Combat Helicopter Pilot passes CCENT

bgrablin

Well, my career prior to the military was technology and I will be out of the army in October so I figured I would bust out some studies and go for my CCENT. Passed today by the skin on my teeth, 818/1000. Studied periodically for 3 weeks, and knuckled down this week.

Material: CBT Nuggets, Bryant Advantage, Exam Cram, GNS3 with dynamips Cisco IOS emulator, and youtube (no less!)

I've got my eyes set on CCNA (ICND2) and plan on obtaining that next month. With a little more diligent studying that is.

jason_lunde

Congrats man! Did you do a lot of networking in your prior IT career?...or is this your first real exposure. Regardless, to study and pass in 3 weeks is a job well done. Hope your ETS goes as planned. Did 8 years in the Army as a combat engineer and IT specialist, got stop lossed near the end. Hope you are in the clear. You a WO?

mikej412

Congratulations!!

Good Luck with your ICND2 studies

peanutnoggin

CONGRATS on the pass... Good luck in your future studies.

PC509

Congrats, man! Good luck on your CCNA studies. You should pass it with no problems!

bgrablin

My prior military career consisted of B2B sales of DSL-OC192 dedicated bandwidth. And we all know that the sales department isn't where the knowledge is. When the tech market took a stage dive I joined the army as an OH-58D Kiowa Warrior Pilot. You can see my videos and pics on my website, Brian Grablin Welcome

The only experience I have had prior to studying for this exam is with my home network (loading dd-wrt on my linksys router) and running our network in Iraq consisting of a Dell Managed Switch, Satellite Router (1.544 Mbps down, 128k up), 1 server (2 TB of, "I miss women" data), and approximately 35 hosts. So setting up QoS was priority. You'd be surprised what you learn and quickly when you can't talk to your family because you can't manage your network.

...Did 8 years in the Army as a combat engineer and IT specialist, got stop lossed near the end. Hope you are in the clear. You a WO?

Congrats on getting out. I am a CW2 currently and the Army is doing everything they can to keep me in. But if I go back to Iraq for a 3rd time, I'm going to get shot down. Too many close calls, I need a new job that is a little more....Safe.

Kaminsky

Congrats on the pass but I don't understand why you don't use all that flight training to become a civi pilot and start raking in all that lucrative cash you heard so much about in training? Even at the dizzy heights of networking, you would be hard pushed to match what you could earn flying.

bgrablin

Not so much. Aside from the fact that the airlines aren't hiring and they still have people on furlough. A pilot who isn't a captain makes less than a truck driver.

And to top it all off, I am a helicopter pilot with 2000 hours, not a fixed wing pilot. In today's economy, aviation is getting hit hard; I am simply diversifying my skills and qualifications.

WilliamK99

Congrats on the pass, as a fellow military member, I too am looking towards the future and working on my certifications. It is never too early to plan for one's future...

Slowhand

Congrats on the pass, and good luck with your ICND2 studies.

new2net

bgrablin wrote: »

Material: CBT Nuggets, Bryant Advantage, Exam Cram, GNS3 with dynamips Cisco IOS emulator, and youtube (no less!)

I've got my eyes set on CCNA (ICND2) and plan on obtaining that next month. With a little more diligent studying that is.

Congratulations!!!!

GNS3 is awesome! What did you use for switching practice?

bgrablin

Unfortunately the lack of a switch emulator is a downside for GNS3. So I simply improvised and in the program you can add interface cards to your router to "simulate" a switch. Basically I added a NM-4E into my emulated 3620 router. It was the best I could do.

So I simulated in the simulator. 6 words I never thought I would say.

Satcom

thats high speed mang!!

i did 7 in the army as a 25 u and 25 s....got 1 blackhawk jump... i would love to fly helo'z im a civilian now as of a few months ago

what kind of sat terminal did you use in iraq?

congrats! i bombed my ccent but im gonna be taking it in dubai in november if these mi-8's dont freeze in this afghanistan weather..

aldous

congratulations! maybe you can combine both career and be the first airborne network tech now thats a rapid recovery solution :P