Passed IPS

Ahriakin

After getting so worked up I nearly got sick this turned out to be a bit easier than I thought it would be. Each time I do these I get major nervousness about 2 hours before, I'm fine once I get into the exam center but that pre-exam jitter is a killer. Anyway with most of the Cisco exams I've sat I've thought that the exam pretty accurately reflected the seeming toughness of the study required but not so this one - going by the official study guide as I said I expected it to be tougher....not that it was easy, I'd put it between the VPN and PIX exams.
I had 63 questions with one CLI sim., 2 GUI sims and I think another 2 or 3 multi-part questions that required navigating a crippled version of the GUI to retrieve the details needed (these were extremely easy and I think you would not have a problem even if you never used one before, hell most of the options are disabled so you could eventually find what you needed practically blind). All I'll say is that if there are 2 ways to do something and even though both will achieve the desired result the correct answer is usually the most specific, look for small hints in the question - with the NDA in the way I obviously can't give specifics but there were some VERY subtle/tricky little traps in the sims and exam in general.
For study I went with the Cisco Press Study Guide (2nd ed.), Intrusion Prevention Fundamentals, some Cisco product information/FAQs and the CCSP FlashCards. I had no unit to practice on and ended up renting some rack time near the end of my study to get a little hands on (this was very valuable), also during the same time I installed and started learning how to use SNORT - yeah I know, totally different product but it did grind some basic IDS theory into my wee head even if it wasn't Cisco-centric. Of all the CCSP exams I think this one is the most poorly supported by Cisco Press. The official guide while brimming with information is the driest guide I have ever read, I really had to push myself to keep going (it also completely overdoes the sections on things like the Cisco Security Monitor/Cisco works....NDA again but look at the stated exam objectives and then at the fact this chapter takes up 50 pages of the guide.....they don't correlate). The guide does have one advantage in that it goes into immense detail on navigating the GUI, part of the reason it's so laborious I guess is they know that of all the CCSP appliances this is the one you are least likely to have access to. Take a good read the first time but don't be intimidated by trying to learn each and every FTP command the device recognises or the exact flags in the Atomic.L3.TCP engine etc., there's just too much detail in a lot of the tables and you'll recognise that after a re-read and some test questions. On the other hand the flash cards are again decent but lacks reasonable depth. The review chapters (as opposed to the cards) are more primers than the exam-cram style information it has for each of the other exams included. You could live without IPS Fundamentals but it's a good primer also.
Walked out after an hour with 965.

Soooo...CCSP finally done. I did my first exam in May last year, then some Microsoft and then back to this in October so altogether I'd say it took about 6 months. I really enjoyed the courses but am glad it's done (well for now, there's always recertification). Next up I think checkpoint firewalls (CCSA anyway, probably not the CCSE) and *gulp* the CCIE?....mebbe....hope.....

mikej412

Congratulations!