This is the easier method and doesn't require an enterprise CA

3. Once you know DirectAccess using the quick method, deploy it using the custom method working off the notes and the stuff you learned. For this one you'll want an Enterprise CA. The trick here is to make sure your CRLs are accessible from the "Internet" network you have deployed. If they aren't you'll never work.

Good luck.

stunnedsoup

@poolmanjim

Thanks for the post. Good advice there that I'm definitely keeping in mind. I know I'll need all the insight and practice I can get for these topics.

After some forethought I decided to push my exam date back to mid-January. My work/travel schedule has been nuts due to it being the end of the year. I simply can't get all the material in, and if I did it I'd be rushed. I'd be kidding myself if I thought I'd be ready for my 1st exam attempt one week from today.

I just finished the MOAC and am underway w/ CBT while labbing. Going to take more time w/ this. I'll stay posted. Thanks guys!

Louie1277

You are so right about life. I myself am in the same place .. putting my studies in the backseat .. Just started last week once again on reading and lab work. Continue were i left off on pluralsight site since my membership is coming to a end in a couple days. Need to finish that before it ends can't offered it anymore.

I'm really hoping by late Feb I will be able to take the exam. Just need to study more and stuff.

djrabes

It takes me about 6 weeks per exam. I don't lab as much as I should, but the Pluralsight videos at least help when it comes to exam questions. I find it hard to find a compromise between videos/reading and labbing.

stunnedsoup

Here I am 2 months later and still haven't taken the exam. Work has been demolishing me since December and had absolutely no time to study. Been putting in 60+hr weeks not counting travel time. I should be back to <50hr weeks now.

I have to commit to the 70-411. I'm so close. Before I paused in January I already read all of MOAC, labbed a bunch, nearly finished all CBT and Plurasight while typing pages of notes. All I really needed to do was review hard for a 1-2wks, tops. But just couldn't get to it.

At this point I'll have to do a complete refresh. So I'm doing the TestOut 70-411 course w/ 7-day trial. Then I did a $40 off 1-mo subscription making it $39 (see code below if interested). I'm giving myself another month to wrap this test up.

I will get this! Hopefully sooner than later!

TestOut Code - $40 off for full first month access: 6db8xt