642-453 Gateway/Gatekeeper Exam

joecrane

First, a little background:

I would like to earn my CCVP by the end of 2009. Also, I will be sitting for my CCNA week after next. I currently own a company that does a lot of voice termination for carriers. Currently, I outsource most of my difficult problems and I would like to keep it that way (maybe hire full timers in the future ) Anyway, I really want this cert so I can fix things in a bind, cover my blind spots in knowledge and more importantly not be the boss who doesn't know anything.

With that layed out, 2 questions:

1) I primarily work with gateways and gatekeepers -- all the time as a matter of fact. I was looking at some training courses (like Unitek) and they want a CVOICE before they let you in. I am thinking of taking the 642-453 first. Is it wise to do this?

2) I was thinking about getting the Boson simulator for this exam. I liked another sim for CCNA but it doesn't have anything for CCVP. And, although I have real equipment, I like a guide showing me what I did and didn't do right. Any one have any practice with this sim? Or, any practice with a better one?[/url]

mikej412

They probably recommend CVOICE for a couple of reasons.....

The obvious first reason would be "Revenue Enhancement" -- they make more money if they get you to take 2 courses.

If you can look at the CVOICE Blubeprint and understand everything they outline and can do it on Cisco Equipment -- then you might be able to convince them that you don't need the course.

But the real reason they probably recommend it -- for "Networking Types" this telecomm stuff is brand spankin' new. Smart people can learn the gateway/gatekeeper configurations and even the troubleshooting commands to get the stuff working, but at some point without understanding the basics -- they'll hit what turns out to be a simple problem and wind up looking, er, inexperienced. CVOICE does cover a lot of the basics and lays the groundwork for the other exams.

The easiest way to get around their suggestion -- get the CVOICE book and pass the exam.

Boson NetSim has it's limitations, but will get you through the CCNA if you follow their labs. But the CCNP version is way overpriced (in my opinion) and still just supports a limited subset of commands (and it sounds like it still has problems that were in the old 5.x version) - so it would be of limited or no use for the CCVP.

joecrane

Thanks for the advice Mike.

I am thinking about going after CVoice first then GW/GK. Not sure after that but I'll cross that bridge when I am closer.

I was reading in another forum post that you did QOS first. Was that because it closely resembles the CCNP QOS or because it gave you a better background in the voice networking environment and helped with CVoice?

mikej412

Someone getting into Voice from the networking side would probably feel more comfortable starting with QoS. But I also had "over studied" QoS when I was doing the CCNP, so when I looked over the exam blueprints for the CCVP it seemed like the "easiest" exam. Plus I did the CCIP first, and QoS also looked a lot easier than the BGP and MPLS exams.

The QoS exam does cover a lot of the "Legacy stuff" so you learn the "old way" and the "new way" -- and then you finally learn what you use for Voice. But it is good to know so that you can "upgrade" old networks to support Voice and Video.