CCSP without the Equipment

charlottebandito

I'm really wanting to follow-up on the CCSP track but am concerned just how practical it would be without having the actual equipment available to practice on? From that standpoint, it would only encompass memorization skills to absorb each book & the study question flash cards.

Man, this really bites being a student not being able to configure a PIX/ASA, their IPS, and several routers/switches.

From what I'm seeing, the closest thing is replaying the CBT Nuggets CCSP vids over-and-over again.

Just how feasible is this? Thanks.

Ahriakin

Is it possible, yup. Advisable, no. You can get away with the CCNA with no hands on (though you do have sims thankfully) but for the CCSP there is a vast amount more indepth information on each device. You could learn it by rote but believe me you would be screwed when you actually tried to use the cert skills for a job. I was in the same boat last year and did the SNRS without the hands on (not too bad since it is just Switches/Routers again) but stopped the CCSP (even though I really wanted to do it) until I got a job that gave me access to the hardware. In lieu of that there is a thread below about getting the PEMU up and running. I haven't done it myself yet but as far as I know it will run 7.x and I presume the ASDM. So you get a core component (and probably the most complex) right there.
Another option is to rent some online rack time. They're billed as CCIE racks but you will find everything you need for the CCSP. I did this for the IPS exam and it was a great help.

charlottebandito

Yeah, I thought about renting rack time which I'm inclined to think will be the best/only solution because I DREAD not having the skills behind the CCSP once I do achieve it.

Not too sure if there are any SNRS, ASA/PIX, IPS sims out there that are worth it at all.

Turgon

Guys. You MUST get some hand on. Years back I did the CCNA. There was no cisco gear in our shop but I wanted to get on. When I changed jobs it was everywhere and all mine. I obtained a router before my new gig and practiced solidily for a week before I started the job. A few days in to the new job I had to update the ACLs on the company perimeter router. It went well, but a small job could have turned into an embarrassing mess.

Get some hands on. PIX isn't difficult, but without practice in a safe environment it will be the devil when you go live with it in the field. 'clear xlate' may not come to mind when you are struggling with PIX for the first time and that webserver you are hosting still isn't responding to the static NAT you added. Be sure to practice PIX with command line. Many administrators rely on PDM and as a consequence have less idea what commands are running and why. I had one customer assume once I didn't know what I was doing because in a telephone call to get an end to end solution that was having difficulty up and running he explained he used the PDM GUI for his PIX while I preferred CLI. He could only advise me on the GUI approach. Command line was it seems a bit of a mystery to him. As a consequence of me not using PDM and the fact that the connection was failing he assumed I was hopeless.

As it turned it he made a fuss about all this. In the end it actually needed him to turn something on his side to finally get the connection to our host. We were just fine what what I had configured. Sucker.

Some of the CCIE vendors do remote racks for the CCIE security exam. Try those and get some access to equipment.

NetworkGod

rent a rack play with it, big deal.

charlottebandito

NetworkGod wrote:

rent a rack play with it, big deal.

After looking at the CCIE Security Lab Exam v2 Blueprint, it looks like all the routing & switching knowledge from the Lab Exam v1 Blueprint is no longer required.

What's more, is that I'm sure that the Cisco NAC & MARS systems will be integrated pretty soon (6 months after introduction) into the CCIE Security lab. This is becoming extremely costly for a home lab and I guess online rack time will have to be a serious options.

I think you're right.