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ISCW on Friday the 13th

Mrock4

Hey all. I've been kind of a ghost since passing my BCMSN a couple of months ago. I'm giving the ISCW a shot this Friday though. I was terrified of the ISCW before I looked at the materials, and once I got into them I really enjoyed them. I've used a variety of Cisco press books, Cisco Doc CD, misc sites, CBT nuggets, and a tiny bit of dynamips with SDM. Going into it I already know SDM is my weak point, but I still think I'll do OK.

If I pass, my goal is to hit the ONT hard, and finish the CCNP in the next couple of months. I've got my CCIE blog site in the works already, so I can't let myself down..

I might be jumping the gun on posting for Friday but hey, I'm excited. Take care..

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Comments

networker050184

Good luck!

If SDM is your weak point you should definitely brush up on that for the exam.

Mrock4

Feeling pretty good...went on a nice run this morning, came back and hit the books. I'm feeling pretty confident. If I pass I've already decided when I go work on Sat/Sun I will take my ONT book and try to knock it out in a month. I'm getting anxious to call this thing done and perhaps look at the MPLS exam for CCIP. We shall see. Less then 24 hrs till the exam..

nel

Good luck man, im sure you'll be fine.

Are you going for the IP before the IE?

Mrock4

Thanks nel. I haven't decided yet. I was terrified of MPLS until the ISCW exam, then got into it, and discovered..it barely scratches the surface. It's left me a bit curious. I don't know if it'll be enough to stay on the CCIP track, but I think it may be best to go straight for the CCIE. I set a goal of at least giving my first lab attempt a go in about 20 months. I don't know if I'll be able to stay on track- I have a lot to learn.

nel

Sounds like a plan!

Good luck, i hope it all works out!

mikej412

Good Luck!

Mrock4

Today is D-day..woke up too early to a 3 yr old wanting to play, made sure while getting dressed to avoid my unlucky shirt..I should be good now. The only cisco failures I had were with that same shirt on (didn't realize until later I was wearing the same one). I'm ready to go now! Going to watch one more CBT nugget, and fool with SDM a few minutes before I head out. Oddly enough the section I have the hardest time with now is DSL..I can't for the life of me remember the speeds of ADSL, HDSL, IDSL, etc. I get them all mixed up. As cisco exams usually go, I'll probably see one question on that..if that.

Wish me luck!! I test at 11am EST.

gojericho0

Good Luck

Mrock4

Passed!! Got a 914/1000. I was pretty confident walking in, but regardless, I'm happy with my score. Here's my breakdown...

Implement basic teleworker services: 87%
Implement Frame-mode MPLS: 100% (I loved studying this stuff..)
Implement a site-to-site IPSec VPN: 66% (ouch..I loved this too, but a question caught me off guard..)

Describe network security strategies: 100%
Implement Cisco device hardening: 100%
Implement Cisco IOS firewall: 77%
Describe and configure Cisco IOS IPS: 87%

It wasn't all rosy though..I had a sim which would let me fully configure one node, but the other would not allow me console access. I spent about 10 minutes on that one sim, just trying to get access..I used every login I could think of, even defaults I have seen on other tests..nothing. I didn't get the proctor, however, since I was at the end, and already knew it'd probably make no difference. I did leave a nicely sized comment for the cisco people though, so hopefully it happens to no one else in the future.

Tomorrow I begin ONT..again. I think I'll use my CCIE lab guide + the cisco press books for this one, I have a feeling ONT will be one of the hardest exams for me..

networker050184

Congrats!

Good luck on the ONT. Only one exam away now!

mikej412

Mrock4 wrote: »

Passed!!

Congratulations!

gojericho0

good job!

cisco_trooper

Congrats man. Our damn domain migration is about over so I'll be able to start hitting the books again.

netteaser

Congrats on the pass.

kpjungle

Great score! congratulations!!

dynamik

Congrats!

kalebksp

Congrats!

Mrock4

I thought I might give my thoughts on the test difficulty for those who have yet to take it. The first and biggest point, I found some questions that seemed almost too easy (only a couple..), then some that completely caught me off guard. That being said, even the ones that caught me off guard I could think through with some logic. I know this sounds typical, but it is key to have strong fundamentals (ie: CCNA material) for moments like these. Having a strong foundation of basic networking enables you to figure out these types of questions.

On the other end of the spectrum, I found the SDM questions a lot easier then I expected. I definitely was not strong on SDM walking into this, but they weren't too bad at all. I think the key with this test and SDM is to simply walk through the interface a few times and just get familiar with where to find information.

Best of luck to all others with your exams, I hope to see more "passed" threads..

redwarrior

Congratulations! You're in the home stretch now.

Forsaken_GA

Mrock4 wrote: »

Tomorrow I begin ONT..again. I think I'll use my CCIE lab guide + the cisco press books for this one, I have a feeling ONT will be one of the hardest exams for me..

ONT has turned out to be something of a huge pain for me. I started with the material shortly after ISCW, then got busy having to shift gear for some work related learning (I'm a linux sysadmin, so the network training and the day job don't always mesh) and now that I'm coming back to ONT, I find it's still a pain in my rear because it's alot harder to actually do any hands on stuff with it.

The VoIP stuff isn't too terribly bad, setting up Asterisk on a spare box and using soft IP Phones gives some hands on experience actually using VoIP. QoS is more of a pain in the rear since I've basically had to entirely reconfigure my home network to be able to actually implement it. And the ONT Wireless stuff just annoys me to no end, because there's really no cheap and easy way to get the hands on with it, so I'm stuck with rote memorization, which is something I absolutely hate. I much prefer to get my hands dirty actually implementing stuff as I learn about it, that way the concepts get reinforced and things make a whole lot more sense.

Also has the added benefit of actually being able to do the work in a live environment if needed.

ITdude

Congrats and great job!