Passed CCNA Voice

azaghulazaghul Member Posts: 569 ■■■■□□□□□□
in CCNA Collaboration
A lot easier than I thought it would be, and much easier than the original CCNA. Passed with a 948/1000 (pass today was 790) in about 40 minutes.

I come from a traditional PABX background with over 10 years experience, completed my CCNA in late 2007 (old 801 course) and had planned on doing IPTX last year as a lead in to CCVP. Cisco's announcement of CCNA Voice changed things a bit, especially with the book not being available till Nov/Dec, so I put things on hold. I can definately say that the data world is a whole new game compared to voice.

Yes, there are some holes in the CBT Nuggets videos, and Jeremy can be easialy side tracked, but then the videos are meant to suplement the books, not replace them. More time could have been spent on the UC520, and was tempted to buy one, but way out of budget. I printed out the screen shots for it, built a simple scenario, and configured it as I thought it should be. Not ideal, and not sure if I was correct in my config, but it does give you a basic feel for the box.

Didn't really need the NM-CUE, but as I'd had hands-on for the rest, I decided not to settle for watching it being configured. I spend a day just trying to load the software, as the hard disk had been wiped before shipping.

Recommend buying a lab (or having access to one) and as much as you can afford, along with having plenty of hands-on, if things go wrong, or you have legacy hardware it becomes a rewarding challenge to get it to work. I was able to network my routers via serial links to do site-to-site calls, and multi vlan the switch so it was shared across all routers.

Well worth the time to do (currently out of work so I have too much time), and its now the required intro to CCVP which is next.

My study materials:
CCNA Voice (Cisco Press) - Excellent resource
CCNA Voice Quick Reference (Cisco Press)
CCNA Voice (Exam Cram) - Handy alternative to get a different view on things
CBT Nuggets - Excellent resource, also Jeremy is very personable and entertaining

My test materials:
Boson exam (free with CCNA Voice from Cisco Press)
MeasureUp exam (free with CCNA Voice from Exam Cram)
Transcender exam pack
Preplogic trial exam (50 questions for free)

My lab:
2691 with CME 4.1, NM-CUE 7.0 WIC-2T
1760 with CME 4.1, WVIC-MFT-E1, VIC-4FXS/DID, VIC2-4FXO, WIC-2T
1760 with CME 4.1, VIC-2E&M, VIC-2FXO
3524XL-PWR
2 x 7912, 1 x 7940, 2 x 7960, CIPC, 1 x ATA186 (couldn't get this working), 4 x analogue handsets
(always planned on following the VoIP route so I planned my equipment purchases that were future study proof, bought over 18 months off eBay)
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