SND/SNPA Guidance

I am planning on working towards the CCSP once I complete my MCSE:S and CCNA over the next few months. I've seen Mike recommend obtaining the firewall specialization and trying to obtain an entry-level security job with that in a few threads, and I am strongly considering going that route.

I came across this thread for SND resources: http://techexams.net/forums/viewtopic.php?t=24192

And I've gone over the Cisco Press CCSP pages:
http://www.ciscopress.com/bookstore/browse.asp?st=42112
http://www.ciscopress.com/markets/detail.asp?st=44730

Has anyone used CBT Nuggets for these?

As far as lab equipment goes, it sounds like building a lab for this track is quite expensive. Is Dynamips/Dynagen, PEMU, and rack access still the way to go?

I've already gone through about a year's worth of CCSP threads, and I feel like I've gotten a pretty good handle on things. I was just curious if anyone had any additional advice or recommendations.

Also, I'll have about 3 years of experience administering a Windows 2003 network. Does this count for anything when trying to break into Cisco (i.e. possible getting some minor Cisco responsibilities in addition to regular MS work)?

TIA.

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Comments

liven

How much do you mess with firewalls? Not just cisco but any kind?

dynamik

Very little. I run an MS network of thirty clients and four servers. I just want to start branching out into other things.

liven

Well I am working on getting the ASA to work on dynamips. I will share this with you when I get it working. PM me for other dynamips CCSP stuff if you want to discuss it.

But in the mean time if you have an extra box, try building a router/firewall with a DMZ.

That way you can start playing with a firewall, NAT, VPNS etc, on a non production network.

This will teach you A LOT of stuff. Sure it might not be cisco gear, but the fundamentals are VERY important.

Ahriakin

Suggest to your boss you need an ASA5505 for the office, and look you can set him up a nice little remote access VPN so he can work from home....and of course you get a unit running OS 7.x that can cover most of the SNPA (including full VPN3K functions, I know that exam itself is out the door but the SND will test on VPNs in general so its all good.). Win for the company, win for you

impelse

Let me tell you my exp.

I used Dynamips with Pemu to create configuration for PIX firewalls. I have 3 firewalls working with VPN (and I did other kinds of firewalls like securepoint.com, etc), in the beginning was deficult to understand how to config the vpn site to site with ASA 5510 and the Pixs, but after do it a couple of times I beging to understand specially when I lost communication for a wron access-list.

With Pemu and Dynamips I recreated the configuration that I have in the real equipment, I did some changes and add remote access l2tp ( I am still working today with that, I am getting wome progress, in the beginning the l2tp shutdown IPSec L2L).

So go forward with Dynamips, eventually you will get the oportunity to work with firewalls.